Cancer diagnosis and treatment

After several months of rising PSA (prostate specific antigen) levels followed by a biopsy, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer in January. I sat with my wife rather stoically, somewhat stunned, as the urologist detailed my options. Options. You've just been told you have cancer, and you're expected to listen to options. Well,...yeah. What else are you going to do? One thing to consider, according to the doctor, was that the cancer was detected very early. My Gleason Score was 6, and pathologists couldn't diagnose prostate cancer below that level.

The options were: 1) wait and watch; 2) radiation: a) implantation of radioactive seeds in the prostate, b) external radiation, c) proton beam therapy; 3) hormone therapy in conjunction with radiation; 4) radical prostatectomy: a) robotic, b) traditional. After hearing the options, I went home with the doctor's instructions to read everything I could about all the options in order to make an informed decision; he wasn't going to insist on any one of them because I was the one who had to live with my decision.

Option 1, watch and wait, might have been appropriate if I was older, 75 or so, because the odds are that something else would kill me before the prostate cancer did. My urologist described this as not my best option.

Option 2, radiation in its various forms, would have a number of debilitating, uncomfortable, and downright inconvenient side effects. Radiation poisoning of the cancer cells inside the prostate means that you will suffer from radiation poisoning since there is no way to keep from radiating parts of your body other than the cancer cells. Damage to the colon, bladder, and urethra can cause problems long after the cancer has been destroyed. I'm told proton beam therapy might minimize those side effects, but it is terribly expensive and not proven to be more effective than traditional radiation.

Option 3, hormone therapy with radiation adds chemical castration to radiation milieu. Yeah, that sounds good.

Option 4, prostatectomy, removes the prostate (at a minimum) with the associated cancer and can have long term side effects like most of the other options above. There are the possibilities of incontinence in various degrees of severity and of sexual side effects. Disadvantages include a hospital stay and recovery from major surgery. In my case there was an additional risk due to previous abdominal surgery that even if I chose robotic surgery that the doctor would have to open me up to deal with scar tissue and adhesions.

My wife and I did our research and discussed all the options. Her bottom line was, "The important thing to me is that you stay around. Anything else I can deal with." I decided that the robotic radical prostatectomy would give me the best result: remove the cancer, minimize the time of treatment and recovery, and lessen the chance of long-term debilitation.

I had the surgery two weeks ago (It took 5 hours because the urologist worked through the scar tissue and adhesion issues using the robot.), and I'm feeling great. The pathology report indicated that less than 1% of the prostate was cancerous and that the cancer was confined to the interior of the prostate. Can't get much better result.

Today I went to the hospital for X-rays which showed no problems. Tomorrow I go back to the urologist and have every expectation that I'll be free of the catheter in the evening. Long term side effects will take a little longer to determine, but for right now I'll be happy to sit comfortably.

ECS

How is Peggy Joseph doing?

Ever wonder what happened to Peggy Joseph? You remember her, don't you? She was the woman who pulled her kids out of school to go see Barack Obama and found herself in front of a television camera where she breathlessly exclaimed, "It was the most memorable time of my life, I...it was a touching moment because I never thought this day would ever happen. I won't have to work out how to put gas in my car, I won't have work out how to pay my mortgage. If I help him, he's gonna help me."

Well, Peggy, how's that working out for you? Putting gas in your car regularly? Making that ol' mortgage payment? Getting those checks from your savior like clockwork?

Me? I lived through all the hype of the last presidential election, getting called a racist because I didn't support someone whose politics I find abhorrent, voting for someone whom I considered marginal because he was the only choice we had. I was forced to retire from one job because I still believed in customer service instead of minimizing the cost to the stock holders, to move into another career. So now I get two retirement checks and a regular paycheck in a growth industry with all the overtime I can handle. I'm putting gas in my truck and making my mortgage payments without any help from Barack Obama.

How about the rest of you?

ECS

Scary gun trade

Have you ever fallen into a gun trade by accident that just turns out very well for you, and it was the other guy's idea? Happened to me this past week. A family member needed some money, so I offered a more than fair sum for a nice (not terrific) Smith & Wesson Model 10-5 four-inch tapered, pinned barreled revolver. So far, so good, right? Well, to do that, I needed to sell something else, so I made a deal with a coworker to sell him a KelTec P32 that I hadn't carried since I shot it over a Chrony chronograph and realized how really underpowered it was.

Then, it happened. Turned out my coworker couldn't sell the gun he was selling to buy my KelTec and his wife told him, "You can't buy it unless you sell something else." So, there we were, both of us short of money and unable to complete the deals. Well, my wife moved some money around so I could complete the deal with the family member, leaving me with a KelTec P32 and a guy who wanted it.

