this guy.

i know, i know, not what you were expecting.

but for me, it just seemed simpler.

kevin, our friend and fellow cancer cyclist
and vet surgeon (appearing soon on er vet)
called.  he had a good one, he said.

i went.

i came home with artie.

liddy named him artie after her favorite
food (allegedly):  Artichoke

she wanted to name him Movie
but i nixed that.

my grandpa's name was Arthur.
he was old and died years ago,
but once ate a fortune cookie....whole.

my brother and i joked with him
that we had heard that fortunes come true
if you eat them.

he didn't laugh.

he didn't say much at all.  ever.

and it's funny, because Artie has never
really meowed.  maybe once, but it's iffy.

two quiet sweet men.

i wish all adoptions were this easy.

Sacrifices to idols and to Molech are an effort for man to please god by giving him a thing most valuable.  Our most valuable offerings cannot appease God.  Only a perfect sacrifice could satisfy the requirement that remission must come by the shedding of blood.  Only God Himself was good enough. 

God, even more than life, is the highest priority.  Faith in Him is more important than anyone’s life, and disobedience is not justified even in a situation where a life is at stake. 

The child sacrifices to Molech had more to do with bartering with god than with repentance for sins or faith.  Abraham, in contrast, was the patriarch of faith, and the Bible implicitly says that the command to sacrifice Isaac was about Abraham’s faith (interesting since Isaac was old enough to have resisted Abraham, but he didn’t). 

Abraham’s faith was tested when God asked Him to sacrifice Isaac.  But what does child sacrifice really have to do with faith? 

Hebrews 11 explains why he got so much credit for his faith in the story of sacrificing Isaac:

Hebrews 11:17-19, "By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son,  Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called:  Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure."

Abraham believed God would make his son live, no matter what.  God also knew when Jesus gave His life that there would be a resurrection.  Jesus knew about it, and told His disciples to expect Him to come back on the third day. 

Even if Abraham just believed Isaac would not stay dead, we might think that he was self-deluded and irrationally hopeful rather than a man of great faith, unless God gave Abraham a strong reason to believe this.  Did He? 

Abraham had some difficulties believing God’s plan for him.  Years into the covenant and promises, Abraham and Sarah still hadn’t born any children.  So Abraham tried things his own way, siring Ishmael through Hagar, his wife’s slavewoman.  God made it quite clear that He had promised a son through Sarah, and that Ishmael was not the heir. 

Then Abraham believed God, but Sarah doubted until she conceived Isaac.  God reiterated that the promise to make Abraham many nations, to bless the world through his Seed, (the Covenant) was through Isaac:

Genesis 17:15-16, 19, "And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her. And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him."

They gave birth to a son.  So Abraham had learned his lesson about doubts.  He knew that either God would intervene, or God would raise Isaac back to life. 

Abraham knew that God’s command (to sacrifice Isaac) could not supercede God’s promise (to make Isaac into many nations).  This point is made in Galatians:

Galatians 3:17, "And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect." 

The just always lived by faith. 

In Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, I see a vivid example of God’s plan for salvation depicted in the story of the Sacrifice of Isaac. 

• The promise was from God, and He would keep it. 
• The son was miraculously given by God. 
• The command was God’s. 
• The faith was in God. 
• And the substitute sacrifice was God’s. 

To God be all glory,

Lisa of Longbourn

Your Black World: Chicago Mourns An Icon: Bernie Mac

Your Black World: Zimbabwe Power-Sharing Talks Resume Today

Your Black World: More Than 'Shaft': Isaac Hayes's Legacy

Your Black World: Plan For Memorial Honoring Black Patriots Stalls In Congress

CHICAGO - It's a celebration of family and pride, of education and success, but some attending Chicago's Bud Billiken parade said they were left feeling numb in the wake of Bernie Mac's death.

"I knew he was sick, but someone that young, you just don't expect the worst," said Chicagoan Patrick Dennan, 48, as he watched a stream of brightly decorated floats cruise down historic Martin Luther King Drive on Saturday afternoon. "His comedy was based on real life, and I think that's what really brought him a lot of respect. He kept things real and he didn't seem to let success go to his head."

Born Bernard Jeffrey McCullough on Oct. 5, 1957, in Chicago, Mac grew up on the city's South Side. His publicist said he died Saturday from complications of pneumonia. He had suffered from sarcoidosis, an inflammatory lung disease that produces tiny lumps of cells in the body's organs, but had said the condition went into remission in 2005. He recently was hospitalized and treated for pneumonia, which his publicist said was not related to the disease.

Johnnie Blair, the president of the Bronzeville Chamber of Commerce, met Mac in the early 1990s at a local nightclub and said he followed with interest Mac's journey on the road to comedic stardom. Blair said though Mac performed with some of the biggest names in show business, he remained true to his South Side roots.

"It's major loss to our community," Blair said. "He never forgot where he came from, and I think his comedy reflected that."

Velin Stewart, 39, said Mac's success was a "point of civic pride" for Chicagoans, and not just because of his celebrity.

"I was just in shock to wake up and hear that Bernie Mac was dead," Stewart said. "He made it big, but it didn't seem to go to his head. He could have lived anywhere in the world. But he stayed close to where he came from."

That sense of approachability, of humility, is what led Gary Crawford to introduce himself in 2005 to the comedian at a Chicago White Sox game. Crawford, 51, manages a Chicago-based Web site that benefits surviving Negro League baseball players. In 2004, Mac starred in "Mr. 3000," a movie about an aging baseball player who returns to the game to collect his 3,000th hit.

Crawford thought the two might share a commonality.

"I've seen a lot of celebrities at baseball games and Bernie wasn't like that, meaning he didn't have an entourage," Crawford said. "We talked for several minutes, baseball mostly. He was excited the White Sox seemed to be poised for a pennant run. All in all, just a very down-to-earth regular guy."

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Saturday called Mac "a favorite son..."

Click to read more

R.I.P Mac Man. You will be sorely missed:

Bernie Mac, the actor and comedian who teamed up in the casino heist caper "Ocean's Eleven" and gained a prestigious Peabody Award for his sitcom "The Bernie Mac Show," died Saturday at age 50.

"Actor/comedian Bernie Mac passed away this morning from complications due to pneumonia in a Chicago area hospital," his publicist, Danica Smith, said in a statement from Los Angeles.

The comedian suffered from sarcoidosis, an inflammatory lung disease that produces tiny lumps of cells in the body's organs, but had said the condition went into remission in 2005. He recently was hospitalized and treated for pneumonia, which his publicist said was not related to the disease.

Recently, Mac's brand of comedy caught him flack when he was heckled during a surprise appearance at a July fundraiser for Democratic presidential candidate and fellow Chicagoan Barack Obama.

Toward the end of a 10-minute standup routine, Mac joked about menopause, sexual infidelity and promiscuity, and used occasional crude language. The performance earned him a rebuke from Obama's campaign.

But despite controversy or difficulties, in his words, Mac was always a performer.

"Wherever I am, I have to play," he said in 2002. "I have to put on a good show."

Mac worked his way to Hollywood success from an impoverished upbringing on Chicago's South Side. He began doing standup as a child, and his film career started with a small role as a club doorman in the Damon Wayans comedy "Mo' Money" in 1992. In 1996, he appeared in the Spike Lee drama "Get on the Bus."

He was one of "The Original Kings of Comedy" in the 2000 documentary of that title that brought a new generation of black standup comedy stars to a wider audience.

"The majority of his core fan base will remember that when they paid their money to see Bernie Mac ... he gave them their money's worth," Steve Harvey, one of his co-stars in "Original Kings," told CNN on Saturday.

Mac went on to star in the hugely popular "Ocean's Eleven" franchise with Brad Pitt and George Clooney.

Comedian Carl Reiner, who also appeared in "Ocean's Eleven" and its two sequels, said Saturday he was "in utter shock" because he thought Mac was improving. "He was just so alive. I can't believe he's gone," he said.

Reiner told KNX-AM in Los Angeles that other comics had talked to the audience as Mac did on "The Bernie Mac Show," but "he took it to a new level."

"It was such a popular show because of his bigger-than-life persona," Reiner said.

His turn with Ashton Kutcher in 2005's "Guess Who" topped the box office. It was a comedy remake of the classic Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn drama "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" — with Mac as the black dad who's shocked that his daughter is marrying a white man.

Mac also had starring roles in "Bad Santa," "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" and "Transformers."

The comedian drew critical and popular acclaim with his Fox television series "The Bernie Mac Show," which aired more than 100 episodes from 2001 to 2006.

The series about a man's adventures raising his sister's three children, won a Peabody Award in 2002. At the time, judges wrote they chose the sitcom for transcending "race and class while lifting viewers with laughter, compassion — and cool."

In real life, he was very much like his character on that series, his daughter, Je'niece Childress, told The Associated Press on Saturday.

"He was the king of his household," Childress said in Chicago, describing Mac as "a loving grandfather" to her daughter, his only grandchild.

"The Bernie Mac Show" garnered Golden Globe and Emmy nominations for Mac.

"But television handcuffs you, man," he said in a 2001 Associated Press interview. "Now everyone telling me what I CAN'T do, what I CAN say, what I SHOULD do, and asking, `Are blacks gonna be mad at you? Are whites gonna accept you?'"

He also was nominated for a Grammy award for best comedy album in 2001 along with his "The Original Kings of Comedy" co-stars, Harvey, D.L. Hughley and Cedric The Entertainer.

Chicago music producer Carolyn Albritton said she was Bernie Mac's first manager, having met him in 1991 at Chicago's Cotton Club where she hosted an open-mike night.

"From very early on I thought he was destined for success," Albritton said Saturday. "He never lost track of where he came from, and he'd often use real life experiences, his family, his friends, in his routine. After he made it, he stayed a very humble man. His family was the most important thing in the world to him."

In 2007, Mac told David Letterman on CBS' "Late Show" that he planned to retire soon.

"I'm going to still do my producing, my films, but I want to enjoy my life a little bit," Mac told Letterman. "I missed a lot of things, you know. I was a street performer for two years. I went into clubs in 1977."

Mac was born Bernard Jeffrey McCullough on Oct. 5, 1957, in Chicago. He grew up on the city's South Side, living with his mother and grandparents. His grandfather was the deacon of a Baptist church.

In his 2004 memoir, "Maybe You Never Cry Again," Mac wrote about having a poor childhood — eating bologna for dinner — and a strict, no-nonsense upbringing.

"I came from a place where there wasn't a lot of joy," Mac told the AP in 2001. "I decided to try to make other people laugh when there wasn't a lot of things to laugh about."

Mac's mother died of cancer when he was 16. In his book, Mac said she was a support for him and told him he would surprise everyone when he grew up.

"Woman believed in me," he wrote. "She believed in me long before I believed."

Ok, so here goes.  My mother was diagnosed with A Plastic Anemia in May.  After 7 long weeks in the hospital, they originally thought she had ITP.  After a big long hassle with her doctors, and me basically putting my foot down with their various plans for treatment, and finally firing her hematologist, I finally found a doctor I was satisfied with.  Still, I insisted on MY PLAN for treatment, as it was now the 11th hour and we had basically zero options left.

I researched and found an experimental treatment which is an immune suppressant type of chemotherapy.  The doctors by this point didn't want to mess with me and just did what I asked.  I guess they figured it couldn't hurt, and I wouldn't sue them for their original misdiagnosis.

When my mother was released from the hospital she had a blood count of 2,000 left in her body (120,000 is normal).  She only had 1/3rd of her bone marrow left.  Basically she had about two days left to live, if that.  She decided that she wanted to die at home, so I was carrying out her wishes.

Well, guess what?  It worked!  Her blood level is back to normal.  She is in full remission.  She is off of hospice care and basically all well for now.  We don't know when the A Plastic Anemia will come back, but for now she is fully functional and back driving me fully crazy.  Its a miracle!

She had an appointment with her Cardiologist today and he just looked at her in total amazement.  He told her that in all of his years of being a doctor (he's an old guy) he's never seen anything like this, or even heard about anyone recovering from this kind of situation.  He kept checking her results over and over in wonder.

So, thank you to all of those of you who prayed for my mother.  Im sure that those prayers helped guide me to the right medicine, and that God did the rest of the work.

it wasn't until the last comment
on that last post
that i started thinking
about the title:

would you give a baby?

it's not what i meant...
by why not?

i keep thinking of ways to justify
this blog.

