Atkins was Right, or Beauty is More than Skin Deep

For nine years, conventional wisdom has told me that my predilection for cream and cheese is killing me, a view that people have constantly reminded me of. The issue, apparently, is arteriosclerosis, also known as "hardening of the arteries" or "plaque buildup."

This conversation occurred at the completion of a carotid artery ultrasound ordered in the aftermath of my recent "TIA" episode:

"I don't suppose you can comment on the results?" I asked the technician, hopefully.

"Well, the radiologist will come up with the numbers," she said, "but you're beautiful!"

"That's flattering," I said, "but I was asking about the ultrasound."

She giggled. "I look inside people's bodies every day, and that's where I find beauty. You're beautiful! There's no hint of plaque in your arteries, and, for a man your age, that's rare!"

The official radiology report later confirmed her assessment: "No significant fibrocalcific plaque...[and]...no evidence for hemodynamically significant stenosis." See a copy of the report on our family web site.

Significant is the fact that it is now nine years that I have been curbing carbs and welcoming fats -- with the encouragement of Atkins and with the biochemical explanation of "Syndrome X."

During that time, I have been criticized by people for being misled, reckless, and foolish. I most certainly had arteriosclerosis and was in danger of keeling over from a heart attack at any time. Particularly in light of Lawrence and Kitchener both having had heart trouble, I was placing myself at great risk.

Although Syndrome X's findings and explanation seemed compelling and my own blood tests showed improvement, still when conventional wisdom keeps getting hammered at you for a decade, you begin to wonder and doubt.

This doubt is now cleared up. Atkins was right. Syndrome X is right. Conventional wisdom is flat-out wrong. I'm not going to die of heart problems.

Instead, I'll die of cancer. I've had three different forms of it already. All of them originated before nine years ago, so I don't think low-carb/high-fat has had anything to do with them, but....

Six Year Old Ambiguity

Tom, with a bachelors degree in sports medicine, travels with the Ute girl's volleyball team to provide first-line treatment for injuries and other medical issues. As the girls have swept into and through the national play-offs, Tom has been out of state more often than at home, including the entire Thanksgiving weekend.

Six year old Claire follows the exploits of the girls team with interest and appreciation, but she does miss Daddy and has become aware that his extended absences will terminate only when the girls lose.

The girls swept the preliminaries and made it to the "Sweet 16" in Seattle -- where their long winning streak ended.

"Guess who's coming home," offered Michelle.

"Daddy!?"

"Yes."

"Did the girls lose last night?" Claire asked, disgruntled.

"Yes."

"Awesome!" she stated without the slightest disgruntle.

TIA: A new synonym for "Senior Moment"

I had a TIA! At least that's what they said in the emergency room when they couldn't find anything else to explain it. (TIA: Transient Ischemic Attack, also known as a short-term stroke, a precursor to a full, all-out stroke.)

I had a roaring sinus infection accompanying a painful ear ache and went to the doctor (OK, a nurse practioner, the doctor being unavailable), and I couldn't remember "Coumadin" when I was asked what medications I was taking. I finally came up with "Warfarin" which satisfied her and caused her to say "Coumadin" which didn't even sound familiar. I also tried to tell her the antibiotic that I had just been on for my ear infection, but had to mentally thrash around to come up with "Keflex" from a mental image of the prescription. That didn't sound familiar or in-context, either, but it satisfied her and I let it go.

On the way out to the car, I called Carolyn as I normally do, and couldn't remember how to place the call. I mentally thrashed around again and tried something which connected me to voice-mail. I then tried something else which succeeded.

An hour later, I went shopping with Carolyn. She sent me to put some packages in the trunk. I couldn't remember how to open the trunk! More thrashing. I focused on the mysterious button under the dash board. I didn't know what it was for and there was absolutely no mental association of it with the trunk, but I remembered that I had pushed it often and seemingly never when the car was in motion. I tried it and the trunk opened. My satisfaction at this result was short lived as I realized that it seemed like a brand new discovery -- learning about a relationship that I had never before known. This disturbed me because logic said that this should be a well-known and long-understood relationship.

At that point, I talked Carolyn into dropping me off at the ER to find out what was happening to me.

An hour later as I lay in the ER, I realized that all had become clear again and that I remembered, knew, and understood all those things that had been a mystery a short time before. They took a CT scan of my skull and failed to find any evidence of a blood clot but they did note that all my sinuses and my left ear were infected. They took an x-ray of my chest looking for something mysterious and didn't find it but did note my broken ribs. The nurse also placed in my record her observation that I was wobbly when she led me to the room. I don't remember that but do remember that she appologized for not placing me in a wheelchair for the trip. Not having anything else to go on, they said it was a TIA and instructed me to see my primary care physician for follow up. I did, and she decided that it didn't look like a TIA and concluded that it was simply a lack of blood sugar. She was the first of several over the next couple of weeks to express dismay at the fact that we don't really have regular meals in our house. I didn't realize it was that big a deal.

But now we refer to any "senior moments" as TIA's. We've both been having them regularly ever since then.

Remedial Course on Mt. Aire

A month ago (September 29th), I tripped over my own feet and fell on my face on Mt. Aire. I broke three ribs, collapsed a lung, and spent the next eleven days in the hospital.

During that same time, Michelle gave birth to our 8th grandchild in the same hospital (St. Marks). That was convenient for Carolyn who could walk back and forth between 4-West and The Women's Pavilion and visit us both. Sometimes I accompanied her to visit Michelle. Sometimes I even went by myself.

That's where I ran into a few problems.

Homely old men in off-colored hospital gowns dragging oxygen canisters behind them are not common sights in the Women's Pavilion and I was frequently challenged. "Sir, may I help you? Are you lost?" "Isn't this 4-West?" "No, sir. It is not!" I learned not to make such flippant responses. It didn't help. For the most part I could convince them that I had a reasonable excuse to be there -- to visit my daughter and hold my hours-old grandson. Only once was my nurse called on me and even her I was able to convince that I did know where I was and how to get back to my 4-West home.

These experiences reminded me of when that same daughter had her learner's permit some 2 decades earlier. I was sitting in the obligatory passenger seat admiring the competence of my pretty little chauffeur. I knew that she would pass the drivers test with flying colors -- which proved to be prescient. She got 100%, something I have never achieved either before or since.

Anyway, on that particular occasion, the task was simple. She was to navigate the car from one corner of the large California mall parking lot to the opposite corner where we could get out on the road and go home. The trouble was that it was mid-December, the Christmas shopping season was in full sway, and the parking lot was oozing with vehicles, all trolling for parking places. It was a new situation for little Michelle.

I was a little startled when I had to yell, "Stop!" at the first intersection to keep her from colliding with a car. I was even more surprised when I had to yell "Stop!" for one reason or another at every other intersection across the parking lot. That shook my confidence a little. Hers, too.

I realized that she was navigating the entire parking lot simultaneously. She was attempting to gain and keep intellectual control of every turn and every route and every alternate turn and route, and every alternate-alternate turn and route between her and her destination -- the complete parking lot, all at the same time. In the process of filling her brain with all that data, she was missing vital info, such as the fact that within 30 feet of her were multiple moving vehicles, all on a collision course with her. "No, Sweetheart," I could say. "The human brain doesn't work that way -- not even super flexible, active, 16 year old, female brains. You know exactly where you're going and generally how you want to get there. That's enough. You then have to focus on the here and now -- exactly where you are at this very second -- and make those decisions which will facilitate your eventual arrival at your known destination." I was proud of myself for my great understanding of this life-metaphor and of my ability to explain it to my daughter.

