Tag Archives: cancer

Health Insurance – that’s a funny name when you think about it. You virtually never use it when you are healthy; only when you are sick. I’m thinking about it because I am home – sick with the flu. I’m waiting for my primary care physician to call me back to let me know when I can visit her office.

We are owner’s of a small Real Estate Broker and Mortgage Company in Palm Springs. Our Employee Benefits are handled by a provider that bills us for the monthly premiums for all of our insurances along with our payroll. We are pretty vigilant about making sure we get the appropriate coverage at a good price; especially given my history of 2 major cancer bouts in the last 15 years. Either of those would have bankrupted us without our insurance coverage. It’s not a Cadillac plan; probably better referred to as a VW. The coverage is within a HMO and I can honestly say I believe I have been provided every reasonable service to which I have been entitled since we have been part of this scheme. Theoretically, we get reduced premiums because we get lumped together with a bunch of other small businesses and pre-existing conditions don’t affect the cost – only age.

Now here’s the rub. My wife, she works with us in our business, just had what the provider refers to as a Milestone Birthday. Apparently because she was one day older on January 27 than she was on January 26 the risk to the insurance company became so great that they needed to raise her premium by more than 30%!! Since we don’t have an employer (other than ourselves) to pay their “portion” we get to see what it really costs – $766 each and every month for just her Illness Insurance – matching what we pay for mine. The really scary part is I have a Milestone Birthday coming up in June and I have already been warned that my premium will jump from the aforementioned $766 to God knows what. I suppose that since being 55 and 1 day old is 30% riskier than 54 and 364 days then turning 60 plus that one extra day probably means I will be at least 50% riskier to the insurance company than I am today. Let’s hope not because our current premiums are more than our mortgage payment, taxes,homeowner’s dues and insurance on our home. I could drive 3 or 4 different fancy cars for what I pay in illness insurance premiums.

In 5 short years I’ll be faced with the alphabetical decision-making that accompanies the conversion of my illness insurance to Medicare. The more I read about Parts A through F the more confused I become. I am not fearful that Medicare will disappear by the time I turn 65 – after all, my congressperson has promised me it won’t. But, I am more than a little concerned that the my portion of the cost of the combination of the Affordable Health Care Act and whatever supplemental plans I will need to have will escalate to a level that provides no relief in this spiraling illness insurance cost structure.

I think thinking about this is making me sick. When is that doctor’s office going to call me back?

Cut it Out!

January 25, 2013

Health

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One in five American adults smokes some type of tobacco product. Astonishing! In the face of irrefutable evidence that smoking significantly shortens life span and denigrates the quality of that reduced time the beat apparently goes on. In addition to the guarantee of an earlier death, the economic consequences to the individual and society as a whole are staggering. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reports that 443,000 deaths occur in the USA each year related to smoking; Still; Really. Lung disease, cancer and heart ailments are at the top of the list of those smoking related ailments that contribute to the earlier than necessary demise of smokers.

The New England Journal of Medicine recently published a study wherein researchers discovered that quitting smoking at every age up to 64 can add from 4 to 10 years to the life expectancy of the new non-smoker. The sooner the activity is stopped, the better the life expectancy. The study concluded that both men and women that died in 2006 and were smokers at the time of their demise were about 3 times more likely to have died during the term of the study than non-smokers. This disparity is partly attributable to increased health standards for the non-smoking population. Consider also that among Americans that died of lung cancer in the early 1960’s women who smoked were 2.7 times more likely to have died from that horrible disease than non-smoking women, while men in the 1960’s died at a rate that was 12 times more likely. Pretty staggering info that pales in comparison when you come to understand that by 2010 that both men and women that died of lung cancer were smokers was 25 times the rate of non-smokers. Women, I suspect, caught up to men in this regard due to the increased social acceptability of smoking by females and the larger influx of women into the workforce. The increase in the overall death rates is in no small part attributable to advances in health care that has helped to stem the tide of other life ending conditions but apparently not so much lung cancer.

We have a number of video tapes of our family when we were kids in the 50’s and 60’s, usually of family gatherings around Christmas time. In almost every tape the adults are seen with cigarettes burning in one hand and a drink in the other while the kids are scrambling at their feet to rip open their presents – quite often with one or more of the female adults obviously pregnant. Our parents weren’t being careless or irresponsible, the simple fact is they did not KNOW what we know today about the harm that smoking causes. I remember my Dad quit in the 70’s; cold turkey. It was tougher for my Mom but she finally gave up the cigarettes in the 80’s as best as I can remember.

