Randomn3ss

Hanging out just under your stomach and snuggled next to your duodenum is your good old pancreas. The pancreas is pretty important; along with aiding digestion, it produces important hormones such as insulin that regulate blood sugar. Sadly, pancreatic cancer is one of the most deadly forms of cancer today, and is generally predisposed to men but can and does inflict over 33,000 Americans of all races and genders each year. Remission is very rare, as cancer of the pancreas kills the majority of people within 5 years of diagnosis. Most of the time it’s sooner. I’m sure many of us have heard the sad news that our beloved Patrick Swazye has been diagnosed (alright maybe not beloved but he’s dying and I’m embellishing), and perhaps some of us have heard of Randy Pausch due to his amazing and heartfelt Last Lecture. If not, here is your chance to learn about this wonderful father, teacher and human being. Read on.

Thanks to modern technology, Randy Pausch is spreading his message to millions, and it’s been totally unintentional. With a PhD in computer science, he has spent the majority of his exceptional career exploring and expanding the realms of virtual reality. He’s one of those people that make you wonder what crazy, intense, supremely intelligent river is feeding his thoughts. A professor at Carnegie Mellon, Randy has authored/co-authored 5 books and numerous articles, loves turkey sandwiches on white bread with mayo, and has 3 adorable young children and a lovely wife. It’s an otherwise picture perfect life aside from the 10ish ugly cancerous tumors on his liver and pancreas that are currently and rapidly killing him.

In September of 2007 with a prognosis of 4-6 months left to live, Randy participated in a lecture series at Carnegie Mellon about reaching childhood dreams. His childhood dreams, consisting of playing in the NFL, meeting Captain Kirk, writing for an encyclopedia (I promise you his dorkiness is the root of his charm), reaching zero gravity and being an imagineer have successfully and for the most part been achieved. Although he never reached NFL status, Randy says that he got more out of not accomplishing this than he ever would have in reaching it. He learned the power of enthusiasm, and that experience is what you get when you don’t get what you wanted in the first place. Randy speaks of the importance of the head fake throughout his lecture - lessons learned indirectly. When parents enroll their kids in something such as sports, most of the time it isn’t about becoming major league, its about learning hard work and team work. Its stuff like that in which the lecture is based upon.

Randy speaks about brick walls, how they are there for a reason, brick walls let us show our dedication and they only there to stop those that don’t want it bad enough. He talks about how there is always a villain, there will always be someone in our lives that will challenge us. He talks about people in his life that have inspired him, how one such person told him that people will always surprise and impress you, even if you are pissed off and angry at someone, you just haven’t given them enough time.

Another aspect that is important about this speech is that it isn’t only telling us how to reach our own dreams, it’s also about helping others achieve their dreams. Randy is doing just that, reaching out to everyone and sharing his moving and honest path to success. Help others. Loyalty is a two way street. Pay attention. Don’t bail. Show gratitude. Don’t complain, just work harder. Find the best in everyone. Be prepared. Never give up. It isn’t necessarily about monetary success either, although that evidently seems to follow. The words of wisdom that Randy passes on are priceless, and in the end of the speech he reveals that he’s really been head-faking us all. These words aren’t really a lesson on how to reach your dreams, they’re on how to live your life. Most importantly, Randy says that if you lead your life the right way, karma will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you. In a world where it seems everyone is out for himself, the most motivating words are coming from a dying man to all of our ears.

And now they can be read as well. Soon after the lecture was given, it was posted on the Internet. Through the glory of sites such as youtube, over 6 million people have since accessed and watched Randy Pausch’s talk, and counting. Word spread and soon enough he had a book deal, which was cranked out skillfully in less than a year as Randy is on borrowed time. Every day it seems there is a new test, a new regimen, a new treatment that extends his life by what could be days or weeks or months. Each second is precious, the book was written in just an hour a day as to not take any time away from Randy’s children, two of which might be too young to even remember their father. Of course, as he states in his lecture, the biggest head-fake may be that Randy hasn’t done any of this for us, it’s for his children. His three young kids who will grow up without their father and perhaps without even a memory of him. It is a life guide dedicated to them that the public is now being gifted, and we should all be so fortunate to experience it.