Little did I realize, as I lay face down in the dust of the Mt. Aire trail, trying to relearn how to breathe, that I was beginning a remedial course on this same lesson.

After I mastered some of the more basic techniques of breathing, I got to my feet. There were only a few things I clearly understood about my situation. First was that I hurt something awful. The second was that, at that location just below the sharp bend in the Mt. Aire trail at the saddle, I was almost exactly 1 mile from the trail-head where the car was parked and about 1200 feet above it. That meant that the average slope was 25%. And that was the average. Often it was far worse than that.

It's strange what one thinks of under those conditions. What I thought of was the allegorical story of the man who looked back over his life and noticed that every where he went there were two sets of foot prints, one beside the other, and he knew, for reasons that I don't remember, that this was because the Savior had walked with him, hand-in-hand, his entire life. But sometimes he noted that there was only one set of prints. And he also observed that this always occurred when his life had been the most difficult -- when adversity had been most intense.

"My Lord," he asked, "why did you abandon me at such times to walk the path alone? How could you have done it?"

"My son," he replied, "those were the times when I carried you."

And I thought, "Ok, my Lord, feel free to carry me now. You won't find me complaining of only one set of foot prints here. I'm ready and willing for you to carry me."

"Yes, my son," he said. "I will carry you by placing your feet exactly where they need to be all the way down the mountain," and I was filled with peace, love, joy, and security.

Then I looked down the trail and all those good feelings went away. They were replaced by uncertainty, doubt, and a fear that bordered on panic.

"You're doing it wrong," He said.

"OK, my Lord. How am I supposed to do it?"

"Don't look so far down the trail. Focus on the few feet right in front of you and I will show you and help you place your left foot. Then I will show you and help you place your right foot. Then move your focus a few feet further on and I will show you and help you place your left foot. Then I will show you and help you place your right foot, and you will be carried, inexorably, to safety."

"Yes, my Lord. I can do that." And I was filled with peace, love, joy, and security.

Trouble is, I kept screwing it up. I knew the trail and so I often looked around to see where I was, how far I'd come, and how far I still had to go, and, when I looked down the trail I was filled with fear.

"You're doing it wrong, again."

"Yes, my Lord. Focus. Left foot. Right foot...."

And, even though I kept screwing it up, eventually, with surprising abruptness, I found myself standing by the car door. I was filled with tremendous relief and gratitude for having been carried to safety.

I was then shocked at the agony induced as I folded my body into a configuration that fit inside the car and I drew all my body parts in after me. Then I gingerly drove down the canyon and was happy when there was cell service so I could reach out and touch Carolyn, and whine.

But I later could paraphrase Elizabeth Smart's statement to Oprah a few weeks earlier: "I'm not sure I'd ever choose to go through that again, nor would I ever want to wish it on anyone else, but good things resulted." In fact, I think she was saying some of the same things that the Willey and Martin handcart company survivors said. And although my tiny hour in no way compares to their multi-month ordeals, yet I can say that (1) I've never felt closer to the Lord in my entire life, nor (2) understood more fully the importance of continuously, day by day, minute by minute, making those decisions with the help of the Lord which will most optimally facilitate our journey toward the goal we all clearly have in mind. And (3) it doesn't matter how often we screw up. He has infinite patience and continues to give us help and guidance as soon as we are amenable to such. And (4) the peace of the Spirit is powerful and can coexist with physical misery, which is good because, having already had three different forms of cancer, I can expect my last days to be physically unpleasant, and (5) the Spirit is also quite different from the chemical effects of medication such as the well-expired Vicodins Carolyn gave me which induced a feeling of comfortable floating within an hour of my getting home. I've never had a clearer opportunity to compare these two effects, full-strength, in real time.

I can't think of anything I would be willing to trade for those experiences.

Grandkids are growing

Melinda's post re Dillon's talk reminded me that our grandkids are growing up so fast that it startles us. That's the case even for Claire whom we see multiple times each week. How much more is it the case for the ones we see only a couple of times a year.

In August, it was a novelty to carry on a conversation with Dillon. That's never been possible before. In this case it was about Melinda's instructions concerning his breakfast. I had questions: "Did she say..?" and he told me exactly what she must have said because that's the way she does it. And when I got it wrong anyway, he would correct me. "Grandpa, Mommy doesn't cut up my waffle." He ate it anyway.

And Claire comes up with surprises, too.

Grandma informed me in their presence, "When Claire allows you to put on her eye patch, give her and Dillon a see-oh-oh-kay-eye-ee." "No!" exclaimed Claire. "Only I should get the see-oh-kay-eye-ee."

Logical. But we're going to have to learn Spanish.

And at Wheeler Farm, Claire, Dillon, and I came out of the restroom and saw Melinda rapidly pushing Jeremy in his stroller up the sidewalk away from us. She probably didn't know where we were and she was hurrying to search for us. We cut across this huge lawn to intercept her.

Claire, at a dead run with Dillon in tow, headed for a foot bridge across a ditch made to look like a little brook that separated us from the sidewalk. I noticed that there was a tiny rope strung across the foot bridge with a triangular flag hanging from it to prevent someone from accidentally tripping over the rope. I looked around and noted that the entire huge lawn was roped off, apparently for a private reservation for a group I noted occupying a distant corner. We had entered it at the only place where it was not roped off -- near the restroom, of course.

Claire saw the rope just in time to avoid running into it and she stopped so fast that Dillon almost ran into her. Then she turned away. That surprised me because I expected the rope to be about as much hindrance to their progress as a sunbeam across their path.

Claire headed upstream to another little bridge which, by that time, was even closer to Melinda and found the rope strung across that one, too. At this point, she also looked around and saw that the entire lawn was roped off.

"Grandpa," she exclaimed in dismay, "we can't get out!"

I was startled and impressed with her respect for law, order, and barrier, and I considered turning around and exiting the area by the restroom where we had entered. I considered it for a good 2 milliseconds, then I lifted up the rope and invited her and Dillon to walk under it, which they did. Claire was wearing a little grin as she did so.

And I felt terrible. I hope I didn't permanently damage their respect for law and order.

Time for your swimming lesson, Claire.

I think I made a mistake when I pointed out to Claire that the only place she was allowed to run was on the diving board. I was shocked to suddenly see my 5-year old granddaughter sprinting the length of the diving board and gleefully leaping wide out over the rippling chasm. And here I am, sprinting through the water to grab her within 2 seconds after she hit the 9 foot bottom -- more for my peace of mind than hers, apparently.

She had found an exciting new activity we could do together and she repeated it over and over leaving grandpa exhausted and the lifeguard, observing all from atop her pedestal, giggling.

Claire is now registered for swimming lessons beginning November 1st.

If you're 50 and not a conservative....

I have a favorite quote which I often pull on my kids. They respond with eye rolls and other signs of irritation. The quote is attributed to Churchill:

"If you're 20 years old and not a liberal, you have no heart. If you're 50 years old and not a conservative, you have no brain."

This speaks truth to me, but the best expression of this truth was recently given by national columnist, Thomas Sowell, in his 9/11 column. From his picture, Sowell appears to be a good looking black man. This is his column:

Liberals' lofty vision often runs counter to real world threats, experience

Conservatives, as well as liberals, would undoubtedly be happier living in the kind of world envisioned by the left.

Very few people have either a vested interest or an ideological preference for a world in which there are many inequalities.

Even fewer would prefer a world in which vast sums of money have to be devoted to military defense, when so much benefit could be produced if those resources were directed into medical research instead.