I called my coworker to ask him if he still wanted the P32, and he allowed as how he did but couldn't come up with the cash. I asked him what he was trying to sell, and he told me it was a stainless steel Smith & Wesson snubnosed revolver. Figuring to help out a buddy, I told him to bring it into the office, and I'd trade him straight across.

This afternoon, we made the swap. I traded him a fairly well-used KelTec P32, a spare magazine, a box of CorBon .32 ACP ammo, an Uncle Mike's pocket holster, and a Fobus paddle holster for a Smith & Wesson revolver. Turns out, the S&W isn't stainless, it's nickel-plated. It's a nickel-plated Model 37 (no dash) Airweight with custom finger-groove grips with a palm swell. It was made in 1982, and could be sold ANIB if it had the box and papers.

I did ask my coworker if he was sure he wanted to go through with the trade, and he insisted that he did. Well, I tried to do the right thing...

ECS

Time flies...

Okay, it's been over a year since I posted anything. In my defense, I've been kind of busy. I am a security specialist, and I was working Petrochemical Security for a refining and marketing company before, during, and after a "merger of equals." Once the merger was completed, I realized that nothing was going to change (Security was a cost factor, not a money maker. Therefore, security issues were secondary to everything else.) so I left.

I am now working as a security specialist for a city government. The hours are better, the money is better, the support is tremendous, and we get money from Homeland Security to buy neat stuff! There is some grumbling from city employees about the changes and some confusion from the public about just who we are ("Are you guys police officers?"), but we just keep smiling. Word just went out to city employees that failure to present their badges on request can result in disciplinary action up to and including termination. (We can issue temporary badges to those folks who forget theirs.)

I'm carrying a Glock 22 .40 S&W on duty these days (City requirement - It's what the cops carry) but on my own time I'm still a revolver guy.

More later.

ECS

Convenience store shooting has robber's family asking questions

Unbelieveable. Two masked men armed with rifles enter a convenience store in North Tulsa, start shooting, and the clerk shoots back with a handgun, killing one of the robbers, and the robber's family has questions?

The deceased robber, identified as 14-year-old(!) Qualynn Dabney, was an eighth grader in an alternative school program operated through a partnership between the Tulsa County Juvenile Bureau and the Tulsa Public Schools, indicating that he was not a stranger to the justice system. By accounts in the article, he was a wonderful student, well-liked, and energetic, yet he ended up dead on the floor of a convenience store with a .22 rifle next to his body.

His grandmother, who was not identified as a witness, said the "other boy" had the rifle and fled, leaving her grandson alone and unarmed. She doesn't think he should have been shot and wants a thorough investigation. I think that's a wonderful idea.

Questions need to be asked all right. How about we find out from the family:
1) Why was a 14-year-old boy out on the streets at 10:45 PM on a school night?
2) What was a 14-year-old boy doing robbing a convenience store?
3) What was a 14-year-old boy doing with a gun, despite his family's claim that he didn't have a gun?
4) What should the clerk have done when two men burst into his store shooting?
5) Would they rather have had the clerk, just a man working for a living, been shot by the 14-year-old boy?
6) Will they identify the "other boy" since they seem to know so much about the crime?
7) Are there any other questions they want to ask in an attempt to deflect interest away from their failure to control their child and prevent him from meeting his untimely end?

I seriously doubt that the clerk had time to determine how old his assailants were nor that it would have mattered since they apparently came in the door shooting. It is enough that he was in fear for his life and returned fire. The fact that a 14-year-old child who should have been home in bed died is a tragedy, but he made bad choice, a choice from which his family should have protected him.

I just hope the "culture of silence" doesn't protect his partner in crime who also is responsible for this young man's death.

ECS

September 11, then and now

On September 11, 2001, I was at work in Tulsa preparing one of our corporate classrooms for a new group of employees. When I went back into our L&D office one of my coworkers asked me to turn on the radio in my cubicle because a plane had hit the World Trade Center.

With my first thought that it was a replay of the B-25 hitting the Empire State Building during WW2, I turned on my portable radio. We listened in growing horror as events unfolded.

Moving to the theater/auditorium where someone had put the television on the main screen, we watched, some in horror, some in anger, as the second plane hit the second tower. I stayed to watch people jumping to escape the flames, to hear about the Pentagon attack, and to see both towers collapse. I was one of the angry ones.

We had an office in one of the towers.

We were all released for the rest of the day. By the time I left the building, the sky was empty of aircraft and what contrails crossed the sky were fading.

