Notes from the Cafe Fiasco

BCBS - 3 Letters

Came home yesterday to opening the mailbox to find three letters from my main health insurer - Blue Cross and Blue Shield.  The first was a notification that the plan that I had was coming to an end and an explanation of the options that I had to continue coverage.  The second was a certificate of Group Health Plan Coverage for my Boston University Plan that I left at the end of May. The third was the magic plastic card that gets me service as a part of the MIT plan that I now belong to.

Makes one wonder about the amount of time, energy, and money involved in current American Health System machine if three parts of the same organization don't seem to be talking to one another.

Did They Really Do This?

Thanks to Adam Kennedy.

Bodhidharma of the Opera

So, I'm quietly sitting with my Zen group on Tuesday night and, as usual, everyone is being very serious - it's all about being Enlightened and other very serious stuff so there isn't alot of shouting out. Sort of the opposite of the Black Church experience, but still a valuable experience as far as I'm concerned.

We normally congregate in the upstairs chapel of the First Unitarian Church in the Back Bay and on Tuesday night there usually isn't much happening at the church. Since we Buddhists are all focusing on what we're all making up in our heads, we generally don't want to be distracted by what other people are making up, and the lack of interruption in the quiet church works well.

So, we're all sitting there being intensely quiet and someone starts practicing on the big organ downstairs. They aren't practicing something like Bach; it's something more modern by way of Andrew Lloyd Webber. But we're all trained Buddhists and we know how to ignore stuff, so we all dig in to ignoring the music that's coming literally out of the floor of the Chapel. We manage to do this for a short time until one of our number starts to lightly snore. She was lying on her back meditating and eventually got a little too deep even with the music going.

But, I'm good. I don't break out in laughter as I want to. I don't know, meditation with the group these days sometimes makes me want to laugh. I don't want to trip up people on their way to Enlightenment, but I have to admit that I find all this pretty funny. Maybe for me Enlightenment has a large dose of Henny Youngman. I'll have to check with Josh Bartok, my friendly local Zen priest.

"58"

The birthday this year was better than usual. Sure, it started with the traditional, "How the hell did I get so damn old" mantra but, unlike many other years, it did progress beyond this.

Denise Wallace was nice enough to include me in a family outing to see the Pawtucket Red Sox at McCoy Stadium. This is the first time that I've been back to this particular park in about 25 years and on the way I got to gawk at the neighborhoods that I grew up in (I learned to play pool in a bar down the street when I was 13) and got to note that the neighborhoods are just as poor as they were 40 years ago. Some things change, but Pawtucket doesn't seem to be one of those things.

The Red Sox lost the game to the Buffalo Bisons, but it was good just to be watching baseball at a small park where you actually could see the game and all the people in the stands were families with lots of kids which made for a more interesting and raucous atmosphere than Fenway where the ticket prices keep people from bringing small children along.

Actually, things have been going pretty well lately and this fact has it's own set of challenges. Growing up as child of people who grew up during the Depression, I sometimes have a problem with things going right -- it takes adaptation and that can be hard for those of us who aren't that naturally flexible (not to mention all the energy that goes into making sure that I don't expect the good times to continue).

First, the MRI that I took a couple of weeks ago came back with not significant change in the prostate tumors discovered last year. It's looking like what I'm doing is keeping the cancer in check. Or maybe it's doing it by itself and I'm denying myself burgers for no reason. But either way, death is still at arms length for a while. At least from this cause.

I've also changed jobs this month. I took a job doing computer support at MIT since they offered it to me and, at least in my field, when MIT calls, you answer. I don't have a regular group of users to support yet - they have me working in a number of different places - but I should have a regular gig by the end of the summer when the students come back and the big machine starts up again. I've only been there a couple of weeks, but I like the people and the organizational atmosphere is very much "figure it out for yourself" and I like that as well. Seems like a place where I could settle in for a while.

Then there's Denise.  After meeting me a couple of months ago, she seems to have decided that she likes spending time with me. This is quite odd (and different than reactions that I've gotten in the past few years) but welcome. I like her too. More adaptation.

So, I'm old. But things seem to be shifting. And I'm adapting. And I hear that there's some Black guy is running for President.

Software Question of the Day

Q:  How does Adobe expect you to actually use Photoshop CS3 if it takes all the time in the known Universe to install it?

A:  Not their problem!  (Read your license agreement - it's in there).

Life's Disappointments

1)  Heard on Sunday that Sally Touloumtzis - my sister-in-law once removed - suffered a heart attack this weekend.  She's okay and resting comfortably in Springfield, but one does not expect this sort of thing with a fit woman in her late 40's.

2) The cable went out just in time for me to miss John Lester pitch a no-hitter.  It won't be back until Friday at the earliest.  Luckily (or not) the Sox are playing the Kansas City Royals.

3)  Went through the ordeal of an MRI at Brigham and Women's Hospital last Friday (more on this later) only to find out this morning that my urologist, who will be reading the pictures, won't be back in town until next Tuesday.

You know, the week isn't going that well so far.

Numbers and Scans

Being essentially symptom-free, I don't share many of the aspects of what we might call "The Cancer Experience" as many of my brothers and sisters in CancerWorld, but there is one thing that we all share: our reliance on and ambivalence to numbers and scans. Numbers and scans are the coin of this particular realm and are indications of whether you're going to live a while longer or not.

As it turns out, this quarter's number is good for me. My PSA is 3.5 (down a tenth of a point from three months ago) and this is good news. This means that things are level for the moment - I've battled cancer to a standstill for another three months.

For the first time, my urologist is using words like "indolent" in relation to my cancer. Each individual type of cancer also comes in many forms, from indolent to aggressive, and you definitely want to be as far down toward the indolent end of the scale as you can be. After almost a year of hard work, it's beginning to look like we caught the disease just before it was going to explode into a system-wide problem and I've cooled it out for now. The situation can still turn bad at any point, but the longer I get PSA numbers around 3.5 the less likely it is that this is going to happen.

The next step is a MRI to confirm what the numbers are telling us. Scans confirm numbers. Numbers lead to scans. Back and forth. The Ying and Yang of modern treatment of cancer.

More after the scan.

Boston Now Now Was

I don't have any copy for this headline about the shutting down of Boston Now, but I do like the headline.

Review: Shine a Light

Stones still have it. Go see it.

Opening Day 2008 - Fenway

I certainly didn't expect that the season opening ceremonies to be the highlight of the day. But it was wonderful to see Johnny Pesky raise the championship banner in centerfield and then be kissed and hugged by Manny Rameriez after he had finished the task.

And it was a profile in courage to see Bill Buckner walk out to throw the ceremonial first pitch in front of 35,000 people for whom he had become a symbol of failure over the past 21 years. The crowd responded with an uncharacteristic New England generosity and a major wound in Boston sports history suddenly just melted away. All was forgiven. Another religious moment in the high temple of baseball.

This is not something that you see every day, or every opening day for that matter. Daisuke was impressive and the Sox won handily, but it was almost beside the point.