I smoked off and on from 1971 until 1984 – I suppose because everyone else did. Mostly I worked office jobs and even if you didn’t have your own you spent your days inhaling everyone else’s tobacco smoke because that was just the way that it was. When I quit for good it was as much for practical reasons than concerns about my health; I had just burned a hole in a brand new tie. It wasn’t the first time it happened but I was committed it would be the last.

What we know today about cancer includes the understanding that you don’t “catch” cancer like a cold or the flu. While there is a growing belief that viruses may be at the root cause of some cancers, many cancers require an “irritant” to which we are exposed over an extended period of time along with some genetic predisposition. And, in many cases, it takes a good long time for the cancer that may be growing inside of us to become noticeable to health professionals. Consider the mountain of evidence that exposure of our Soldiers, Sailors and Marines to Agent Orange and other defoliants in Vietnam and Korea are now manifesting themselves in deadly lymphomas, prostate cancer, respiratory (lung cancer) and skin cancers – in many cases 40 or more years after the exposure. Lots of these service personnel also smoked creating what has proven to be an especially lethal cocktail. Consider also that defoliants have been in use for agricultural and landscaping purposes all over American soil, albeit at much lower concentrations than in the forests of Asia where we so indiscriminately sprayed. There is a growing body of evidence that chemicals of many kinds contain the keys to unlock predisposed molecule of DNA toward cancer in those of us that possess them. Tobacco products release a number of chemicals into our organs when inhaled including cyanide, arsenic and lead – known carcinogens Placing one of these burning time bombs between your lips is literally playing with fire.

I remember when Obamacare (The Affordable Health Care Act) was first being debated and we were told that it would take a number of years for all the features and benefits, along with the resulting costs, to be calculated and understood. What folks heard (or wanted to hear) was that the program would guarantee affordable health care coverage for everyone but that the details still needed to be worked through. Since most of the remaining major changes that will take place are scheduled to kick in beginning January 1, 2014 those heretofore unknown details are beginning to squirt out. Consider the consequences for smokers.

There is a little talked about provision in the Act that allows insurers to charge smokers buying individual policies premiums that are as much as 50% higher than non-smokers. Estimates range up to an additional $4,250 per year for coverage for a 55-year-old smoker as compared to his/her non-smoking contemporary. Younger smokers will be charged lower penalties but I think its safe to project those surcharges will escalate along with age and a growing body of evidence that smoking in and of itself increases the potential healthcare expenses for individuals over their lifetimes. While it is widely believed that surcharges will not be allowed for policyholders that may be overweight or have other pre-existing conditions that potentially require more medical care than average, the discrimination against smokers is allowable and likely.

Do yourself, your family, friends and bank accounts a favor. If you smoke, quit now. If you don’t smoke, don’t ever start.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

January 24, 2013

Grooming

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My father passed away last year in October. As a child of the 1950’s and 1960’s with 6 siblings you can imagine the stories and reminiscing that went on during the week’s worth of activities that brought us all together to celebrate our Dad’s life. Growing up in Long Beach, California it never seemed we lacked for the necessities but luxuries, like haircuts in a barbershop, were rare with the financial demands that a family of 9 creates.

My Dad would assemble me and my 2 brothers in the garage every other Saturday with his electric clippers to administer the type of haircut one gets when they lose a bet or agrees to have their locks shorn in the name of charity. The one point of differentiation between the 3 haircuts was that Dad always left my younger brother Bobby with an inch long strip of fringe covering the very top of his forehead as what can only be described as bangs. At the time, I thought it was to help my mother identify him among the 7 of us kids but looking back on it I believe Dad thought that would make him tougher. Given the level of abuse Bobby took from the rest of the pre-teens in our neighborhood over his “do” I believe my father was on to something.

If we wanted a different haircut, well, we needed to learn how to finance it. When I was old enough to understand that the other half of the population that was not of my same sex (and not one of my 4 sisters) were worthy of my attention I reckoned it was worth $4 of my paper route money each fortnight to allow the barber next to the Rexall drugstore to perform his artistry on my burgeoning locks. Another buck or so for Palmolive Hair Cream or ButchWax gave me the confidence I needed to be able to stand against the brick wall lining our high school gymnasium to watch the girls from our educational establishment dance together on Friday nights after the football games.

One marriage later, I purchased a “blow dryer” which allowed me to shape my rather substantial head of hair into various styles as I aged, each of which required a minimum of a half can of hairspray to hold in place. By my 30’s I think I was spending upwards of $35 for my haircuts which were no longer provided by a barber but now a “stylist”. I got pretty good at the home styling part until I started to notice that the amount of hair I was attempting to tease seemed to be progressively less and less and increasing amounts remained in my brush after the daily grooming routine was finished. Once I eliminated the possibility that using too hot of a setting on my blow dryer was causing the reduction in volume I started reconfiguring the remaining product of my follicles in the most efficient way possible but never to the level of Donald Trump. It worked well for years.

