November 2002 rediagnosed with a recurring tumor I am going to bring you through the whole fun thing
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This is where you stick random tidbits of information about yourself.
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Brain Tumor History And Other Rants
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Monday, September 26, 2005
This Thursday I get to go to my new neuro-onclogist and hopefully get on track with a chemo regimine. Looks like I am doing this regimine orally and can do it at home, that is good news. In other news I still have a decent amount of fatigue, maybe the cooler temperatures will help that. I am helping with a breast cancer walk coming up but in stead of walking I am volunteering, I get real tired sometimes from walking. Thanks to so many of my friends that donated. The big C hurts so many people every year, I start to think sometimes it just won't let me go. I am trying to start to grow my hair back, but I still have bald spots where the radiation was shot in, peachs laugh at me.......
1:15 PM
Monday, September 12, 2005
Alright so quick with the medical stuff. I re-established contact with my old neuro-oncologist at UCLA. He is going to review my status butjust needs some more data to do so. So I am pulling together copies of that stuff now to mail out to him. Thursday I have an MRI in New York at NYU. First one since 3/16/05. I had to wait a little while until after my radiation settled. OK here's where I switch tides and don't talk about me (imagine that). OK I haven't kept up with Pearl Jam since Eddie Vedder wanted to be Neil Young. But Saturday on the Katrina benefit, which was supposed to stay non-political, Mr. Vedder had something to say that had me curse at my TV a big F U. According to Mr. Vedder, he thought the gov't should pay for all of this destruction and didn't see the need for donations. I am paraphrasing here but that was his point. Hey keep him in Canada where he was playing. I come to find out today he gets drunk on stage now, and I guess he wants to be Jim Morrison, please he had a brain you jerk off. Then the Foop Fighter's had to jab the administrations reaction time. Now I also found out from (Danny king of grunge) that Bush used Foo songs without permission, that I agree with them on, but this event is not about party politics. It is about helping people I donated what are you waiting for? Our neighbors need our help AMERICANS!!!! Close the borders deport illegals there will be jobs opening everywhere. If gas can go up 50 cents or more overnight how much would wages go up if we forced people to use US Citizens. Think about it, but no party will touch it. Donate something. Close the border before Mr. Vedder can get back, he's so drunk he won't know.
Jack Kelly: No shame
The federal response to Katrina was not as portrayed
Sunday, September 11, 2005
It is settled wisdom among journalists that the federal response to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina was unconscionably slow.
Jack Kelly is national security writer for the Post-Gazette and The Blade of Toledo, Ohio (jkelly@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1476).
"Mr. Bush's performance last week will rank as one of the worst ever during a dire national emergency," wrote New York Times columnist Bob Herbert in a somewhat more strident expression of the conventional wisdom.
But the conventional wisdom is the opposite of the truth.
Jason van Steenwyk is a Florida Army National Guardsman who has been mobilized six times for hurricane relief. He notes that:
"The federal government pretty much met its standard time lines, but the volume of support provided during the 72-96 hour was unprecedented. The federal response here was faster than Hugo, faster than Andrew, faster than Iniki, faster than Francine and Jeanne."
For instance, it took five days for National Guard troops to arrive in strength on the scene in Homestead, Fla. after Hurricane Andrew hit in 2002. But after Katrina, there was a significant National Guard presence in the afflicted region in three.
Journalists who are long on opinions and short on knowledge have no idea what is involved in moving hundreds of tons of relief supplies into an area the size of England in which power lines are down, telecommunications are out, no gasoline is available, bridges are damaged, roads and airports are covered with debris, and apparently have little interest in finding out.
So they libel as a "national disgrace" the most monumental and successful disaster relief operation in world history.
I write this column a week and a day after the main levee protecting New Orleans breached. In the course of that week:
More than 32,000 people have been rescued, many plucked from rooftops by Coast Guard helicopters.
The Army Corps of Engineers has all but repaired the breaches and begun pumping water out of New Orleans.
Shelter, food and medical care have been provided to more than 180,000 refugees.
Journalists complain that it took a whole week to do this. A former Air Force logistics officer had some words of advice for us in the Fourth Estate on his blog, Moltenthought:
"We do not yet have teleporter or replicator technology like you saw on 'Star Trek' in college between hookah hits and waiting to pick up your worthless communications degree while the grown-ups actually engaged in the recovery effort were studying engineering.
"The United States military can wipe out the Taliban and the Iraqi Republican Guard far more swiftly than they can bring 3 million Swanson dinners to an underwater city through an area the size of Great Britain which has no power, no working ports or airports, and a devastated and impassable road network.
"You cannot speed recovery and relief efforts up by prepositioning assets (in the affected areas) since the assets are endangered by the very storm which destroyed the region.
"No amount of yelling, crying and mustering of moral indignation will change any of the facts above."
"You cannot just snap your fingers and make the military appear somewhere," van Steenwyk said.
Guardsmen need to receive mobilization orders; report to their armories; draw equipment; receive orders and convoy to the disaster area. Guardsmen driving down from Pennsylvania or Navy ships sailing from Norfolk can't be on the scene immediately.
Relief efforts must be planned. Other than prepositioning supplies near the area likely to be afflicted (which was done quite efficiently), this cannot be done until the hurricane has struck and a damage assessment can be made. There must be a route reconnaissance to determine if roads are open, and bridges along the way can bear the weight of heavily laden trucks.
And federal troops and Guardsmen from other states cannot be sent to a disaster area until their presence has been requested by the governors of the afflicted states.
Exhibit A on the bill of indictment of federal sluggishness is that it took four days before most people were evacuated from the Louisiana Superdome.
The levee broke Tuesday morning. Buses had to be rounded up and driven from Houston to New Orleans across debris-strewn roads. The first ones arrived Wednesday evening. That seems pretty fast to me.
A better question -- which few journalists ask -- is why weren't the roughly 2,000 municipal and school buses in New Orleans utilized to take people out of the city before Katrina struck?
3:46 PM
Friday, September 09, 2005
Finally, I have found a neuro-oncologist all the way up at Columbia Presbyterian. She kicks ass takes names and knows her game. She already has 4 drugs picked out as possible chemo treatments she wrote them down and of course I can't read them so I can't look them up but I am finally on the correct path for the right chemo regimine........
1:34 PM
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