(With apologies to Clark Griswold in National Lampoons Christmas Vacation):
“Hey! If any of you are looking for any after-Christmas gift ideas for me, I have one. Id like the head of the Nintendo company right here tonight. I want him brought from his happy holiday slumber over there wherever he lives with all the other video game makers and I want him brought right here, with a big ribbon on his head, and I want to look him straight in the eye and I want to tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, @#$%^&, hopeless, heartless, fat-@#$, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey stuff he is! Hallelujah!” After 19 Christmas seasons of managing not to get caught up in the pursuit of the “hot toy,” I finally fell into the trap this year when my 12-yearold asked for a Wii, which, loosely translated, is Japanese for “over-priced video game that cannot be found anywhere.” Oh, I looked. I looked in Wal-Mart and I looked in Target. I searched high and low in Circuit City and Best Buy. I walked through all the malls, stopping in every GameStop and EB Games store. When I wasnt actually in one of these establishments, I was on the phone, calling them to find out when or if another shipment of Wii systems would arrive. What an up close, personal and repulsive snapshot on human behavior at its worst: here were pimply-faced store clerks on a power trip. “No, sir, I have no idea when we might be getting another shipment and, even if I did, I wouldnt be able to tell you.” Or twenty-something assistant store managers oozing attitude, as if just asking if they had a Wii in the house, demanded a heavy sigh, a roll of the eyes, and a dismissive “Yeah, right.” (One clerk initially appeared to be sympathetic, asking if my son had any other system. It wasnt long, however, before he tried to steer me toward an Xbox 360. Yeah, right.) Usually, I would avoid such unpleasant interaction, preferring instead to, well, make fun of everyone else who found themselves in such a predicament. But it seemed I had painted myself into a verbal corner with my kid. See, in an effort to keep the excitement of Christmas high every year, I figure out what gift each of my children wants the most, then pretend that it is just not doable. No way. Impossible. Of course, on Christmas, the toy was always sitting there under the tree, waiting for them. So this year, as I did my best to let my son down easy, all I kept getting in return was a knowing nod and a “Sure, dad. I understand. A Wii is just not doable this year. Got it.” Then hed wink at me, and I knew he fully expected to be Wii-ing like a champ on Christmas morn. I even did something I swore I would never do: I got up at 5 a.m. one Sunday morning because the rumor was that a limited number of Wiis would be available. In the darkness I cruised past Toys R Us Kmart Target Circuit City . Each was already encircled by a horde of desperate parents, shivering in the cold, waiting for the doors to open and hoping they made the cut. “Should I get in line?” I wondered, already knowing deep down in my heart that the Wiis would run out long before I got to the door. A couple more questions flashed through my mind: “How many of those people in line planned to put their Wiis for sale on the Internet for an obscene profit, thus profiting on the desperation of others?” and “What would my dad have done in this situation?” I couldnt answer my first question. As for the second, I think he would have explained that, because he worked two jobs to provide for his family, he didnt have time to stand in lines for a toy. Then hed tell me to appreciate what I had because a lot of kids have a lot less. I decided to go home. If my kid is destined to have a Wii, it will come without any feeling of pressure or guilt. If not, well, as the Grinch learned: “Maybe Christmas doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more.” Im sure hell understand. Yeah, right.
Memorial Cancer Institute at Memorial Hospital West has just become the first facility in Broward County to open a bone marrow transplant unit where patients with certain kinds of blood cancers, such as leukemia, lymphoma and multiple myeloma, will be able to receive treatment.
“Chemotherapy can get rid of some cancers,” explains Lyle Feinstein, M.D., hematologist/oncologist and co-director of the program with Daren Grosman, M.D., hematologist/oncologist. “Unfortunately, you can also knock out the good cells with the bad. If that happens, the patient cant produce red and white blood cells and platelets.” The solution: remove some of the blood pregenitor cells, store them, give the patient high doses of radiation or chemotherapy to eradicate the cancer, then infuse the blood progenitor cells, which can then produce normal red and white blood cells and platelets in the marrow. The unit is the third component of the Leukemia, Lymphoma and Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) Program, which is also comprised of research and specialty care for cancer patients. Until now patients had to travel out-of-town or even out-of-state to receive the transplant. “There has been a real commitment on the part of Memorial Healthcare System to invest in this,” says Daren Grosman, M.D. “One of the things that will be unique about the program is that our bone marrow transplants will be outpatient procedures. Now that the supportive care, antibiotics and anti-nausea medications have gotten so refined, we can actually keep most patients at home through their transplants.”
We’re No. 1. At least when it comes to amore.