In 1998 I underwent a course of chemotherapy for Lymphoma and the predicted hair loss was acute. By the end of the 2nd of 6 administrations of the “CHOP” regimen I did not have a hair anywhere. Sympathetic friends and healthcare providers cheerfully reminded me that post-chemo hair comes back darker, thicker and even in the case of my string straight hair there was a chance it would have some curl. Truthfully, I secretly loved the freedom of not having to deal with hair during the chemo intake period, especially since I was spending considerable time with my head firmly planted in the toilet bowl. Nonetheless, once I completed the 6 month curative process I was eager to see just how dark, thick and curly my new mop would be.

What a load of bullcrap that turned out to be! The regrowth post-chemotherapy stopped at the level of a quintessential Franciscan Monk’s hairline. The dream of a screen test identifying me as the next leading man in a Hollywood Blockbuster was replaced by the reality that the only part for which I could ever be cast would be riding a burro with rosary beads draped around my neck trailing after Antonio Banderas in some godforsaken Mexican desert.

The really lousy part of it all, though, is that in spite of my inability to generate hair growth on the top of my head where it belongs, biology apparently dictates that the hair needs to get out somewhere. I recall a few years ago my granddaughter, Sydney, then 5 or 6 years of age sitting on my lap when I recognized the look of fear and utter disgust in her eyes. “Papa, what’s wrong with your ears???” She shrieked loud enough for Elvis to hear, wherever he is, “OOOHHHH, its HAIR!!!” she warned anyone within earshot. Once the crimson color left my face I deposited her on the floor and headed to the bathroom to see just exactly what frightened her so much. Donning my reading glasses and with as much light as I could artificially create I looked at my ears in my wife’s magnified make up mirror. What I saw would have brought weaker men to their knees. Apparently my post-chemo hair recovery had consolidated itself in the edges and crevices of my ears in multicolored sprouts that had the consistency of 10 gauge electrical wire and grew in no discernible pattern. I knew I needed to take action if for no other reason than to save my other grandchildren from the psychological trauma I had already caused my eldest.

I immediately turned to the Internet: I found recommended methods for trimming the unwanted hair; ways to melt it away, wax it off and chemically remove it. I learned that hair inside the ear canal actually has a useful purpose and must be dealt with more sensitively than the hirsute manifestation everywhere else on the half circles that stick out from the sides of my head. I learned that electrolysis has a spotty record with stubborn ear hair and, by the way can, only be used on the outer ear in any event. Never had I imagined that my problem seemed to be shared by nearly every man (and more than a few women) over the age of 39. I felt only a little less embarrassed.

My visits to the barber shop these days to see Mike the Barber for my $15 Reverse fade with a 1 1/2, Zero on top are spent mostly with my barber using various implements to eradicate as much of the unruly hair growth that has since evolved from my ears to include an invasion of my eyebrows where 4 to 5 inch silver sprouts spring up literally overnight. I find he does a far better job at controlling the affliction than I with my wife’s makeup mirror and the collection of implements I’ve acquired over the years. Between visits, I do my best to control the ever present offenders with regular assists from Google …..

Giving Back – Relay For Life

January 22, 2013

Events

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Relay for Life Palm Desert 2012

This entry was originally written for the TripBucket website to illustrate the Giving Back goal to Participate in Relay For Life. It’s important to introduce readers to Relay as it will come up from time to time going forward.