Please click on the following links:

Watch the Last Lecture on video, buy his book (I’m sure you can find it on half.com), and be inspired. Randy Pausch’s story is truly fascinating and the lecture is great, I promise you will not be bored and you may even laugh a few times.

You can read about Randy Pauch’s daily progress on his website here. Be sure to check out the link to his personal and touching update section. Interestingly enough, its not depressing. He is optimistic and strong and he is fighting.

For more information on pancreatic cancer research and education, please visit the Lustgarten foundation here.

It seems that every other commercial on TV and one quarter of the ads in any given magazine are promoting some kind of prescription drugs. They vary from ones to help you get up, ones to help you put your head down at night, even ones to help reduce the burn and outbreak. In our society of information being everything, is this really helping us be more educated or simply putting more of a burden on doctors and the health industry? No doubt that the drug industry tends to be highly profitable and kick-backs to doctors for writing scripts is far from a secret, but does it really help anyone?

Personally, my trips to the doctor’s office for a prescription to help the common cold are getting less and less. Not only does it cost too much for the visit, the time spent with my family doctor has drastically been cut back, and I’ve been going to the same doctor for over 20 years now. I’m assuming that the pressures of turning more clients in a day, getting more scripts written and more money made for everyone is the reason, but is it helping us patients? With the internet being the way it is, television and magazine ads basically telling you the answers to every problem you may have, I’d imagine that some doctors simply open the door, ask the patient what they think they need prescribed, check a few things out and write the scrip. I’m lucky my doctor doesn’t do this, but I have no doubt other greedy doctors do.

For many years hard alcohol ads were banned from TV, and if I recall, tobacco ads were pulled a few years ago. They were pulled, from what I gather, in an interest to not influence youths and adults into bad habits. Prescription drug addiction is just as bad as being an alcoholic and I can easily see someone with an addictive personality being drawn into these ads, being told what their problems are and what a solution would be. I honestly think that marking a product that the end consumer cannot buy without first seeing a doctor should be eliminated as much as possible from media and marketing. It’s something you can’t go down to a corner store and buy [legally] and I’m willing to bet that someone has written a study somewhere to indicated a good number of people are being prescribed drugs that they either don’t need, are in the wrong quantity or are the wrong type, simply because the patient knows what the symptoms are before they step foot in the doctors office.

I am the product of divorced parents, I was a latchkey kid, I grew up in the late 80s addicted to TV, it was my entire world. I love TV, in fact, I could spend weeks doing nothing but channel surfing. I am now an adult, I still love TV but I also really enjoy a lot more that life has to offer. TV is no longer a priority, however I do enjoy it, but it has a time and place.

That place is not at my dentists office. For serious. OK, the idea is cool, I like having a TV to watch when you clean my teeth over staring at the ceiling or into your pretty eyes. Great, OK, so maybe I do like the idea.

What I don’t like is when you, the dental hygienist stop cleaning my teeth because you are too interested in Good Morning America. Seriously, you get paid a lot of money to do your job and you do a very good one at that, I appreciate it, I pay my health insurance premiums so you can drive around in a BMW and I enjoy the extra luxury of being able to watch TV, but, it is for me, not you. You are paid to do your job, do it!

Big thanks to Keith for pointing out possibly one of the funniest products to be sold through Amazon that real people actually buy and use. Die-hard BMX riders swear that this stuff is top notch and they wouldn’t use anything else. What is this gloriously funny product? Anti Monkey Butt Powder is designed to help keep you dry, it is a legitimate product with some creative minds behind the brand name. From their own website,

Anti Monkey Butt Powder is specially formulated to absorb excess sweat and reduce frictional skin irritation.

If anyone uses this, please leave a comment. If you don’t use it, go buy a bottle and let me know how it works.

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and pink is the color associated with the entire month. Many blogs are changing their skins to pink, a lot of retail outlets change their ads to pink, all in an effort to help bring more awareness. There are hundreds of ways you can help, the link above will give you tons of resources, for my part I donating my time / talent to shoot the Women’s 5K Classic tomorrow morning, the photos will be available to be purchased as prints and those proceeds will go to the charity. Some of the photos may be used in a charity calendar sold next year as well. Everyone can give a little, time, talent and money to bring more awareness to the cause.

