It’s vacation time again for Siobhan and Bill. We’re off to the wooly wilds of Idaho to delve into the mysteries of Hell’s Canyon, to investigate the desolate beauty of Craters of the Moon, to pan for gold, scavenge for opals and bring a chocolate cake to our long lost pal Mike Hatcherson in Ketchum. And in the process snag few votes for Bill’s presidential campaign.
We try to take you with us on these outings, to share with you the sights and sounds of our trips, the successes and snafus of the journey, to better encourage you to be off on a venture of your own. For some of us, the days are short; the spirit is willing but the flesh is weakening, and there may soon be a time when grand adventures are restricted to the back yard, the shuffleboard court, the 70-and-up league nerf-ball diamond, the quilting bee parlors.
Every annual doctor’s checkup is a potential minefield of bad news, our CBC results an early-warning system for missiles which may already have been launched against us. Our body’s delicate antenna regularly advises us that it is receiving occasional discordant signals from its various parts, that something is a little off here, a bit bent there, and it might be a good time for another trip to the pill market to assuage the issue.
We’re willing to tolerate a little slipping and sliding, a slight reversal of form, another minor discomfort because we realize that some day soon the earth may rumble, the sky darken and the Voice of Doom announce to us that The Big Nasty has arrived in all its negative glory, that all bets are now off and that life will never be the same. And when that happens, the grandeur of Yosemite, the spires of the Tetons, the wonder of the Grand Canyon will all be fodder for our rear-view mirrors, opportunities unvisited and lost to the current reality. So take wing, my friends, soar across the plains and over the mountains while the soaring is good. There’s no telling what sordid business tomorrow brings.
The Big Nasty
There are days which start out well enough and then the odd phone call arrives like an arrow launched by an angry messenger. You listen but you’re sure there must be some mistake, the alternative being too awful to contemplate, but then the bad news sets in like a vast storm front, one that promises to be around for an extended period. Your very good friend, we’ll call him Captain Noonan, has Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, ALS, Lou Gehrig’s Disease, a shot to the heart. But that can’t be. He’s otherwise healthy-appearing, even dynamic, few signs of a nightmare in the offing. It must be some lesser bit of nastiness imitating The Big One. Because if he has ALS, well, the game is over, right? The great majority of those stricken have three years from diagnosis to death, barely enough time to clean out the garage and get whatever affairs they have in order.
We just hate that phrase, by the way, “get your affairs in order.” It’s as if you’re planning an extended cruise to Northumberland and you’re being advised to pack neatly, cancel the newspaper subscription and leave the key under the mat for the cleaning woman. Captain Noonan’s doctor, woefully deficient in bedside manner, used that exact phrase, “Get your affairs in order.” I, for one, would just as soon be told, “Gee Bill, you’re screwed.” But ideally, since I have a sense of humor, I’d prefer being part of a large group facing The Big Boss. The BB would announce “All of you who will be here ten years from now, please step forward.” And when I joined the others in doing so, the Boss would check his paperwork, raise an index finger and caution, “Not so fast, Mr. Killeen!”
Now What?
If you have just received the ultimate bad news that you will soon be tossed into the final abyss, locked in a maze with no way out, pushed into the arena without a spear to face ten hungry lions, you have only one hope: that you happen to be a good friend of the whirlwind known as Siobhan Ellison, who spits at death sentences and goes to work.
After a few hours of steady internet pursuit, Dr. Ellison and her loyal assistant (me) established to our satisfaction that the world-champion ALS-fighter is Dr. Merit Cudkowicz, Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital. After considerable nudging, finessing, clever jargon and the submission of the required paperwork, Siobhan got Captain Noonan an appointment with Cudkowicz in a mere two weeks. In the meantime, she’s racing through everything ever written about the subject, devising delaying concoctions and searching through mountains of material reporting on current ALS trials and new drugs which appear to have potential. Not to mention checking recent patents for late-breaking news. Even if the Captain does not qualify for a trial involving a promising drug, there is still the possibility of manufacturing it oneself. After all, that’s what she does now, albeit in a different arena. Captain Noonan, once shattered by the untoward bulletin, has perked up with all the positive action, even showing some small signs of improvement after the early interventions. Ten percent of those diagnosed with ALS do live ten years or more, which would put the Cap past the average lifespan number for American males. The trick is in slowing down the progress of the disease as much as possible.
They said it couldn’t be done. They said nobody could do it. In Las Vegas, you can bet on the winner of a particular game and/or you can bet on whether the total number of points scored will be under or over the oddsmaker’s predictions. The Las Vegas line on this one is three years. Put everything you’ve got on the Over.