(and no, this is not fishing for compliments, people,
it's just a healthy way of managing my own wandering
thoughts of exploiting my wife's illness and a potential
proclivity for narcissism and ego augmentation)

no matter what you say,
this blog is somewhat sinful, i'm sure.

but one women took it seriously,
the title, that is, and she tried,
really tried,
to get us a baby.

and now i'm thinking...
that that's what i was asking for all along,
somewhere.

-----

one of my favorite bloggers
just put google ads on his blog

i know many of you bloggers out there,
many of you whom i don't know but read this site,
have ads, so please take this
just as a meandering of thoughts
and not judgment.

but the truth is that
in a weird way i feel betrayed.

i don't like the site as much as i used to.

i guess i just want to believe
that we can still give each other things
without a price tag.

at some point, when i started getting
a lot of hits when leanne was really sick
and we were in the clutch of badness,
i made a vow not to do that,
not to turn this into an ad

i don't have a blogroll,
i don't accept awards,
i don't link much to other sites.

i suppose the only thing i've done
is ask you to donate to cancer
and ask you to join the bone marrow registry,
things that are not really for me at all.

and if i write a book from all this,
which maybe i'll do, i would donate
all the money to cancer research
or to women who are made infertile
by chemo drugs who are trying to adopt.

is this noble?
or selfish?
or just plain stupid?

i've never been much of a businessman,
and i got out of advertising 10 years ago
for a reason.

----

and now i ask you to give us a baby.

something absolutely
for us.

is this worse than a million google ads?

some price tag.

Of course in the cases that don't kill you,  there is always the potential to have a really screwed up life.  One filled with high doses of Prednisone,  side-effects which are high blood pressure,  diabetes, glaucoma, weight gain,  etc....

I wasted the last 20 years of my life pretty much.  I did very little that I wanted to do. 

At least I realize this now,  instead of when I'm 60 years old.  Sixty is actually approaching pretty fast.  In less than 19 years,  I'll be 60.

I guess what bothers me is that I read about someones case where it was bad like mine,  they responded well at first like I am,  then things got real bad and it quit responding.  I've been taking it for granted that my case is going to continue to respond well.  But what if it doesn't?  What am I going to do then I guess?

I try not to really dwell on the negative so instead I am looking at this as I have one more shot to really accomplish something.  I need 2 good years,  maybe 3 although 20 more good years would be better still.

I know one thing,  I'm not going to stop running until I can't run another step.

i'm not sure i would.

sometimes i talk in my workshops
about how most of the pictures we take
are lies.

how asking someone to pose
is like asking them to leave their life.

the only thing about posed pictures that i like
is the discussion that happens when the question
is asked:

what can you not see in the picture.

which 1000 words are posed pictures worth?

maybe that's the question.

(this one was taken for our adoption profile)

you cannot see
that i am afraid of the camera
that lydia had just fallen off that swing and into the river
that leanne's hair is just now at the point
that nobody knows she was ever sick
in the first place.

you don't see that we swear at each other sometimes
or that i still pick my nose or that lydia has been having
trouble going to bed or that leanne still makes food spicy
even though i don't like it or never buys enough groceries
or that i don't listen as deeply as i should or that lydia
wants so badly to be a sister.

an adoption lawyer emailed me and said that i'm right,
that most birth mothers giving their babies up for adoption
want three things:

1. a good looking family  (i told her none of us wear glasses - yippee!)
2. a family with money (i work for a non-profit :( boo hoo)
3. a nice house (well, WE like it)

the end.

I relate completely to Prasad's story and yet in many ways his experience was much more painful as it just dragged on for so long.  He never experienced remission.  I have been fortunate to have had long periods of remission on Asacol and Azathioprine and for that I am so grateful. 

I can understand his frustration with the doctors and with test results.

For example, when I take my car into repair, prior to paying or ever having any work done, I am usually provided an estimate or some detailed report.  Why is this not so with the doctor for health issues?  Doctors are busy people, but couldn't the patient be provided with automated information including test results and notes? I think partly this is seen as taboo in the medical world.  There exists a real hiearchy between patient and doctor.   When I was in the hospital I had many blood tests, stool tests, x-rays and never saw one single test result on paper.  I was told results when I asked, but the detail in the answers varied and this stuff is hard to remember.  As a patient, I think this information would be helpful in making important decisions.