It is hardly surprising that young people prefer the political left. The only reason for rejecting the left's vision is that the real world in which we live is very different from the world that the left perceives today or envisions for tomorrow.

Most of us learn that from experience — but experience is precisely what the young are lacking.

"Experience" is often just a fancy word for the mistakes that we belatedly realized we were making, only after the realities of the world made us pay a painful price for being wrong.

Those who are insulated from that pain — whether by being born into affluence or wealth, or shielded by the welfare state, or insulated by tenure in academia or in the federal judiciary — can remain in a state of perpetual immaturity.

Individuals can refuse to grow up, especially when surrounded in their work and in their social life by similarly situated and like-minded people.

Even people born into normal lives, but who have been able through talent or luck to escape into a world of celebrity and wealth, can likewise find themselves in the enviable position of being able to choose whether to grow up or not.

Those of us who can recall what it was like to be an adolescent must know that growing up can be a painful transition from the sheltered world of childhood.

No matter how much we may have wanted adult freedom, there was seldom the same enthusiasm for taking on the burdens of adult responsibilities and having to weigh painful trade-offs in a world that hemmed us in on all sides, long after we were liberated from parental restrictions.

Should we be surprised that the strongest supporters of the political left are found among the young, academics, limousine liberals with trust funds, media celebrities and federal judges?

These are hardly Karl Marx's proletarians, who were supposed to bring on the revolution. The working class are in fact today among those most skeptical about the visions of the left.

Ordinary working class people did not lead the stampede to Barack Obama, even before his disdain for them slipped out in unguarded moments.

The agenda of the left is fine for the world that they envision as existing today and the world they want to create tomorrow.

That is a world not hemmed in on all sides by inherent constraints and the painful trade-offs that these constraints imply. Theirs is a world where there are attractive, win-win "solutions" in place of those ugly trade-offs in the world that the rest of us live in.

Theirs is a world where we can just talk to opposing nations and work things out, instead of having to pour tons of money into military equipment to keep them at bay. The left calls this "change" but in fact it is a set of notions that were tried out by the Western democracies in the 1930s — and which led to the most catastrophic war in history.

For those who bother to study history, it was precisely the opposite policies in the 1980s — pouring tons of money into military equipment — which brought the Cold War and its threat of nuclear annihilation to an end.

The left fought bitterly against that "arms race" which in fact lifted the burden of the Soviet threat, instead of leading to war as the elites claimed.

Personally, I wish Ronald Reagan could have talked the Soviets into being nicer, instead of having to spend all that money. Only experience makes me skeptical about that "kinder and gentler" approach and the vision behind it.

The Church Will Prosper

In Tuesday's live BYU devotional, Scott M. Ritter quoted a scripture that I've been thinking a lot about recently:

"As well might man stretch forth his puny arm to stop the Missouri river in its decreed course, or to turn it up stream, as to hinder the Almighty from pouring down knowledge from heaven upon the heads of the Latter-day Saints." (D&C 121:33)

I've been thinking about that with respect to Anne Osborn. See my blog of Sunday, June 29, 2008. Recording our thoughts in black and white helps to solidify them and to reveal previously unrecognized correlations. This is the epiphany that resulted:

The Church will continue to prosper.

Why? Because the Lord is providing a steady stream of souls of Anne's caliber who have amazing spiritual experiences and who then become powerful tools in His hands.

In Tuesday's devotional, Ritter also offered a number of interesting quotes about the effects of the Spirit. (He also commended and praised Darwin's Theory of Evolution, which was startling but with which I totally agree, but that's for another journal entry.)

It's as I generalized from one full-time mission and three stake missions: If a person sheds tears during the first discussion, that person will be baptized and will remain active. It's not necessary. We saw many who were not immediately so affected but who were still baptized and remained active, but from the handful of examples of those who were so affected, it appears to be sufficient.

Why? Because we are more convinced by our feelings than by our intellect. Bruce Springsteen was right when he said, "I continue to do this [make music and go on concert tours, etc., even though he has plenty of money for the rest of his life] into 'old age' [he's 58] because of the way it makes me feel and because of the way I can make others feel." (A quote from tonight's 60 Minutes.)

And that's what the Holy Ghost did to Anne Osborn. It provides the most intensely euphoric "high" possible. People know, intuitively, that they should have and should be having this "high" and they try to find it or find out how to get as close to it as possible.

So much of what people believe will lead them to it turns out to be a chimera. I'm not saying that Springsteen's music falls into this category. Music, if wholesome, leads to this high, though often only the way I-80 leads to Cheyenne. We can get on it and reach Cheyenne, or we may get on it and then get off at Park City or maybe even at Parley's Way. To reach the destination our numinous sense perceives and longs for, we have to go way beyond Springsteen. Anne found this way and fully pursued it.

And, as D&C 121:33 says, the Lord doesn't give us this high just to make us feel good. It's accompanied by tremendous insight and knowledge. The mysteries of the heavens are opened to us. The Holy Ghost places pure knowledge into our minds and this is always accompanied by this highest of all highs and greatest of all joys. Nothing else even approaches this for compelling conviction. It is knowledge in its purest sense.

Because of Anne, and so many, many others like her, the Church will prosper and continue to prosper.

We can be part of that if we choose. We can allow ourselves to become amenable to the greatest blessings, insight, and joy the Lord has for us and be a great benefit to the Lord, or we can take the first convenient exit off that freeway or even plunge into the tragic dead-end of a chimera pursuit and become irrelevant.

It's our choice.

Thinking of Nothing is a Productive Thing to Do

There's more to the mind than thinking, more to learning than reasoning, more to memory than observing, and more to productivity than frothy white activity.

The lead article in this week's MormonTimes has the headline “Noise reduction” with subhead: “Making time to reflect allows spirit to connect.” It derives strictly from LDS sources and quotes multiple prophets including President Hinkley. The bottom line is that we need to allocate time for pondering and meditation, and this time should be free of noise and other sensory stimulation, and that is difficult in today's world.

Of course I enjoy some of the non-LDS confirmation sources as well.

The Larry Fleinhardt character of NUMB3RS is an introspective genius who tends to perceive the human condition in terms of cosmic metaphors. He seems to believe in meditation and he practices it but characterizes it as “trying to think of nothing.” The writers skillfully leave it to the viewer to decide whether this is valid and, if so, whether it's productive.

I believe that it is both valid and productive. There are a number of documented evidences for this. I will reference two:

1. A recent NOVA episode and a recent 60 Minutes report both featured the same study that shows that deep sleep facilitates learning and memory. Subjects are instructed to type an unfamiliar and awkward sequence of numbers with the non-dominant hand. It requires many minutes of practice to do it easily and accurately. Twelve hours later they are found to have lost quite a bit of facility and accuracy, as expected, unless they have had a significant amount of sleep during that time. In the latter case, it is found that both the speed and accuracy have significantly improved! In other words, while the person sleeps, the brain is constructing new connections to facilitate the activity and this is found to occur during the deepest part of the sleep – the delta-wave sleep, the time when the person is most nearly comatose.

“Let me sleep on it and get back to you,” is a reflection of the historic recognition given to this phenomenon. Many people have observed that they go to bed with confusing, insolvable problems in their heads and wake up the next morning with confusion dissipated and the solutions clear.

This is found to benefit both learning and memory. A person of my age spends much less time in this deep sleep phase and this is seen to be a possible factor in an older persons degradation of memory and of ability to learn new things.