I knew I wouldn’t need an alarm clock to insure my arrival at our Team’s site for Relay For Life by 6AM that Saturday morning for the 9 AM kickoff as my circadian rhythm hardly ever lets me stay in bed past 5 but what I hadn’t counted on was awakening at 2:34 AM to what I thought was the sound of a cricket. We just hired a new pest control company, Bug Zappers or whatever the catchy name, so it gave me great concern as I thought I recognized a familiar sound of the outdoors inside my home. My granddaughter and daughter were asleep in a guest bedroom having spent the night in anticipation of our 24 hour Relay event for which they volunteered to participate along with 30+ plus other friends and family members to comprise one of the more than 50 teams. I stood silently in the hallway outside their room but I couldn’t entice the little bugger to chirp again. Knowing any additional sleep was impossible, I made my way to the kitchen to click on the already set-up coffee pot and … there it was again, that sound. I silently tip-toed to an unoccupied back bedroom standing hawk-still hoping to identify my prey until my worst fear was confirmed – The damn smoke detector was signaling that I had neglected it a day too long. I quickly wracked my brain trying to remember if I could possibly locate a 9 volt battery while wondering how I was going to make the exchange in the ceiling located device without waking up everyone in the house trying to steal the last hours of sleep before the next 24+ wide awake ones that awaited them at the Relay. I slithered out to the garage after checking all the known repositories of store bought temporary electricity storage in our home, including the basket above the dryer that also held sponges (of which we have a life time supply, mind you). Every combination of batteries with letters A through D could be found but none that began with a number.Then it struck me. I thought I had at least 1 left-over smoke alarm in the garage from a property management assignment I completed a few months earlier and I hoped that a 9 volt battery was resident in that package while the chirping sound seemed to grow louder and more quickly paced. I found the package, went to grab the scissors to open it and discovered that I had relocated that cutting tool to our Relay campsite the evening before! Performing my best MacGiver impersonation I grabbed a paring knife and freed the problem solver from its incredibly hard to penetrate plastic cocoon. With the answer to my dilemma now resting comfortably in my pants pocket I hatched a scheme to move my 6 foot aluminum ladder from its wedged in position in the garage into the house, down the hallway to the back bedroom without disturbing those that might still be asleep. Nobody knows how much noise an aluminum ladder can make until they attempt to transport one down a pitch black hallway over tile flooring but somehow I completed my amateur handyman duties without awakening any other occupants of our home.Thus began the day for the start of my participation in Relay for Life, the largest volunteer driven fund-raising event in the world with events staged in more than 50 countries. Not only was I going to participate but I had cavalierly taken upon myself the job of Team Captain when I first became acquainted with the event. I remember when I first became involved thinking, How hard could it be? to organize a few friends and family members taking turns walking non-stop around a high school track, day and night, for one day-long period. If the walking was all that was involved, it would certainly be a no-brainer, but while one of the purposes of Relay For Life is to raise funds for the worthy programs of the American Cancer Society the other lofty goals include Celebrating cancer Survivors, Remembering those that have fallen to the faceless assassin and providing the tools and education to help Fight Back against the horrible disease. I have more reasons than most to want to be involved in this effort but I came to learn during my preparation for this event that virtually everyone has been affected in some way by cancer.

In reality, months of planning and at least 6 Team Captain meetings did not fully prepare me for the 24 hours of organized chaos that ensued once the opening Survivors Ceremony signaled the start of our Relay. My team members were unfailing in their commitment to keep our Spirit Stick adorned with Team Mascot “Earl Owl” constantly moving around the ¼ mile (400 meter) rubberized track in spite of the nearly 100F (38C) degree day time temps and their contributions of everything liquid (except alcohol which is strictly forbidden), ice, snacks, sandwiches and a number of other forms of hydration and nutrition were over-abundant. Our at the event fund raising effort of t-shirt sales, owl puppets and other trinkets, contributed almost $500 to the team’s grand total that in total exceeded $9,500 due to a good amount of on-line fundraising, was diminutive compared to our team’s overall take but we can do better than that next time, we know. We educated other Relay attendees about proper nutrition, skin care and culturally significant issues regarding cancer. We honored and remembered more than 70 Survivors, Caregivers and beloved friends and family members that were counted among cancer’s victims during the tear-jerking Luminaria Ceremony, complete with bagpiper in full kilt. We had a real presence at the grand finale which included a final lap with New Years’ Eve type noise-making in an effort to demonstrate the resolve of the weary walkers about the Fight Back mentality and to continue to work harder for even More Birthdays for cancer Survivors. And, the son of one of our Team members won a brand new bicycle at the event closing raffle!

As pleased and humbled as I was at the success of the event and the performance of our team, none of these details caught me off-guard; I was deeply touched by the level of commitment of my Fellow Relayers and the whatever it takes mentality of my Team Members. I was more than impressed by the painstaking effort of the event organizers and the other teams’ efforts. However, the biggest surprise of all, the one that had me shaking my head in disbelief as I left the site of our Relay was the appearance of the Palm Desert High School Marching Band in full cymbal and drums just about the time some of our folks thought it best to occupy their tents for a few hours of badly needed sleep near midnight. I guess the message of the event organizers was soundly delivered in that performance: Cancer NEVER Sleeps!

Why I’m Here

January 21, 2013

About Blog By Boomer

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Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata is playing on the “Light Classical” channel on Time Warner Cable’s Music Choice. The song is so beautiful it’s distracting me from the task at hand which is to get this damn blog under way. I secured the URL a couple of years ago and put it in the inventory – it’s taken me that long to figure out what I want to write about.