And courtesy of Nicole, here is a playful graphic on a serious topic.

I will freely admit that I am openly skeptic about the abilities of modern medicine. I have very little faith in the true abilities of doctors and rarely find the information from those in the medical profession of any true value. As I see it, they’ve read some books and are simply guessing. Yes, they can fix a broken bone, but insofar as illnesses are concerned, I find their diagnoses about as professional as the guy who guesses your weight at amusement parks.

Case in point, for a majority of the last decade, medical professionals and pharmaceutical companies have forced the benefits of multi-vitamins and lycopene down our throats (no pun intended). They constantly reminded us that lycopene was essential for men in the fight against prostate cancer.

Well, once again, medical professionals across the globe are retreating as fast as they can as new studies have shown that taking a multi-vitamin in excess of 7 times a week had nearly a 100% INCREASE in likelihood of developing prostate cancer. Furthermore, the studies showed that an increase in lycopene had no measurable impact on the development or suppression of the cancer.

So, what does this tell us?

1. Doctors are, for the most part, sheep. They take what companies tell them and use it as fact.
2. The pharmaceutical companies, though nothing new, will do whatever it takes to sell their product.
3. Eating smart and exercising is still probably the top way to stay healthy…what a concept!

More Info: WebMD
More More Info: Healthcare Republic

“iPods can cause cardiac implantable pacemakers to malfunction by interfering with the electromagnetic equipment monitoring the heart, according to a study presented by a 17-year-old high school student to a meeting of heart specialists on Thursday.The study tested the effect of the portable music devices on 100 patients, whose mean age was 77, outfitted with pacemakers. Electrical interference was detected half of the time when the iPod was held just 2 inches from the patient’s chest for 5 to 10 seconds.

The study did not examine any portable music devices other than iPods, which are made by Apple Inc.

In some cases, the iPods caused interference when held 18 inches from the chest. Interfering with the telemetry equipment caused the device to misread the heart’s pacing and in one case caused the pacemaker to stop functioning altogether.

The study was held at the Thoracic and Cardiovascular Institute at Michigan State University. The results were presented at the Heart Rhythm Society annual meeting in Denver.”

Read More: CNN Article

Although news outlets report daily on the numbers of casualties, kidnappings, and civilian deaths in the ongoing conflict in the Middle East (specifically, Operation Iraqi Freedom), the Department of Defense recently released a report on a lesser known, yet debilitating, effect of war - the psychological trauma of surviving soldiers.  I’m particularly scared about this because I saw changes in my boyfriend very, very quickly after he was deployed to Tikrit in July.  Daily emails and phone calls filled with our plans for the future slipped to weekly, then montly, then to nothing.  The occasional email I did receive didn’t make sense, lots of Apocalypse Now references and hopeless rambling with no mention of coming home. Last time I spoke to his mother, she hadn’t heard from him in over a month.  These changes might have been expected, but are simulataneously frightening because he is turning into someone else.  All I know, courtesy of the daily DoD Army Casualty report, is that he’s alive, although to what extent he is still truly alive, I won’t know until he returns.  

I had read previous reports stating that as many as 33% of returning soldiers suffered from some sort of psychological trauma upon their return home.  The DoD surveyed over 1,300 Army soldiers and almost 450 Marines.  The most recent report presented the following facts:

• Soldiers who deployed longer (greater than six months) or had deployed multiple times were more likely to screen positive for a mental health issue.
• Approximately 10 percent of soldiers reported mistreating non-combatants or damaging their property when it was not necessary.
• Less than half of soldiers and Marines would report a team member for unethical behavior.
• More than one-third of all soldiers and Marines reported that torture should be allowed to save the life of a fellow soldier or Marine.
• The 2006 adjusted rate of suicides per 100,000 soldiers was 17.3 soldiers, lower than the 19.9 rate reported in 2005, however higher than the Army average of 11.6 per 100,000 soldiers. However, there are important demographic differences between these two soldier populations that make direct comparisons problematic.
• Soldiers experienced mental health problems at a higher rate than Marines.
• Deployment length was directly linked to morale problems in the Army.
• Leadership is key to maintaining soldier and Marine mental health.
• