Blogging it out
My wife, Amy Raymond, wrote this last night, specifically intending for it to be posted on this blog. Amy is the assistant news editor at The Oklahoman and the editor of Viva Oklahoma, the company’s Spanish language publication. She’s also my favorite person.
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I am writing this now before the end arrives.
The health of my grandma, Irene Schmidt, has been declining precipitously in recent days.
I spoke to her on the phone on Sunday. We stayed away from a trip to Kansas because I had a cold and didn’t want to spread it. It was an incidental conversation. And it could be my last with her.
I’ve been waiting for the phone call — the one with the bad news and funeral plans.
Thursday night, I got a different kind of call. Bittersweet might be the best way to describe it.
There was the health update — she can barely drink and isn’t eating anything. She’s not able to talk very much but has gotten in a few zingers.
She said she had thoughts in her brain that wouldn’t come out. My cousin who was there visiting said she could get a new one of those in heaven.
“Put me in the front of the line, then,” my grandma said. ”I want a good one.”
Not being able to get thoughts out must be tough for a woman who readily speaks her mind.
She seems to be handling things OK, my mom says.
My grandma is 92 and a woman of great faith, so she’s ready for what comes next.
It’s that faith that was the rallying point Wednesday and Thursday for those in my family who are overseeing her care in these last days.
A chaplain asked my mom and aunt if they wanted to sing a hymn Wednesday. They’d been away from my grandma’s bed, but she heard singing and asked them to move nearer.
The chaplain bailed after about three hymns, my mother reports, but the others sang “every old church song you could ever think of” for about an hour and a half.
My grandma tried, unsuccessfully, to clap along with the singing.
And Thursday, she asked for and got a few more hours of song and the joy that comes with it.
My grandma is 92 and a woman of great faith, so she’s ready for what comes next.
I just hope the rest of us are, too.
Bizarre
This may be the oddest cancer-related story I’ve ever come across. Check this out.
John Kanzius
A while back I posted about the death of John Kanzius, a fellow from my old stomping grounds (Pennsylvania) who was working with one of Jim’s doctors on a cancer-fighting machine.
Today, I got an e-mail from the Erie Times-News about Mr. Kanzius — and what’s happening with his research. Thought you might be interested.
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Thursday, April 16, 2009
Carrying on Kanzius’ fight
That John Kanzius’ fight against cancer now carries on without him is a stark reminder of the awful and implacable power of his target.
That hundreds of people turned out to pay their respects during the calling hours after his February death speaks volumes about how the man and his mission captured the hopes and respect of his hometown.
Kanzius’ ingenuity and passion for seeing the project through, even while slowly losing his personal battle against the disease, have created a sense of determination and obligation that outlives him.
There’s a lot more to do, and a lot more money will be needed to do it. And there would be no more fitting tribute to the man and his work than to make sure his drive to kill cancer with radio waves continues without pause.
Erie Times-News health reporter David Bruce is doing his part by continuing to track and report on the progress of those efforts. Following is Bruce’s take on where things stand as the key people around Kanzius adjust to carrying on without him.
John Kanzius died about two months ago.
But work on his cancer-killing device continues at research laboratories in Houston and Pittsburgh.
“We’re working on many different cancer types – liver, colon and pancreas,” said Steven Curley, M.D., principal researcher at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. “We’re also working on prostate cancer, breast cancer and leukemia cancer lines.”
Curley, a surgical oncologist, has taken on additional responsibilities since Kanzius died Feb. 18 after a seven-year battle with a rare leukemia.
Curley has become the face of the project. He recently met with Arnold Palmer to discuss ways the golfing legend can raise money for further research.
Palmer, a longtime cancer research advocate, has said he is interested in Kanzius’ device.
Curley also is heading back to Washington, D.C., in May to meet again with U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials. The FDA must approve Kanzius’ device before it can be tested on humans.
Human trials on the device are expected to start by 2011, Curley said.
“What has happened is that people like myself and Charlie Rutkowski have stepped up to take care of a lot of these things without the benefit of John’s input,” Curley said.
Rutkowski is one of the owners of Industrial Sales and Manufacturing Inc., a Millcreek Township business that helps build Kanzius’ devices.