The truth is, I’ve known what I want to write about but I’ve let too many opinions cloud my thinking: “Limit the blog to 1 or 2 subjects“: “Make sure you have something to market – and sell, sell, sell!”; “Find out what folks are interested in and then tailor your articles to those interests”. Blah, Blah, Blah.

Bottom Line: Today’s an anniversary of sorts. Two years ago this very morning I had my neck and tongue fileted by Dr. Paul Kim at Loma Linda University Hospital. 1/3 of my tongue and 30+ lymph nodes from my neck and shoulder went missing; all in the name of curing tongue cancer. Dr. Kim is obviously so good at what he does that I sit here today able to eat (too well) and speak as if nothing ever happened in spite of the pre-warnings from well-meaning friends, acquaintances and health care professionals about what might very well have been. Save for an 8 inch scar that traverses my neck like a badly drawn trail map that I like to call my “tattoo”, tasting or chewing anything on the right side of my mouth, whistling or sticking out my tongue, everything is back to normal; whatever that is.

Turning 60 this year gives me an absolute right to the name of this blog. And, since I apparently haven’t totally thought this thing through in the past couple of years while continually mulling it over in my mind it may turn out that other Boomers will have an opportunity to write about their experiences here – I haven’t decided, yet. If you have an idea that you’d like to share let me know and I’ll give it some appropriate consideration. That’s the beauty of it: For a few bucks a year this is all mine and I can do whatever I want.

So, what will I write about?

I know way too much about cancer; something I never wanted to study, believe me. In 1998 at the tender age of 45 I was diagnosed with lymphoma after 6 months of not understanding why I felt like dog poop and had continually tried in vain to cough up my lungs. My son, Geoffrey, died in 2010 at the age of 26 from the very same disease – absolutely devastating. No other genetic link in our family that we can find. Two of my best friends succumbed to the big “c” last year. Other non-blood relatives and friends are currently fighting the fight. I’m a Team Captain and Event co-chair for the American Cancer Society’s Relay For Life because it was the only way I could figure out how to fight back. Layer all of that together and you’ll come to understand why I will write about cancer. It has or will affect all of us in some profound way. There is no escape. It’s important stuff to know about and try to understand. It was a blog about the death of my son that unleashed the writing beast in me.

A paying writing “gig” tells me at least somebody likes reading the things I write. I’ll bring some of that to these pages. TripBucket is a website that is dedicated to helping its registered users complete their bucket lists. They hired me to provide content because I can occasionally write a complete sentence, I suppose. TripBucket also motivated me to start designing my own bucket list which is now bigger than I can possibly complete even if I live to be 100. Not likely, given my history. You’ll gain some exposure to TripBucket here as well. The next item awaiting check-off on my list is a 40 kilometer (sounds more impressive than 25 miles, doesn’t it?) bike ride that I hope to complete in the next few weeks within the Tour de Palm Springs. I’ll tell you how that goes.

I am a licensed Real Estate Broker and Mortgage Broker in the State of California. I’ve held a broker’s license since 1986; a salesperson’s license before that. I own a real estate business (with a partner) and I suspect you’ll read a fair bit about the state of real estate and business in general if you decide to follow this blog.

We have a really big family: Grandchild #6 is on the way before June 1. 6 children between my wife and me that have made everything from Public Safety (courtesy of the LAPD) to the art world their vocation. 6 brothers and sisters, lots of in-laws, myriad nieces and nephews, 2 ex-wives, my mom in the Texas Hill Country and my incredibly supportive wife of nearly 18 years – all of whom provide fodder for life’s lessons.

I like to cook. I once took a class at the Santa Fe School of Cooking, ate the product and lived to tell. I figure that gives me all the permission I need to share recipes and methodology for some pretty great meals. I typically forsake the kitchen for the barbecue – I hate calling it the “grill” because it can do so much more. And, I don’t particularly like to measure but I’ll do my best in communicating the formulas. I think men, in general, struggle for a creative outlet and cooking can so easily fulfill that need.

So here’s the deal. I’ll write about what I want. You let me know when you think I’m full of crap or you agree with what I’ve said and if there is something you want me to investigate and report back I will do my best, as long as the subject is interesting to me, too.

Did you know that Beethoven wrote the Moonlight Sonata for his student, an Austrian Countess with whom he was desperately infatuated? Two years passed before he was able to come to grips with his inability to marry the love of his life due to his station in society and move on. Hardly anyone knows her name.

—Blog By Boomer

One Boomer's Perspective on Living

Archive

Tag Archives: cancer

Illness Insurance

Cut it Out!

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Giving Back – Relay For Life

Why I’m Here

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