2 In skilled meditators – e.g. the Dahli Lahma and his associates – where they are able to closely approach Dr. Fleinhardt's “thinking of nothing” state, brain scans show that the brain actually increases in its energy consumption, and a larger than normal quantity of the brain is involved in this energy-consuming activity. What is the brain doing when one would think that it is not doing much of anything? That brings up the advantages of meditation which are touted as ability to reprogram the subconscious, alter one's basic personality and intuitive/reflexive responses, and solve problems as mentioned in number 1 above, among other things.

In other words, there's more to the mind than thinking, more to learning than reasoning, more to memory than observing, and more to productivity than frothy white activity. If we rely on thinking, reasoning, observing, and activity alone without the quiet interludes to allow the subconscious sorting, cataloguing, referencing, and correlating activities that turn data into knowledge and knowledge into wisdom, we are impeding, even laming our effectiveness.

If we can't find time to sit down and meditate without grabbing a book, a TV remote, a game control, or counter-cross-stitch, we are denying ourselves a great deal.

And, of course, the temple is an ideal place for the kind of meditative reflection mentioned. We should not have to immediately grab the scriptures when we sit down in the assembly chapel or even in the Celestial Room. The Lord wants to reveal amazing mysteries of the kingdom to us. We should give him the chance. Prayer is supposed to be a two-way conversation.

Claire Casitgates Legs

It's been a big week for Claire and her two-wheeler. She crammed to prepare to be in the Evergreen parade. She was close to being able to ride without the training wheels, but not quite close enough.

Her cramming did some good and now she's much more at ease with the bike. Today, even after the parade, she wanted to go, go, go on her bike -- long trips with Mommy and Daddy who accompanied her on foot (Grandpa concentrated on the shorter practices up and down the hill in front of the house).

Such activities produced a new effect for her: leg aches! She became noticeably irritated with her legs and chewed them out for slowing her down! She then insisted that they stop at a bicycle gas station which she identified and had to point out to Mommy and Daddy. After pausing there for 30 seconds, she declared the bicycle gas tank to be full and off they went again. That particular round trip was close to two miles. She did a much longer one earlier with Daddy. Good exercise for all of them.

Two weeks later, she was riding comfortably without training wheels. If there were a local parade for the 24th....

(And now I've learned to upload pictures! Getting them positioned where I want them is another issue. Anyone got any hints?)

Claire's Cute, Too

Our kids generate blogs primarily to comment on the cuteness of our grandchildren -- and that's a very valuable function.

That's not my primary function, but we can do it, too, since we have Claire two days a week, and tonight is a special sleepover in preparation for the 4th of July parade tomorrow morning.

Though not yet having started kindergarten, Claire's getting to be quite a little mathematician. For instance, she can add 2+2, 4+4, 4+3, and even 7+7. The latter is quite a stretch considering her finger-counting technique. She can count almost indefinitely. Almost. Grandma said, "Look, Claire. The temperature is 99 degrees! What comes after ninety-nine?" "Ninety-ten," she responded without hesitation. (Well, if it had been the generally accepted answer, it wouldn't have been worth commenting on. Right?)

When Grandpa got back to the table, Grandma and Claire had a monkey-quiz for him extracted from the sack of the Carl's Jr. kiddie lunch. (Carl's Jr -- her choice tonight.) Grandpa even got some of them right. "I want to do it again!" stated Claire.

"OK," said Grandma. "What time is it when 20 monkeys chase one banana?"

"Twenty after one," said Claire.

"Where does a 2000 pound gorilla sit when he's tired?"

"Anywhere he wants!"

"What did the banana say to the monkey?"

"Nothing. Bananas can't talk."

"What kind of key doesn't open doors?"

"A gorilla!"

OK. Some things can be over rehearsed.

Maybe someday, I'll even learn how to post pictures.

Glory in Weakness

I watched Br. Barnes devotional a second time. It's nice to have it DVR'd. These are significant points that speak to me:

1. Weakness is not sin. Sin is a conscious violation of God's commandments. Weakness is a gift from God (as clearly defined in Ether 12:27).

2. The atonement of Christ does not change us to eliminate our weaknesses. It changes us to accommodate and deal effectively with our weaknesses and to be strengthened by them.

3. Paul, in 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, begged the Lord thrice to take his "thorn" away, but was blessed, instead, to glory in his thorn for the good it brought him in Jesus Christ.

A new thought to me, therefore, since I have the same weakness as Br. Barnes -- fear of looking bad -- is that I will always have this fear of looking bad, but that I will be strengthened as I become more effective in dealing with it. Same for all my other weaknesses.

Fear of Looking Bad

Michael Barne's in today's BYU devotional, touched a powerful chord. In a discussion of Ether 12:27 and of 2 Corinthians 12: 7-10, he used his own weakness of "the fear of looking bad" as a case in point. I recognize this, with this exact wording, as a serious problem for me. In a recent discussion with Melinda, who is very good at expressing her personal concerns, and in on-going discussions with Carolyn, who, after four decades feels equally free, I understand this fear to be common to all three of us -- and therefore possibly to many more.

I am impressed with Brother Barne's thorough examination of Ether 12:27 (a scripture which was also a favorite of Mom's, Ireta C. Head's, and which she considered to be useful to me because she often drew my attention to it), and I refer everyone to this examination. It is available on http://www.byub.org/devotionals/ and should soon be downloadable and viewable online.

If I can come up with a bottom line to this half-hour devotional, it is the concluding clause in Ether 12:27: "...then will I make weak things [i.e., the fear-of-looking-bad mentioned above] become strong unto them," and 2 Corinthians 12:10: "Therefore I take pleasure in [my weaknesses] for Christ's sake, for when I am weak, then am I strong."

But I advise everyone to watch/listen to the entire devotional.

Anne Osborn -- "I knew it was true."

I walked into priesthood meeting early one Sunday morning in (or around) 1970 and was startled to see a stunningly beautiful girl sitting on the stand as though she belonged there. There was also another woman and there were two men, none of whom were familiar. Bishop Donaldson of the Stanford 2nd Ward informed us that he had invited these four people to tell us about their recent conversion.

I don't remember anything any of them said except the girl. She informed us that her name was Anne Osborn, that she was a medical student at Stanford, and that she had been baptized just two days before. It was not lost on us that her first church meeting as a fully baptized Mormon was priesthood meeting.

Having been asked to tell us about her conversion, Anne complied in amazing detail with primary emphasis on the most recent three weeks. I'd never heard such an explicit description of the way the Holy Ghost works in a conversion, nor the way the adversary tries to nullify the process. She never actually mentioned "Holy Ghost" or "adversary" or any similar terms, but it was clear what had happened. I sat transfixed. It seemed as though every spiritual experience I'd ever had in my entire life was being described with words for the first time. So that's how it's expressed! How it sounds! And the whole thing accompanied a spiritual atmosphere so dense that one scarcely dared to breathe. It was an experience that I'll never forget.

Anne went on to become a popular fireside speaker. No wonder, I thought, with the story she has to tell. She wrote a number of Church books and she wrote articles in official and semi-official Church publications. She eventually married Ron Poelman, a widowed general authority. Vocationally, she became an internationally recognized neuroradiologist writing texts and publishing innumerable papers. One can Google her as "Anne G. Osborn" to get a flavor of her vocational acclaim or as "Anne Osborn Poelman" for the church flavor.

A few years after the priesthood meeing, I had an opportunity to attend one of her firesides. I looked forward to a reprise of her amazing account. She spent the better part of an entire hour telling about her conversion. She even mentioned the priesthood meeting, but she covered the main three week climax of her conversion in a single sentence: "I studied with the missionaries for three weeks and was baptized."

Yeah? That was it?! What a disappointment.