I went to get my corporate-length hair cropped, shaved my beard, and trimmed my mustache back to military regs. I called the Army and had a nice young sergeant advise me the that they weren’t currently accepting applications from members of the Retired Reserve to return to active duty.

On Saturday, September 11, 2010, I flew my flag and attended our neighborhood block party. Now too old to be recalled to active duty, having been too high mileage and beat up to be recalled before reaching the magic age 55, I listened to my neighbors chatter and the children play. In the nine years since the attack on our country, people seem to have forgotten.

I haven’t forgotten. I haven’t forgiven. Every time I see people shaking their fists in rage screaming, “Death to America!” for some presumed or pretended slight to their religion or culture, I get angry all over again.

I’m tired of waiting for “moderate Muslims” in the United States to decry the violence and demonic behavior by their co-religionists. I’m tired of being “deemed” a racist and hater by people who hate me because I don’t believe as they do. I’m tired of being treated like some barbarian because I advocate defending our country, our borders, and our families from anyone who would do us harm.

I’m not sure when the change took place, the lessening of the anger, the numbness that replaced the shock, the complacency that replaced the calls to action, but I don’t like it one bit. What has happened in this country is like losing interest in WW2 sometime after Operation Torch and before Operation Overlord.

It’s time to replay the images of that day, complete and uncensored. People need to be reminded of exactly what happened and why. Those foreigners who demand that we honor the freedom of religion of their co-religionists need to be told to do the same in their own countries, allow freedom of religion. Those who don’t want their holy books burned should stop burning holy books. Oh, and the next time someone claims that I am a member of the “Taliban wing of the Republican Party,” I may just punch his lights out.

ECS
Captain, Armor
Army of the United States (Retired)

Invasion in an undeclared war and treason at the highest levels

The United States of America is being invaded, American citizens are being killed, property is being despoiled, and our government refuses to do anything about it, thus committing treason.

Yeah, I said treason. The accused? President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, members of Congress, former Presidents George Bush, Bill Clinton, and members of their administrations.

A rancher in Arizona is murdered and his dog shot while trying to help illegal aliens he found on his land over the weekend. Robert Krentz called a family member to say he'd found one or more illegals at one of his water holes and was helping them. He and his dog ended up dead, and the presumptive killers fled on foot to Mexico. Were they members of the Mexican military or police? Probably not, although it's common knowledge that the drug cartels have suborned entire units of Mexican military, paramilitary, and police. The Border Patrol and the county sheriff have no suspects. I can't tell them who killed Mr. Krentz, but I can tell them who enabled the crime: every one of those people I listed above.

People living on the border with Mexico tell of gates smashed, fences cut or run down, cattle run wild or killed, butchered, and cooked on the spot, property stolen. They tell of people knocking on doors at all hours, demanding food, water, and beer, and making threats. Ranchers have given up on their livelihoods on land their families have owned for more than a century. People go armed to check their livestock and water holes. They don't go out at night. They're afraid to leave their homes unattended. They're afraid to confront trespassers. They're afraid their trucks will be stolen from the Walmart parking lots.

The Border Patrol has apprehended over 20,000 illegals in the area in the last twelve months just on this one section of the border. If they catch one-in-four, that's almost one hundred thousand illegals a year coming into the United States. If the ratio is one-in-ten, that's getting close to a quarter of a million illegals. That, folks, is an invasion.

What is the response of our government? Well, the local Congresswoman says she's going to ask for Federal troops to be deployed along the border. Senator McCain hasn't spoken of it, nor has his La Raza-approved advisor. We've heard the Attorney General and Secretary of State claim that the drug cartels are armed with guns purchased illegally at US gun shops and gun shows and say nothing when the Mexican government functionaries claim that our Second Amendment is to blame for the violence on the Mexican side of the border. Those same Mexican government functionaries assist the illegal border crossers because the money earned by illegals in the United States and sent home provide the second highest amount of Mexican income behind oil.

So what we have is an invasion of the United States facilitated by the Mexican government, aided and abetted by members of our own government at the very highest levels, and nothing is done. Nothing is done to those who hire illegals. Nothing is done to truly secure the border. No one in our government tells the Mexican government to solve their own problems. No one in our government wants to eject the illegal aliens living in our midst, who are, by definition, criminals.

The actions of the Mexican government amount to a war on the United States, an economic infiltration of our borders by people hostile to us and our way of life. The actions of the United States government amount to nothing less than treason.

Strong words, you say? Tell it to the Krentz family. I'm sure they'll be receptive.

ECS