Curley and Rutkowski aren’t the only ones who have stepped up in recent weeks.
Donations to the Jon Kanzius Cancer Research Foundation have increased since Kanzius’ death.
The foundation has raised nearly $2 million for research at M.D. Anderson and the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Center.
“Donations were very heavy right after the funeral, and they’ve been steady ever since,” said Maryann Yochim, foundation president.
The foundation is scheduling a second telethon in September to raise money for the project.
It will be broadcast Sept. 17 on WICU-TV and WSEE-TV (in Erie), and might also be carried on television stations in Pittsburgh, Orlando and Houston, said Pat Fetzner, a foundation board member.
But all the progress doesn’t lessen Curley’s anger and frustration at losing Kanzius, who became a close friend.
“I still miss John,” Curley said. “Driving home sometimes, I get an overwhelming sense of anger. Cancer claimed yet another outstanding individual.”
Susan Boyle
Have you seen the video of Susan Boyle astonishing the world?
I’ve watched it repeatedly, and each time I get chills. In case you missed it – which is unlikely, since it’s had more than 20 million views online – Boyle is the 47-year-old Scottish woman who blew away the audience and judges on “Britain’s Got Talent” last weekend.
Check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY
Before she went out on stage, she admitted to the show’s hosts that she’d never been married or kissed. Since her mother’s death two years ago, she has lived alone except for a cat named Pebbles. And, she told the hosts, she planned to “rock” the crowd.
Then she stood before 3,000 people and smiled at the judges, among them Simon Cowell, who has turned unkind comments into a career on the popular FOX television show, “American Idol.” Audience members snickered as she said she wanted to be a singing star, and Simon fairly dripped disdain as he stared at her squarish build, Brezhnev eyebrows and unruly hair. It just got worse when she started gyrating her hips in a nervous attempt to display confidence.
Everyone expected a freak show. Surely this unglamorous woman from a small Scottish village was daft. Like William Hung, who embarrassed himself with a ghastly performance of Ricky Martin’s “She Bangs,” Boyle would be comically, painfully inept. You could almost see Simon sharpening his tongue.
But amid all this — the laughing crowd, the cynical judges, the giggling hosts — something amazing happened: Reality television captured a moment of genuine emotion, of human transcendance. The world watched a star being born.
Within the space of a few notes, Boyle transformed from an object of ridicule to a heroine with the voice of an angel. Singing the perfect song — “I Dreamed a Dream,” a difficult piece from Les Miserables about the death of hope — she won over the crowd in seconds. The cameras cut away from Boyle’s performance to show the judges agog with shock, mouths hanging open, transfixed. By the time she was done, people were crying, humbled, embarrassed by their own preconceptions.
I could watch it a thousand times.
I read an article today that offered a reason why Boyle’s story is so uplifting: It’s so unexpected that it seems as if it could not happen in real life. It’s a story we’re all familiar with, but only within the carefully scripted confines of fiction. It’s “The Full Monty,” “Napoleon Dynamite,” or any of a hundred teen movies produced each year. Unlikely heroes defy stereotypes to achieve something impossible, getting the boy or girl and winning over everyone who oppressed them. The meme is ubiquitous in the make-believe world but almost unheard of in reality. And we all watched it happen.
In interviews this week, Boyle has remarked that everyone who used to pick on her is cheering her on now. The children who used to tease her because of her old maid status and plain appearance stop to wish her luck. She’s gone from the ugly duckling who has never been kissed to the belle of Britain’s ball — and the favorite to win the television competition.
It’s a real-life underdog story.
It’s a beautiful thing.
Chapter 3 approaching fast
Hey folks,
Sorry I haven’t posted many blog entries lately. Kind of feel like what Jim has to say is far more important than anything I post on this blog. Feels kind of unnatural for me to be posting my “feelings” and such for all the world to see. I’m still more comfortable being a journalist, trying to stay out of the way of the stories I’m telling.
Anyway, Chapter 3 is tentatively scheduled to come out in the paper on Sunday. The scary thing? I’m not finished with it yet.
I’ll let you know if the run date changes. If you don’t hear from me, expect to see it Sunday. And let me know what you think.
Ken