At the conclusion of the fireside, I told her that I was at that priesthood meeting and heard her amazing account and wanted to hear it again. She said, "Oh, I never talk about those things. They're too sacred."

OK, that I understood. As Dale Mouritsen points out, the word "mystery" as in "mysteries of the kingdom" come from a root that means "keep you're mouth shut." You're not supposed to talk about them. They're for you, only. If you try to talk about them, you'll likely lose them. But that doesn't apply to me, I thought. I can talk about Anne's experiences. I can record what she said -- and I remember a lot of it! I won't lose them because they're not mine to lose. And I fully intended to do this in a written journal form -- this form.

But as I sat down to compose the words I would use, I couldn't do it. Her expressions remain inexpressible! They're not only her experiences, they're my experiences too, and I cannot put them into words! And now I understand 3 Nephi 19:34.

One example I will record, however, because it illustrates the principle of testimony and of spiritual knowledge and because I fully intend to use it some day in a testimony meeting or in a talk. It is a rather mundane account of the climax of her story:

She described how she was interviewed by the zone leaders just before she was baptized. During such interviews, they determine the extent of a person's gospel understanding and the solidity of the person's testimony. It includes the understanding of the nature of the Godhead. She had had all the lessons, but she had considered these discussions symbolic. How can one understand the nature of God? During the interview, she became aware for the first time that she was supposed to view God as literally having a body and as existing in space and time. This was not possible! She was a medical student. How was she supposed to perceive God as having a body of flesh?! She argued with the zone leaders -- and failed the interview.

They told her to go into an adjacent room by herself and pray about it.

She collapsed in tears. The whole thing was a fraud. How could she have been so duped? Where had those amazing experiences and feelings come from? Her depression was the deepest it had been since the process had started and in the agony of her soul, she uttered a prayer to whomever and whatever she had been associated with for weeks. She immediately found herself lifted to the highest joy and euphoria that she had experienced since the process had started and she informed us, "I knew it was true!"

And we knew that she knew.

Submissive, Gentle

The most pointed part of my "mantra" (which see in a recent blog) is the phrase, "be submissive and gentle." The entire mantra is significant, but this phrase provides the most intense and reliable spiritual jolt. "Submissive" by itself doesn't do it. Neither does "gentle" by itself. It takes both of them.

Clearly this is an area in which the Lord is especially desirous of having me make progress. My basic personality is neither submissive nor gentle. The two together form a total disconnect, but my nature is to be changed to fit. Only God can change our basic nature. Can I doubt that He will succeed? If so, is it not my faith that must be strengthened?

Alma 7:23 is the only place in scriptures where this combination occurs. Elder Scott's talk was vital for me to hear and to experience.

James E. Faust, Pauline, and Juliet

In James E. Faust's final general conference talk (April, 2007), he described in some detail the recent situation among the Amish where a non-Amish milkman went crazy and murdered five of their girls and wounded five others before taking his own life. The Amish community responded with instant forgiveness even sharing the money they received as contributions with the family of the milkman declaring that they were as much victims as the Amish were.

President Faust also mentioned the bishop who lost his wife and two of his children to the actions of a drunk driver on Christmas Eve, 2006. This bishop frankly and immediately forgave the young man who was responsible.

President Faust also mentioned a few other similar incidents, concluding that forgiveness is empowering and leads to health, whereas hate is debilitating and leads to illness.

When I was 15, an event occurred which, over the next few decades, taught me some unsettling things about myself. At that time, two 15 year old girls by the name of Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme in Christchurch, New Zealand, murdered one Nora Parker who happened to be the mother of Pauline thereby creating an international scandal.

I hated those two girls. I hated them for three reasons:

1. I couldn't imagine a more horrible crime than murdering your own mother or helping someone else do that.

2. They were my age. In fact they were respectively three months and two months older than I, which was even worse.

3. They were girls! Girls are better than boys. That was my perception as a 15 year old and it's pretty much my perception as a 69 year old. Girls have higher standards than boys. They are held to higher standards by society. They hold themselves to higher standards.

For two girls, my age, to have committed such a horrible crime...! Well, it was obvious that they were the most evil people in the history of the world and would reign with Satan in eternity, Pauline on Satan's right hand and Juliet on his left. I was appalled that New Zealand didn't provide for capital punishment for teenagers. I didn't realize at the time that no civilized country allowed for capital punishment for teenagers, but I felt that I would be perfectly willing to be their executioner myself and I made sure everyone knew that, and I even fantasized how I would do it. It was a good thing that New Zealand was far away from Utah.

I thought about this some five decades later as I stood across the desk from Juliet Hulme to solicit her autograph on a book that she had written. I had missed the book signing the previous day at Deseret Book and so I was attending the one at a Barns and Noble in Salt Lake City. I was acutely aware that here was one of the girls I had once fantasized killing.

Of course, by that time I knew a little about her history. She was sentenced to five years in an adult prison, the maximum sentence that could be imposed on a teenager in New Zealand. When she was released, she assumed a new identity and disappeared from public awareness. Pauline served her five years, was then on probation for another five years, then she, too, disappeared from public awareness. In 1992, a movie about this event was released entitled Heavenly Creatures. The part of Juliet Hulme was played by Kate Winslet. This role jump-started Winslet's career. I don't remember off-hand the actress who played the Pauline part. As a result of this movie, some investigative reporters set out to find out what happened to these two girls. Juliet was located and was immediately outed as the well-established novelist Anne Perry – and as a Mormon. Pauline was also located, but her situation was more tragic and even these conscience-challenged reporters decided not to out her. That was left for later, even more conscience-challenged reporters.

The outing of Juliet Hulme immediately induced the Church to publish an article in The Church News which stated, in effect, that the church knew all about Anne Perry, AKA Juliet Hulme. When she was converted in her late 20's, the First Presidency carefully reviewed her case and approved her for baptism and for being washed clean of all her sins! Since then she has served the church well in a number of ways including use of her writing skills. She has written material for various official and semi-official church publications both under her own name (Anne Perry, to which she legally had her name changed) as well, especially earlier, as a ghost writer for various GA's. She was also the primary contributor to the well-received History of the Mormon Church in the British Isles.

And this was one of the girls whom I had hated so much that I had fantasized killing.

We never know all the circumstances surrounding any action. That's one of the lessons from this event. When Juliet Hulme was outed, news media of the entire world wanted to interview her -- so many that she was totally overwhelmed and quickly lost count. The interview I heard was on NPR's Fresh Aire of which Juliet/Anne told me she had no recollection. In this interview, Terry Gross asked her the question that all of them asked: “Why did you do it?” Her response was that she was faced with a horrible choice. It was either the life of her friend or the life of her friend's mother. If Nora continued to live, Pauline would die. She chose the life of her friend.

(Pauline was anorexic. Juliet was keeping her alive. Nora was not understanding of that situation and was intent on taking Pauline away from New Zealand. That would result in Pauline's death. It was as simple as that. That was the perception of both girls.)

Of course, that turned out to be very bad judgement on the part of adolescent girls. Fifteen year olds – even fifteen year old girls – are not known for clear, mature thinking. Perhaps that's not an excuse or a justification. It's just a reason. But I see the possibility that God would understand this reason. Certainly the First Presidency seemed to see it that way.

This whole multi-decade incident has given me insight into my propensities and basic nature. I wonder how much of it has "taken." When I hear of some of the horrific acts perpetrated by some people in this world, I find that the hate, anger, and fantasies that well up inside of me are not qualitatively different from those of my 15-year old self. And yet how many of the "reasons" might the Lord be inclined to forgive? Many of the people who are doing really horrible things have the best of motives. They believe that they are doing the will of God. They are even willing to sacrifice their own lives if necessary. These aren't just words, they're actions. We believe, perhaps we even know by the Spirit, that they are most horribly mistaken.

