MSI Press Blog

  By the time, Carl was diagnosed, his cancer was metastized to his liver, lungs, bones, and upper stomach. After many biopsies and scans, the primary could not be found, and the cancer was officially labeled Cancer of Unknown Primary . Impaired Mobility: harder and harder to walk and climb stairs     We associated this with worsening of gout, which had been present for more than a decade     This could have been due as well to cancer-related hypercalcemia and bone cancer Frequent urination     We associated this with normal aging     This could have been related to  prostate cancer (not the case with Carl but the case with many) Pain in the side     We associated this with a gallbladder attack; it appeared similar to what our daughter, who had her gallbladder removed, had gone through.     We did not know that this same kind of pain is diagnostic of liver cancer. Frequent dozing off while working on the computer or watching television We associated this associated with  fatigue from t

   54-year old Jason Maman put off checking out the reasons for his stomach pain for a year. It turned out to be stage 3 colon cancer. Read the article here .  This is a bit different from the delayed diagnosis described in last week's (May 13) Cancer Diary blog post. In that case, the patient knew something was wrong; it took too long for doctors to take her seriously and to get an accurate diagnosis. Carl , too, put off getting a diagnosis for something he thought was just stomach pain . He consulted "wisely" (right?) with our daughter who had had her gall bladder removed years earlier when he thought it might be his gall bladder. He decided to just monitor it for a while and see if it got worse. He adapted his food intake for gall bladder management. It did not work. To his defense, this occurred as covid was winding down, and doctors in our area were not seeing patients in their offices, just telehealth -- and his long-term doctor had left when the pandemic started to

  Excerpt from Good Blood: A Journey of Healing (Irit Schaffer): From: 1978 (Chapter 3) At 5:30 a.m., I wake up, and my head is pounding. A shooting wave of pain goes through my abdomen. Within thirty seconds of waking, I rush to the bathroom. I make it just in time.  Did I upset my stomach? Did anyone else get sick? I wonder. Ok, go back to sleep, Irit, I tell myself.   No sooner do I crawl under the down comforter than the shooting pain sears through my gut again. Almost instantly, I start to feel nauseous, and my hands get clammy. I bolt for the toilet once again, and this time I throw up.  What is going on? I wonder. It can’t be the food I ate because Barna and Jofie ate everything I did, and they’re ok. I would know if they were getting up.  One hour passes, and my back and belly are on fire. As I head to the bathroom for the umpteenth time, I hear footsteps. Barna’s kind Hungarian voice comes through the bathroom door, “Are you alright?”  I’m having trouble thinking of

    excerpt from  Anger Anonymous  -  INTRODUCTION ANGER ANONYMOUS: THE BIG BOOK ON ANGER ADDICTION “Anyone can become angry—that is easy, but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way—that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.” —Aristotle   Anger arises within us with a warning label: “Handle with extreme caution!” It is a fire that can give light and warmth to sustain life when well managed, or it can burn and incinerate when out of control. Anger possesses a power that fascinates and disturbs. Even though we witness its devastating effects in broken relationships, violence, and war, we relish the momentary sense of power we feel when enraged. “Anger is one letter short of danger,” the saying goes. Society respects anger’s dangerous potential. It makes laws against violent behavior. Parents teach their children to manage their temper. Religion cautions against becoming slaves of passio

  Today is one of those days -- sitting up with a rescued street cat, sitting side by side to provide warmth, and periodically adjusting the steam vaporizer to reach Happy Cat's nostrils. Happy Cat is not very happy today. Ten days ago, he snatched and swallowed a blood pressure pill my son had placed on the counter while getting a glass of water. Happy Cat is a street cat rescue; he eats anything and everything. Or did, until today. Ten days ago, we had to take him to the vet for that BP pill snatch. He had his stomach pumped and was given charcoal to deal with the poisoning. He was put on IV -- and because of a panic attack, was put on oxygen. It was a tough day. Two days later, life became tougher. He started sneezing. Then, his nose started running. In days, he had trouble breathing. Back he went to the vet. That was two days ago. Again, he was put on oxygen for his panic attack (in spite of pre-dosing him with gabapentin to lessen it). Again, he was poked and probed. He was hy

  Today would have been the 54th anniversary for Carl  and me. Last year, I spent it in the cemetery with Carl, as I did the year before. This year I cannot because I am in Bandung, Indonesia, but perhaps that is just as well.  On our 51st, he was alive, but not well. Three weeks earlier, he had fallen, been xrayed, and found to be in the advanced stage of cancer of unknown primary , with liver, lungs, bones, and stomach completely riddled with cancer cells, blood clots in his lungs, and his bones throwing off cells to create hypercalcemia, the reason he had fallen. It was a difficult time. We were just coming out of the covid months. We brought our CHARGE Syndrome son CB who had been living in group homes for 20 years home when they were not careful with protection from covid. At the same time, our spina bifida daughter, who lives about 30 miles to the south of us, independently, with a county-provided part-time aide lost her caregiver to surgery and no one wanted to take over, given