A recent study by Bert Sperling of Sperling’s BestPlaces, reported in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, says the Pittsburgh area is the best place in the entire United States for Baby Boomers in search of true love. Eat your heart out, Paris, Rome and Niagara Falls. Based at least on lower than average divorce rates and higher than average marriage rates, Pittsburgh is the place to be if you are between the ages of 45 and 65 and are weary of looking for love in all the wrong places. What are we to make of this latest distinction for our home town? Since the article provided the results of the research but no hint as to their cause, we are left only to speculate. For the half-glass-full crowd among us, it could be said that this speaks to the stability of our region, where people marry for all the right reasons, cherish their wedding vows, and learn the value of sticking together through good times and bad. Of course, there could be another-glass-half-empty-way to look at this, with the answer to be found in the heavens. Or, more exactly, the clouds. As in those gray ones that seem to cover our region all the time. Collectively, Pittsburghers boast a number of positive traits: we’re hardworking, loyal, honest, and friendly. Not unlike really good basset hounds. But one glaring fault we seem to share is that we’ve resigned ourselves to certain events or situations with nary a whimper: we’re resigned to a pro baseball team that likely has seen its last world series; we’re resigned to dodging orange barrels and endless road repairs; we’re resigned to losing corporate headquarters and nonstop flights out of town. And, most assuredly, we’re resigned to looking up at the sky and basking in cloud cover approximately six days out of every seven (or so it seems.) So except for a lucky few of us who find their trophy spouse early and find the irritations of marriage minor when measured against the joys (and yes, she does occasionally read this column), marriage can be yet another thing to which Pittsburghers resign ourselves. I’m thinking that in places like California or Florida, the population walks around singing, “The sun will come up tomorrow .” (Most of us, by contrast, slump back and forth to work with Creedance Clearwater Revival’s “Who’ll Stop the Rain?” rolling around in our brains.) And, for good or ill, that attitude permeates everything else they do. So getting married, or staying married, are just two of the many options they entertain throughout their lives. Forty-five and not married? No big deal. Fifty-five and in a marriage grown stale?Let’s split our assets and call it quits. After all, the sun will come up tomorrow.
But whether our assent to the top of this particular mountain of love was due to stability or resignation, I say: who cares? I suggest we use it to launch a marketing campaign to replace those population numbers we reportedly have lost over the past few decades with single Baby Boomers who now surf the e-Harmony Web site in search of true love. This will foster a whole new romance industry locally: his and her Steelers shirts, gondola rides on the Mon, candlelight dinners at Primanti’s the potential is limitless.
And the best part is, whereas other regions are feverishly trying to lure twenty-somethings, we’ll have the middle-age crowd to ourselves. Given our current demographics, the end result will still be a dramatic drop in the average age of our population.
Stretched out on my left side, my rear end exposed to a crack team of healthcare professionals (crack team, get it?) just waiting for me to doze off so they could shove a long, flexible lighted tube uh, up there, I supposed at one time this all seemed like a good idea.
Just a couple of weeks earlier, during a routine physical scheduled for no other reason than to celebrate the start of my second half century on this earth, my doctor asked if Id ever had a colonoscopy. I have to admit, for a brief second I thought aboutwhat do the politicians call it?embellishing the facts by saying I had. If he asked for details, I was prepared to say I did it at home with a do-it-yourself kit I bought over the Internet and that everything was just fine, thank you. Instead, I admitted I hadnt, so one was scheduled. It wasnt long before I discovered a sort of silent fraternity of those guys who have swallowed their dignityalong with a gallon of gosh-awful liquid that flushes your system like Dranoand already had at least one colonoscopy and lived to talk about it, although it seldom came up in polite company. The message I heard most often was that getting a colonoscopy was a good idea. Reportedly, colorectal cancer is 90 percent preventable if people get screened; yet estimates are that only 30 to 40 percent of adults ages 50 and older take the time to get screened. Consequently, colorectal cancer is the second-leading cancer killer of men and women in the United States because it is often detected too late. Okay, so getting a colonoscopy is a good thing. But still the question nags: If they can put a man on the moon, why cant they find a more dignified way to explore the insides of mine? The day before the procedure starts with a variation of fasting that allows the limited intake of clear stuff, mostly liquidswhite grape juice, Jello, popsicles, teauntil early evening. This disruption to my usual excessive eating was challenging enough; it wasnt helped by my wifes decision to bake fresh bread and spend he day watching Rachael Ray, the Iron Chef, and Emeril. She claims it was merely coincidence. In my muddled mental state, I might label it passive-aggressive It doesnt really matter, because eventually, unless you have a TV in the bathroom, viewing choices cease to matter. This starts not long after you begin to drink glass after glass of a liquid with one purpose: to flush your insides like a hose blasting through a car radiator, over and over again until you swear the U.S. Olympic bobsled team could sail through you in Gold Medal time. The next day, before they knocked me out, I learned a few things. For example, the colon is also known as the large bowel, and it is about five feet long. The lighted tube allows the doctor to look inside the large intestine for inflamed tissue, abnormal growths, and also for early signs of cancer. The scope blows air into the colon, inflating it to provide a better view, and the images are seen on a video screen. (Sounds like strange viewing, until you realize that its not that big a leap to imagine it on Fox as a new reality show.) I asked the nurse if the procedure isnt a little like snaking a sewer. She responded with a standard colonoscopy comeback: “Keep it up and well do you twice.” (Rimshot.) As I dozed off the last thought I remembered was a question: What could possibly motivate someone smart enough to be a doctor to specialize in performing colonoscopies? I figured the pay must be good, and they probably get to keep any loose change they find I just hoped they didnt sign their work, because I seldom look down there I woke up with a nurse hovering over me encouraging me to pass gas (maybe the only place its socially acceptable) and handing me an eight-by-ten glossy of my colon, suitable for framing. If nothing else, Ill keep it to refute my wifes occasional assertion that my head is permanently stuck up there. And perhaps for Fox publicity shots so they wont have to shoot new ones.
One by one, they came to the microphone telling tales that came from their hearts in the most literally sense.
In October, Martin Memorial held a celebration to commemorate the first anniversary of the Frances Langford Heart Center. Approximately 200 heart patients, physicians and supporters turned out to listen to patient testimonials, enjoy a dancing exhibition featuring a former heart patient and to mark an important milestone for the entire community.
(l-r) Bernhard Weyhausen, one of the first 13 open-heart surgery patients at the Frances Langford Heart Center, shares a laugh with Melissa Zinderman, Cynthia Silva and Janice Meadows of the Frances Langford Heart Center during the centers first anniversary.