Saul of Tarsus would have been termed a "terrorist" if that word had been in vogue among the early saints. He was horribly mistaken. The scriptures so testify. He went through hell to attain his eventual status of Paul, the great apostle of the Lord.

So do we know for sure how the Lord will judge the current terrorists? They are under the influence of him who has promised to reign upon this earth with carnage and terror and who seems to be quite successful. But whose fault is that? Theirs? Unconditionally? Are we sure? Was it Paul's? Certainly they will have to go through significant "hell" just as Paul did, but thereafter, who will be standing closer to salvation after the judgement, Bin Laden or myself? The fact that the answer is not completely obvious is troubling.

And that brings us back to Pres. Faust's talk. Even the most obvious open-and-shut cases can have exonerating circumstances. That being so in Pauline and Juliet's case, how much more might it be so in most family or neighborhood squabbles where the consequences are far less dramatic. President Faust points out that God will forgive whom He will forgive, but as for us, we are required to forgive all men. (D&C 64:10)

The Mantra

I sit down for a spiritual interlude with a recently DVR'd BYU devotional and, with a stab of disappointment, realize it's by Elder Scott. Elder Scott's not my favorite GA. Too cloyingly sweet for my taste, and I voice same to the Lord and receive a sharp rebuke by the spirit.

Wo! That surprises me. Whenever I'm doing anything worthy of a rebuke, which is often, I don't have the spirit at all. This is a rare event. In fact, I don't remember it ever happening before.

I sit up straight with eyes wide. Ok, ok! I get it. I'll give him the respect and attention he deserves. The spirit confirms that this is the right decision.

His talk centers primarily on Alma 7:23:

“And now I would that ye should be humble, and be submissive and gentle; easy to be entreated; full of patience and long-suffering; being temperate in all things; being diligent in keeping the commandments of God at all times; asking for whatsoever things ye stand in need, both spiritual and temporal; always returning thanks unto God for whatsoever things ye do receive.”

That's one of those verses containing the entire ten commandments in a single sentence, one which you read quickly through without trying to comprehend every clause because you're trying to get through 4 pages in ten minutes. “Yes, that's Book of Mormon language, alright. Beautiful... I think.”

It takes an entire BYU devotional to explain it all, phrase by phrase.

Did I understand Elder Scott? Be humble, be submissive and gentle, easy to be entreated.... What's that mean? Easily entreated? “Please, sir, can you spare a dollar?” “Hello, little sister. No I can't. I saw you on Channel 2 News where it was suggested that your claim to being homeless is a bald-faced lie....” Does that qualify? If I say it with loving kindness? Hm.... full of patience and long suffering.... All those qualities which are completely incompatible with my personality, but totally compatible with Elder Scott's.

Ok, I've got some work to do here, Lord. A little help would be helpful. Only God can change one's basic nature. That's what C. S. Lewis says. It's also what our evangelical, born-again Christian friends say. Not to mention the atonement. The parable of the bicycle and all. Ok, Lord. I'm ready for my basic nature to be changed. I'll try to cooperate with the process. Please let me know what, when, and how. It's in your court. Isn't it?

New mantra: humble, submissive and gentle, easily entreated, full of patience and long-suffering. Humble, submissive, gentle, entreat, patience, long-suffering. Humblesubmissivegentle....

And I'm parked at Smith's, a huge SUV next to me. The only way to get out of here is to check to make sure no one is behind me then slowly back out to where I can see around this SUV and make sure it's safe to back out further. Someone lays on their horn with a resounding bellow that reverberates for a totally unnecessary eternity. I show great restraint by laying on my own horn for a mere half as long as he did.

Be humble, submissive and gentle, easy to entreat, full of patience and long suffering. Be humble, submissive, gentle, entreat, patience, long suffering.

I follow him out of the parking lot.

Humble, submissive, gentle....

He turns down 33rd.

...patience, long suffering. I could use some help here, Lord. Humble, submissive....

He turns into the outside lane. I immediately pull over into the inside lane, planning to pass him.

...gentle, entreat...

I get some passing help. He comes to a sudden stop behind a line of a half dozen cars. Someone's having trouble making a right turn. I zoom past him, fully prepared to glare it him... in a humble, submissive way, of course.

And I catch a side-view glimpse of a little man with sparse white hair, a few strands of which are sticking straight up as though wave-set into that position. A web of skin drapes from the tip of his chin to his Adam's apple. His hands are gripping the steering wheel so tightly that I can almost see his white knuckles from here. His mouth is open wide and so are his eyes staring at the car in front of him, and his look says, “What's happening?! The whole world is conspiring to get me! I just want to get home! I'm not sure I'm going to survive! Oh, me! I'm not going to make it! I'm not going to make it!” And my heart melts. I want to take him in my arms and tell him, “It's OK. It's OK. There, there. You're going to be fine. God loves you, little man... and so do I.”

Mantra, aside, God does help. We are works in progress.

Anniversary

We've been married 41 years. Not only does Carolyn aver that. My own extensive math skills confirm it. At least after a misstep or two.

When did we actually become one? In thought and purpose? In feeling and perception? Or, at least, if not exactly one, where there may be differences, when did the other's become OK, too? When did I first look at her and feel overwhelmingly grateful for the shear love I felt for her? For God's having put us together?

It wasn't 41 years ago, that's for sure. We were both much too self-centered then and saw our joining as a means of satisfying our own personal needs – needs for companionship, for completion in a world that demanded marriage unification, for fitting together like pieces of a puzzle – spiritually, emotionally, intellectually, and physically.

But it wasn't that recent, either. It wasn't this year. Perhaps not even this decade. Or even this double decade.

Never the less, this year it probably reached its zenith – so far, at least.

The Sunday afternoon before my big cancer surgery, we sat together on the love-seat in the living room as close as we could get, acutely aware that our remaining time of unity on this earth may be measured in a small number of months. We started talking and found that we were finishing each other's sentences, “yes, and...” “yes, and...” and discovering that we had the same thoughts, the same perceptions, the same emotions, the same large set of questions, the same small set of answers. A stream of consciousness flowed in, through, and around us enveloping us in common awareness, and to paraphrase a sentence out of “Return with Honor,” it was as though every cell in our bodies was resonating at the frequency of love. We were understanding with a single mind, loving with a single heart.

It was an afternoon I will never forget.

What's left over from that experience is that I can no longer conceive of Exaltation without that relationship with Carolyn on an on-going, permanent basis.

Understanding with a single mind.

Loving with a single heart.

And being grateful....

The Long Story

This is the “long story” mentioned in “Testimony.” I'll place it here because I like it and no one else will read it anyway.

My January, 2008, hernia repair surgery took more than two hours. That worried Carolyn because her full hip replacement surgery took barely an hour. Dr Kim came out and told Carolyn and Michelle that everything went fine but that he found some “calcified scare tissue” which was unusual. He figured it was nothing to worry about but since he didn't know what it was, he sent it to the pathologist to identify it. Dr. Benjamin Kim is a noted oncology surgeon and the fact that he didn't immediately recognize it is an indication of how rare it is.