Information For The Bettors
ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that erodes motor neurons (cells in the brain and spinal cord that control muscular function) until it becomes impossible for the victim to walk, talk, speak, swallow and breathe. Symptoms often begin with slurred speech or muscle weakness and twitching and get worse over time. The rate at which a person’s condition degrades can vary quite a bit, though the average survival time is three years after diagnosis. While there is no cure for ALS, the condition can be managed with medication, physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy. Some patients also use ventilators to assist with breathing.
Doctors aren’t totally sure what causes ALS in most cases, though it does appear to have a genetic component in some people. It’s usually diagnosed in people between ages 40 and 60, and men seem to be more likely than women to develop the condition, at least before the age of 65.
And then there is the legendary astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who recently died at age 76 after 55 years of battling ALS, an unheard of survival time. What happened here? Only 5% of ALS patients live longer than 20 years, though a Canadian outlier named Steven Wells has had the condition for almost 40 years. Hawking was even able to evade the dementia that some people with ALS experience toward the later phases of the disease.
Doctors speculate that Stephen Hawking probably had some combination of genes, environment and clinical care which lengthened his life, not a very illuminating conclusion. The type of motor neurons affected by a person’s disease may also matter. Motor neurons which control eye movement often resist ALS far longer than those in the brain and spinal cord. Understanding how these cells stave off death may help scientists understand long-term survival. Scientific American attributes Hawking’s longevity to a slowly progressing form of ALS, which occurs rarely. Other investigators believe that ALS is actually a number of different yet related diseases which might be dealt with individually.
Got any ideas? Captain Noonan would like to hear from you. And he’ll make you one big promise. If you’ve got the right answer, you’ll never have to buy a beer on this Earth again.
What You Don’t Know About Idaho. (A Lot).
What you do know is that it’s up there somewhere out west near the Canadian border. The more erudite among you remember that its skinny panhandle is skwushed between Washington state and Montana, and for some reason the Boise State University football field is blue. Oh, and the potatoes. You once saw an Idaho license plate which celebrated “Famous Potatoes” so that must be the Idaho crop of choice. You got that one right. Idaho grows a hefty one-third of America’s potatoes, about 27 billion of the little critters annually. Now here are some things you don’t know:
1. Idaho shares a border with seven other entities: Canada and the states of Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Wyoming and Washington.
2. Idaho is called The Gem State because it produces 72 types of precious and semi-precious stones. It’s believed that the largest diamond found on U.S. soil was discovered in Idaho.
3. Idaho is no one trick pony when it comes to agriculture. Moscow, Idaho is part of the Palouse region known as The Lentil Capital Of The World. The state is also home to the largest hops farm in the world, Elk Mountain Farms, which grows hops for Anheuser-Busch on 1800 acres of land. No hops, no beer.
4. At about 7900 feet, Hell’s Canyon on the Oregon border is the deepest gorge in the United States, edging out even the Grand Canyon.
5. Idaho has 3100 miles of rivers, more than any other state in the country.
6. Shoshone Falls drops 212 feet, beating out the more famous Niagara Falls by 45 feet. Nah-nah, easterners.
7. In Idaho, unfortunately, it’s illegal to fish off the back of a camel or giraffe. Don’t test them on this one. Idaho’s jails are full of scofflaw offenders.
8. It is also against the law in Idaho for a man to give his sweetheart a box of candy weighing more than 50 pounds. No word on how much a guy can give his mother-in-law.
9. Pocatello is the Capital of the Shit-Eating Grin. It’s against the law to be seen in person there without a smile on your face. For incorrigible grouches, the smile can be painted on.
10. The Idaho Potato Museum in Blackfoot features the world’s largest potato chip. Resembling a Pringle, the chip is 25 inches by 14.
11. Idaho is the only place in the world with a bra tree. It’s become a tradition for women to throw their bras from the chair lift at a ski resort in McCall, thus giving the Brundage Bra Tree its name. McCall is also the site of a celebrated event called the Winter Festival, which began in 1924. It started because the locals were bored. This was obviously prior to the invention of the Brundage Bra Tree.
12. Silly old Sarah Palin was born in Sandpoint, Idaho, to the utter and everlasting embarrassment of its populace.
Before you snicker at Idaho, remember that Ernest Hemingway spent time there in 1939 in hopes that the open air and mountain life would help inspire him to write his famous novel, “For Whom The Bell Tolls.” Apparently, the place agreed with him because he returned in 1959 and bought a house in Ketchum, where he lived until his death in 1961. If it’s good enough for Hemingway, it’s good enough for you.
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| Ernest Hemingway's favorite photograph. |
That’s all, folks….
bill.killeen094@gmail.com