I have not yet finished Prasad's book but apparently he finds relief through diet.  Prior to, his troubles with food and digestion, I find so similar to mine.  I have this pre-occupation with diet and eating. It's as though I may never get enough or get it right.  I am always thinking about my next meal and what I can concoct that will be delicious and satisfying, yet go down, stay down, and come out well.  I also go back and forth between eating healthy and right to going totally over the edge and JUNKY FOODING OUT!!  Its terribly discouraging and time marches by marking what goes in and out my body.  I constantly strategize and doing so wears on the soul after awhile.  I then find ways to reinvigorate through creativity, dance, and other distractions like house rewiring and painting.

- The National Institute of Health has joined research efforts. Carmen Russoniello over at East Carolina University is studying the use of videogames as therapy for sickle cell anemia at a clinical center run by the NIH

- The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation announced a $2 million grant program earmarked for Wii-hab research

- The annual Games for Health conference saw a continued spike in attendance this year, including reps from Humana, Cigna, and Kaiser Permanente who have all backed medical games lately

- HopeLab’s ReMission has been a particular success story, helping young cancer patients understand and deal with the disease

- A survey by PopCap games found a fifth of those surveyed considered themselves disabled somehow, and that casual games helped treat the disability, particularly depression and other mental disorders

References:
Twitty, D. (2008, July 15). Medicinal use of video games growing. Associated Press. [Online]. Retrieved July 16, 2008 from http://www.kansascity.com/382/story/705991.html

Dimanche matin 04 juillet, se courrait la course dédiée aux filles : La Toulousaine !

Les hommes n'avaient qu'à bien se tenir... Pour participer, ils devaient se "déguiser" en femmes! Les tenues roses étant de rigueur...

C'est donc environ 1600 participantes qui se sont élancées depuis la place du Capitole, dans le centre historique de Toulouse, pour 4 à 8 kilomètres de joie, de grâce et de sourires.

Une manifestation sportive et ludique pour rappeler que le cancer du sein est la première cause de mortalité chez les femmes de 35 à 70 ans. En France, près de 11.500 en meurent chaque année

Car au delà d'être un rendez-vous sportif, la Toulousaine a avant tout un but caritatif.  La précédente édition avait permis de récolter plus de 8000 € pour l’Association Toulousaine « Vivre comme Avant », œuvrant au quotidien pour accompagner les femmes dans leur combat contre la maladie du cancer du sein.

Au vu de la foule présente sur le quai de la Daurade, cela ne fait plus aucun doute, cette course est bel et bien ancrée dans le cœur des toulousaines et des Toulousains.

Seule et unique course à pied féminine proposée dans le centre-ville de Toulouse, en 5 ans la Toulousaine est devenue la course porte-drapeau des événements sportifs féminins sur le plan national.

C'est la première fois.

Une recherche s'est penchée sur la qualité de vie des survivants d'un cancer et de leurs conjoints. Sur le long terme : 7 ans.

Michelle M. Bishop (et ses collègues de l'université de Floride) ont évalué le bien-être de 177 couples dont l'un d'eux avait subi une transplantation de moelle comme traitement à un cancer. Les couples étaient ensemble depuis les traitements qui avaient eu lieu en moyenne 7 ans auparavant.

Alors que les conjoints des survivants rapportent une meilleure santé physique, moins de fatigue et moins de dysfonctionnement cognitif que les survivants, leur santé mentale est autant affectée et dans certains cas leur qualité de vie est davantage affectée que celles des survivants eux-mêmes.

Alors que le même nombre de survivants et de conjoints présentent les symptômes cliniques de dépression (respectivement 22% et 20%), les conjoints suivent moins de psychothérapie comportementale et cognitive (34% vs. 58%).

Ils rapportent également :

• moins de support social,
• moins de "bien-être spirituel",
• moins de satisfaction par rapport à leur relation de couple
• et plus de solitude que les survivants.

Contrairement aux personnes guéris, ils rapportent peu de "croissance post-traumatique" (changements personnels positifs amenés par l'expérience du cancer).

Une des explications : je m'aperçois, avec mes clients, que les conjoints ne font pas le travail sur soi/remise en cause/changements d'habitudes alimentaire et de vie que font les malades.

Des recherches antérieures avaient également montré que, dans le court terme, les conjoints des gens souffrant de cancer vivent autant d'anxiété, de dépression et de détresse que les malades eux-mêmes.