A week later, when we went in for our follow-up appointment, he said that he had talked to the pathologist just before our appointment and the news was “serious.” He said it was MFH (malignant fibrous histiocycoma) in the spermatic chord. That was a rare combination and he wrote those words down on paper so that we could google them. I jokingly asked him, “How long do I have to live,” and he non-jokingly responded, “I'm not sure.” MFH of the spermatic chord is very rare – only a couple of dozen cases are noted in recorded history, but it was somewhat safer than MFH in the general abdominal cavity. He said that he had not found a core mass from which the tumor could be emanating. When asked if that was good or bad, he said he wasn't sure. He tip-toed around the question, but one got the impression that it probably wasn't a good sign. It could mean that the core mass was somewhere else in the abdomen and that it had simply metastasized to the spermatic chord. It turned out he had a hunch that the mysterious indications in the August, 2007 CT scan which had alternately been diagnosed as a small diverticulitis that had not shown up in the colonoscopy or as an appendix aploica was in reality this core mass – which turned out to be essentially correct – but he didn't tell us of his hunch until later.

However, the Internet gave us much unvarnished information about MFH reported with clinical detachment. There were some cases of spermatic chord MFH which had been cured, but it was by no means 50%. MFH in an extremity such as an arm or leg could sometimes be cured by removing the arm or leg. MFH in the abdominal cavity was almost never cured. The likelihood of my surviving for five years with such was pretty much nil and more likely death would occur within three years. It was only our state of denial that gave us any hope at all. It had to be in the spermatic chord and we would be one of the minority cases that would be cured. The foreboding image of it emanating from a large mass higher up in the abdomen and the death-sentence that would be, we tried to ignore.

I always thought that I was so spiritually mature and at ease with death being part of life and a necessary step toward exaltation that I would completely bypass the stages of mourning when presented with the prospect of my own death. That proved to be incorrect. I didn't jump straight from information to acceptance. I don't think I was ever in the anger stage. That was one that I missed, but all the others were there. As mentioned above, denial was prominent in all our information research, and we struggled to maintain it even as data gnawed at it. I'm not sure about Carolyn, but I, myself, went through the negotiation stage in my fervent prayers. Well, I'm sure Carolyn did that too. Depression was a biggy for both of us. It was the main issue for the three weeks that we thought I might die soon. And, as suggested on the Internet, we went in and out, back and forth, from one of these stages to another.

The acceptance stage was gradually solidifying around us. I began to make plans for what I needed to accomplish in the next year or so of healthy life I had left. Spiritual issues became preeminently important. We saw into eternity and making plans for it were vital. Our dedication to the Lord and our commitment to Him increased significantly. We even agreed that we would be willing to serve a couple mission if we got the chance.

Tom and Bill administered to me. So did Bishop Reese and Bob Palmer, our high priests group leader. Many in the family held a fast day for me – which I was scarcely aware of. Helen contacted her entire posterity and had my name put on the prayer rolls of various temples. Later she recited to me a partial list of those temples in places around the world. I didn't remember many of them except that I noted at the time that she named temples in places I didn't know there were temples. Also, she said that many of her posterity attended the temple and participated in the prayer circle in my behalf.

Dr Kim tried to give us hope. My unusual case was being carefully monitored by the “cancer board” which met every Friday and consisted of experts and specialists from all over the valley. He had gotten lots of suggestions and council from all sorts of different disciplines. He said that during the surgery, they would send real-time samples to the pathologist to guide the scalpel. They prepped me to allow him to remove part of my colon or intestine if necessary and promised that any disorder at the incision boundary would be taken care of by radiation. If the pre-op CT scan showed any tumor seeds in the lungs (which it didn't), they could also be excised. All in all, it stood a good chance of lengthening my life span. He tried to be encouraging and, if the promise of good outcome disagreed with the Internet, it must only be because of excellent progress that had recently been made and because of Dr. Kim's great reputation (and it is great as indicated from the Internet and from many good words about him given us by friends and by physicians) – and because we went in and out of denial.

In the weeks before the surgery, Carolyn schooled me in numerous exercises to say, “Hi, Honey, I'm fine, I love you” as soon as I became conscious after surgery and saw her for the first time. This I did. Her face was the first thing I remember seeing and I repeated as trained, “Hi, Honey, I'm fine, I love you.” She seemed to barely force a smile, said almost nothing, and disappeared immediately. I was disappointed. Didn't I do it right?

I was told that she went somewhere and broke down. It had been a trying six hours.

We were told that the operating room was scheduled for only two hours. I kissed Carolyn and was wheeled away at about 2 p.m. She and Michelle expected the surgery to be finished by 4 p.m. Instead, I was moved to a holding room for an hour and was taken to the operating room at about 3 p.m. People puttered around, Dr. Kim came in and greeted me, and the next thing I was aware of was Carolyn looking at me over the bed railing. The surgery actually toke more than four hours. Carolyn and Michelle received no information until 7 p.m. and it was another hour before they could see me. Beginning at 4 p.m., Carolyn became increasingly panicky and was beside herself after a three hour wait.

The surgery encountered a rather large tumor called a “well-differentiated lyposarcoma,” or a cancer of the fat tissue. Guided by the real-time pathology analysis, this entire tumor was excised together with all the fat in my lower left abdominal cavity. Also excised was the left spermatic chord and the left testicle. Since the spermatic chord contains the blood vessels that supply the testicle, the latter could not be left in after the chord was removed. Dr. Kim described the excised tumor mass and held up his hands to show an approximate size which Carolyn reported, with some dismay, as being the size and shape of a football. He later clarified that it wasn't the shape of a football. It was more the shape of a squid with the body at the top and the tentacles reaching down the cavity into and around the spermatic chord. Since the tumor was a lyposarcoma and did not involve the anything except the fat tissue, it was not necessary to remove any of the colon or the intestine. He reported having placed “clips” in my body to delineate the excision margins and to help position the gun for later radiation treatment.

Carolyn spent most of her time with me in the hospital room, so she was there four days later when Dr. Kim came in late Saturday afternoon and uttered the words: “Good news!” It seems that almost nothing of the original MFH was found in the pathology report. There was just “one microscopic location” of the original tumor in the center of the excision mass. The MFH had therefor been removed with a “generous margin” as is required to stop this tumor. An examination of the three lymph nodes that had also been removed showed no tumor. This is good evidence that the tumor had not widely metastasized and that, statistically speaking, it had all been removed although the pathology report (which see on the Head Family web site) included the standard CYA clause stating that they were unable to test for distant metastasis. In other words, at the time of the hernia repair, most of the dangerous tumor was removed when it was excised to send to the pathologist. This shows that even the scariest cancers can be dealt with if found early enough, and the hernia had accomplished that.

A well-differentiated lyposarcoma is relatively benign. It seldom metastasizes and can be controlled almost indefinitely through surgery. I told Dr. Kim that this was my understanding of “benign tumor .” He said rather emphatically that it is definitely a malignant tumor, so I had to look up the medical definition of malignant vs benign.

A benign tumor does not metastasize, it does not invade other organs, and it is encapsulated inside a membrane. A well-differentiated lypsarcoma does not usually metastasize or invade other organs, but it is not covered with a membrane and does invade the space between organs. It will eventually crowd the organs and disrupt their function, thereby killing the patient. When excised, it usually comes back where it was before.

Note that “well-differentiated” means that the tumor still behaves like the original material from which it comes. A non-differentiated tumor is tissue which has lost all former functionality and appears to have, as it's one objective, to simply grow beyond all bounds. “Well-differentiated” means that the cancer tissue still performs much of its original function. In this case, it stores fat when told to by the body's endocrine system. It pulls blood lipids out of the blood or converts blood sugars to fat and stores them. When called upon, it will also release these into the blood. It grows when we gain weight and shrinks when we diet, etc. The problem is that it continues to grow even when we are maintaining a stable body weight. It looks almost exactly like fat in the CT scan and can be distinguished from it only by examining it closely. Dr. Kim showed us some of the images obtained during the arthroscopic investigative examination that proceeded the surgery. They show the tumor with a blue tint compared to the pink of the fat.