Les chercheurs croient que leurs résultats sont généralisables aux autres formes de cancer et de traitements.

Source: "Journal of Clinical Oncology"

Give me an E

Give me an M

Give me an I

Give me a double S

Give me another I

Give me an O

Give me an N

And, what does it spell? REMISSION, baby!

The news of Mom beating this ugly monster could not have come too quickly. I found out yesterday, a day after my 43rd birthday. Could there be a better present? Not in a million years!

Mom, a.k.a. Beaulah (nickname I gave her when I was 15... it's a long story...), had 6 cycles of chemo.  I'm hoping her mind, and mine, will soon forget all the difficulties associated with this battle.

Two weeks ago Beaulah almost died. All her blood counts dropped so low that she required 2 blood transfusions, 1 platlett transfusion, and round the clock IV antibiotics and steriods (to help with her congestion). She was in the hospital for 7 days.  It was a scary time, trust me.

Today, Beaulah's spirits are flyin' high. She had her first salad in 6 months. She was in heaven! Even though she is VERY weak (requires assistance with dressing herself, showering, walking, meal preps, meds, driving, shopping) she sees the light at the end of the tunnel. So do I.

Savanna helped pull us through the hard times. Her unconditional love, laughter, joy at the simple things in life, always brought levity at the perfect time. She is a beautiful little spirit, the love of our lives.

In closing, thank you for the love, support, prayers you provided. As Beaulah gets stronger I should have more time to "catch up" on all your lives. Free time is a luxury I have very little of.

Be back soon.

Betsy

ATLANTA - A man who had been given less than a year to live had a complete remission of advanced deadly skin cancer after an experimental treatment that revved up his immune system to fight the tumors.

The 52-year-old patient's dramatic turnaround was the only success in a small study, leading doctors to be cautious in their enthusiasm. However, the treatment reported in Thursday's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine is being counted as the latest in a small series of successes involving immune-priming treatments against deadly skin cancers.

"Immunotherapy has become the most promising approach" to late-stage, death-sentence skin cancers, said Dr. Darrell Rigel, a dermatology researcher at the New York University Cancer Institute in New York who had no role in the research.

Still, the immune-priming experiments have yet to yield a consistent therapy. Even researchers who worked on the experiment involving nine patients and just one success are quick to couch the result. "This is only one patient," said study co-author Dr. Cassian Yee of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

And two years after his remarkable recovery, the patient fell out of contact with researchers and scientists do not know his current condition. The man, who lives in a small town in Oregon, has declined media interviews, Yee said.

Melanoma is a cancer in the skin cells that make pigments and cause skin to tan, as part of the body's attempt to protect itself from ultraviolet radiation in sunlight. Cancer begins when radiation overloads and damages the cells, causing mutations.

About 62,000 news cases are diagnosed in the United States each year, and there are about 8,000 melanoma deaths.

When caught early, melanomas can be easily treated by surgically removing the cancerous patch of skin. But "once it has spread, basically nothing works," Rigel said.

Recently, however, scientists began thinking they might have another option - helping the body's immune system.

Doctors had long thought that immune system cells, which so effectively attack foreign threats like viruses, were giving a pass to cancer cells. The theory was that because cancers cells are generated by the body, the immune system perceived them as part of the body.

But about 20 years ago, some scientists discovered that immune cells could latch onto and attack skin cancers.

"There's a long history behind all of this," said Dr. Steven Rosenberg of the National Cancer Institute, a pioneer in that research.

In recent experiments, Rosenberg and other researchers have focused on souping up a certain kind of immune system cell - the "killer T cells" that envelop and kill foreign agents. Experiments have also involved giving patients chemotherapy or other drugs that are toxic to patients but can help the immune system's ability to fight cancer.

The new research took a different approach. The Hutchinson center scientists focused instead on specific helper T cells that are adept at locking onto a cancer cell and guiding the killer cells to their target.

The researchers drew blood from patients, located the special helper cells and then grew more of them in the laboratory. They then infused roughly 5 billion of the cells back into the patients without chemotherapy or the other harsh drugs.

"It's a simpler and less toxic approach to melanoma than had been previously employed," said Dr. Louis Weiner, director of the cancer center at Georgetown University.

The fourth patient they treated was the Oregon man, who had a melanoma on his back before it had spread to his groin and right lung. He was treated in July 2005. Two months after the treatment, advanced scans of his body revealed no tumors. Two years after the treatment, he had no symptoms.

More good news: There were no harmful side effects. What's more, an analysis showed that his immune system had targeted not only one type of protein target on cancer cells, but two others as well.

It is possible the treatment spurred his immune system to expand its cancer-fighting ability in new ways, Yee said.

Originally posted on CBS News

so we simply moved the whole party into the spare bedroom, where we normally watch movies. dog on the bed, dog under the bed, me, jim, schyler, smudge. they're all in there now, and i'm out in the computer room in the back hall, and it's getting late in the evening, and they're making noise on one end of the hosue and my people are sleeping peacefully in the room behind the door i'm sitting here on the computer guarding from bother.

at least, it feels like a holy mission to me. but really it's that i can't get comfortable, the whole restless leg thing, which i remember was never a syndrome at all until they'd developed a narcotic for it, which i won't take, because i don't trust prescription drugs or the companies they came from (that's another blog)

where was i? so i'm up. the time of night when your worst fears take on new dimensions. but i'm not in that kind of mood right now, so never mind.

i've been working on a breast cancer joke. now, these are difficult to come up with, because nobody thinks breast cancer is funny.

you're a vicitim, first thing, and everybody feels sorry for you. it's like your'e missing some other body part, an arm or leg, half your head, and people don't quite meet your eyes they're so sorry.

you are forced to hide it by wearing a prosthetic device or getting jellied bags of plastic stuffed under your skin, or losing half your abdominal strength to fill out a skin pouch that never quite matches what they've taken away.

and besides, you're an ex woman now that you've had such a vital part of your sexuality ripped from your chest. which is totally untrue, i'm here to tell you. it's just the general expectation.

besides which, you're going to die now, because you have cancer, and no matter what they say about being in remission and being cancer-free, once you develop cancer in your body, you've got cancer in your body. it's a little bitty cell, and you've got loads of cancer cells running around in your body, i don't care who you are. everybody's got them, just waiting to be triggered.

cancer-free or in remission, you're just waiting for the next musical set of your dance with cancer.

it's too bleak to think about.

which is why nobody has any breast cancer jokes. i wonder if there are more just plain cancer jokes, or is this a taboo in our culture? what with the rising rates of cancer worldwide, caused in my opinion by all the chemicals in our food, air, water, and ground, plus a frightening dose of electromagnetic exposure - you'd think cancer would be something we'd all just kind of smile shyly and nod our heads about. yeah, me too.

well, it will be soon. so, let's have something we can laugh about. not laugh with world-weary amusement, like that song dad used to play at night, peggy lee. not laughing nervously and looking away, but really letting loose and shaking the house guffawimg.

anyway, i've been working out this joke. it's got to do with having only one breast. the idea is that i'm going out for the brazilian olympic archery team, and have cut off a breast to qualify.

i've tried this joke several ways, but basically nobody knows anything about the amazons, fierce tribe of warrior women who kicked the shit out of the ancient greeks. they cut off their right breast so they could shoot their bows and arrows with more efficiency.

nobody's heard of the amazons? why has it always been an important reference for me?

anyway, this time, i have to confess something awful here, which i've probably mentioned casually earlier, but the last time i had a mammogram they didn't have gowns anymore, and no paper shirts you leave open at the front, but they had these cute little cape things with pink ribbons all over it. and it was a half-circle, and easy as hell to make, and i just had to copy it, so after my mammogram, i put my shirt on over it, and walked out.

i stole a mammography cape.

anyway, i came home and have started designing clothing based on the thing. but i got a great idea. it's really comfortable to wear, so i've been wearing it, and nobody notices. and i've been thinking about my joke. and i realized that i had some iron-on transfer paper, and pretty soon i was looking thru my character map trying to find exactly the right font. i wanted something sharp and poky, something that evoked knives. i forget what i ended up with, something called viner hand.

i wrote on the back in big letters - amazon

i wrote on the right breast - brazilian archery team - and put a set of olympic rings in pink above it.

i thought it looked cool. i wore it out that night, and most people never noticed anything unusual (i swear some of them have never noticed that i'm missing a breast).

i did get a chance to talk about having breast cancer while waiting in line for the bathroom during the break, and one woman admitted that she'd lost hers, and she was so uncomfortable talking about it, and so brave for making herself speak up, and i was so happy to see her pushing past her discomfort to share something with me. it was really cool. i'll talk to her next week.

There are lots of aspects I don't like about living with this disease, but by far the worst is the knowledge that I can do nothing about it. Watching someone you love suffer is nigh on intolerable and (often subconsciously) emotionally draining. Wanting to do something to help them and learning that nothing you can do will make a difference is very, very hard. For years, we have been through the cycles of illness and drug induced semi-recovery. Each time there is a relapse, I personally go through all the things that I can do to make her ill periods better - do more chores, let her sleep, avoid giving her any undue anxiety or distress and so on. Over time we have learnt that, as thoughtful as these things are, they do not contribute to any kind of recovery. Sometimes these actions can contribute to delaying getting life back to normal - I sometimes find it hard to view my wife as the strong, independent person that she really is when she has just spent weeks in hospital attached to a drip and months exhausted and in pain.

I know we are heading back in to this territory again now that we have surgery firmly on the cards. I also know that with all our experiences of the last 10 years we are better positioned to cope with the transitions than we have ever been. Uniquely, there is light at the end of the tunnel; a destination rather than just a temporary and unfulfilling respite. This permanency should make the move back to the normality of family life a much smoother process.

I guess in a few months time I will no longer be able to get a word in edgeways, so I should add my 2 pence worth whilst I can!

This surprising, just-released finding is considered to be a part of the increasing small successes in the use of experimental immune-boosting technology in treatment of hard-to-treat cancers like melanoma. It was noted in the latest study, released on June 18 Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine, that the experimental treatment protocol given to this patient was the only remission in a small study done involving 8 other patients done two years ago.

Doctors and research scientists have long drawn up theories and done studies to test the premise of boosting a person's immune system to cure cancer as far back as 20 years ago. The focus of this study, done by doctors and researchers of doctors of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, were using the patient's own “helper T-cells” in his blood extracted and modified in a laboratory. These were then injected back into his bloodstream. These “helper cells” were thought to guide the killer T-cells to the cancer cells resulting in the remission. Another finding that boosted cancer researchers enthusiasm in this type of treatment are the negligible negative side effects as compared to other conventional treatments.

Other ways of helping or modifying the human immune response to defeat cancer cells are still being perfected. One controversial technology (at least in the U.S.) is the use of stem cells to help in the campaign to finally find a cure for treatment-resistant or hard-to-access types of cancer like glioblastomas (a type of brain cancer).

The discovery that adult stem cell technology can be as effective as the very controversial embryonic stem cells (extraction involves the destruction of human embryos) last year has spurred renewed interest in the use of stem cell technology as a treatment, not only of cancer but other serious, life-threatening diseases as well. The downside is that the cells extracted using the latest techniques do not survive in the human body long enough to be effective.

As treatments get more sophisticated and new findings are being released, what we could do right now is reduce, if not eliminate, factors such as smoking, heavy consumption of processed food and lack of excercise that contribute to the development of serious diseases. As the saying goes “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”.

Sources:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080614/

Why isn’t healing taught during Communion service?

In nearly every Communion service I’ve attended, the congregation was taught about how the blood of Jesus was shed for the remission of sin.  We are reminded to evaluate ourselves regarding sin and unforgiveness before partaking in Communion.  We are reminded to never take Communion unworthily.   Should we discern ourselves regarding sickness like we discern ourselves regarding sin? 

Jesus’ body was broken for our healing like his blood was shed for the remission of our sins. 

Traditional teaching ignores this principle.

All scriptures referenced come from the KJV.  You will need to get your Bible on this one; any electronic version will not do.  Have you ever noted the footnotes in the center of the Bible?  The editorial team, who translated the Bible from the original Greek and Hebrew, took special care in putting together these special references to help the believer get a deeper understanding of God’s word.

In this article, it will be demonstrated that by using these reference scriptures, the believer can conclude that healing is not only part of the Atonement, but Jesus reinforced this prophesy through the demonstration of Communion.  Although the disciples didn’t understand at the time, he was predicting the events leading up to His death.  By enduring pains of torture and shedding blood, He took on the sickness and sin for mankind paving the way for reconciliation to the Father. 

Part VI: Sacrifices in the Old Testament