But it grows slowly and, as stated, can usually be controlled with surgery. The Internet says that the five year survival rate is essentially 100%. Probably it's most severe problem is its propensity to mutate to a much more deadly form. And that's what it seems to have done in this case. It became an MFH. No one knows why this mutation occurred, but it is suspected that the lypsarcoma, which must have been with me for a long time, was induced to mutate by the radiation treatment that I received as part of my prostate tumor treatment in 2001. That's about the right time frame. If the radiation had stimulated a tumor from scratch, the intervening seven years would be a rather short time frame for such to show up. But for a single genetic mutation that would be necessary to convert a lyposarcoma to an MFH, seven years is about right, particularly considering that it was found early, and if it hadn't been found so early, it would have been a number of years later and well advanced when it finally made its presence noticed.

In any case, the pathology report could not identify any incision margins that would be suitable candidates for radiation, so no radiation is planned. Note the neither of these tumors, neither the MFH nor the lyposarcoma, are considered to be good candidates for chemo. Chemo would only be used if it were found to have widely metastasized and that would be considered to be a last-ditch effort with little hope of long-term success.

As it is, the planned management is to take a full torso CT scan every 6 to 9 months and watch the progress of the lyposarcoma or anything else that might be increasing in size. Dr. Kim suggests that in five to eight years, another surgery will likely be needed. And, of course, God has a tool he can use to take me anytime he wants. Another mutation will likely be undetected until it is too late and my death will follow within a year or two.

Of course I already have my chronic productive cough which has been with me since 2003, cannot seem to be effectively treated my medical science, and is getting worse. It could turn into fatal pneumonia anytime the Lord desires.

Maybe next time we will truly be able to skip all those other stages of mourning and jump right to acceptance after all.

June Testimony -- Cancer Health Log

Testimony born 6/1/08

I bear my testimony once a year near the anniversary of our move to Utah. That's the third week of October. I do that deliberately because I noted in California that I would bear my testimony about once a decade, which didn't seem quite what the Lord would want.

It's amazing how often that comes around. No wonder that was such a seldom event in California.

Anyway, I knew what I would use as the content of my testimony this year, and started preparing it months ago, and I find myself going over it and over it in my mind while going to sleep and while waking up, etc. By the time November rolls around, it will be over rehearsed, as has happened before, and will be rattled off in a memorized, sing-song way, totally devoid of Spirit.

When a long silence occurred in Fast and Testimony Meeting this month, I felt I should just get up and unload it now. So I did. Amazing how much comment I received thereafter. I don't remember such a reaction any other time in my life.

Anyway, the following is nearly word for word what I said since it was well on the way to being memorized and over-rehearsed:

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Brethren and sisters, we experienced a life scrambling event this past year. It was awful. We couldn't believe something so terrible was happening to us. However, it is quite common and happens to lots of people, and will happen to many if not most of us sometime during our lifetime, and often Fast and Testimony Meeting becomes a vehicle to help us work through the issues involved.

In April conference, Elder Oaks told us what a testimony is. He also told us what a testimony is not. Included in the long list of things it is not, he said it is not a “health log.”

So let me get the health log part of my testimony out of the way as quickly as possible to minimize violation of Elder Oak's principles.

In January, I went in for a routine hernia repair, at which time the surgeon encountered a somewhat rare but very scarey form of cancer. The Internet offered the unvarnished information, reported with clinical detachment, that my likelihood of living for five years was pretty much nil, and that more likely I would be dead within three years. Three weeks later I underwent major surgery with the cancer as the focus, after which time the pathology report was more optimistic. It extended the three years to three decades, meaning that something else would likely kill me first.

That completes the health log part of my testimony. There's actually a long story behind all that involving three different forms of cancer, two of which are related, and the amazing timing and location of the hernia. I love this story and tell it at the drop of a hat, but I've noticed that people become uncomfortably bored by the end of it, and if I tried it here, Elder Oaks would definitely be unhappy.

During the three weeks we thought I would die soon, I received a priesthood blessing from my family and a priesthood blessing from our priesthood leaders here in the ward. My extended family held a fast for me and my sister arranged for her large posterity to place my name on prayer rolls around the world in temples in places where I didn't know there were temples.

My concept of Eternal Progression is that it consists of a series of two steps forward followed by one to two steps backward – a series of these interspersed on rare occasions by great strides forward induced primarily by adversity.

That happened to us. During the three weeks that we thought I would die soon, our perspective broadened to eternity, important things became crystal clear, priorities were obvious, our dedication to the Lord increased by an order of magnitude as did our commitment to conform our lives to His will. We even decided that we would be willing to go on a couple mission if that were to be possible. We were well on our way to having our calling and election made sure.

And then the doctor came into our hospital room late one afternoon and uttered the words, “Good News!” We were overjoyed – and went right back to where we were before.

That's a new aspect of Eternal Progression I've never thought of. It's not only possible to make great strides forward in leaps and bounds, it's also possible to make leaps and bounds backward, which thing I had never considered.

I received a reprieve! I don't know why I received a reprieve. I didn't expect a reprieve. From my experience, reprieves don't happen. So why did I receive a reprieve? Perhaps the answer may be found in a quote from Brigham Young who told the saints:

“Don't be discouraged if you haven't had the privilege the older members have had of being robbed, driven and mobbed, and plundered of everything you own. You have the promise that, if you remain true and faithful, you too will be tried in all things.” [Brigham Young, Journal History, 14 February 1853, LDS Church Archives]

That gives me something to work on.

But there are some things that remain with us. For instance, I know there is life after death. Not the way Hugh Nibley received such knowledge. He describes that, as a young man, he became quite concerned about whether or not there was life after death and prayed mightily to get that knowledge. His prayer was answered dramatically. In one of those be-careful-what-you-pray-for experiences which I'm not sure how many of us would choose to duplicate – I'm not sure if he would have chosen to have such if he'd known it was going to happen.... Serves him right. That's OK, I'll be satisfied with a simple spiritual confirmation. That's more convincing, anyway. Spirit to spirit. Overwhelming conviction.

I know that there is life after death. I know that through the atonement of Jesus Christ, we will all be resurrected. I know that through the atonement of Jesus Christ, we can all be saved in the Kingdom of God if we cooperate with the process. I know that Joseph Smith was the prophet through whom Christ revealed the process, and I know that Thomas S Monson is the Lord's prophet today.

I say this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Eternal Content?

Nicholas Negroponte claims that anything that isn't digitized will disintegrate but that bits last forever. Bits do not fade. They do not mold. They are not an appetizing meal for insects or mice. Although nearly everyone expresses doubt that bits are so permanent, Negroponte makes a good case given the direction in which technology is going. So, in 200 years, where will our descendants find information about us? In musty attic trunks full of moldy paper? Or on the 23rd century version of the Internet?

Believing that it will be the latter, I am laboring to make sure our data is in bit form and is properly staged to be propelled into an endless future.

Given current technology, blogging seems to be a useful tool for generating this content although I detect that it is time limited. Photos and videos show signs of disappearing as blogger.com takes steps to limit their own storage requirements. It is necessary to transfer these blogs to a site that will likely cost money in the near future.

But first things first. Get the content, then make it permanent. That said, I will also avail myself of this medium for content generation. But not daily.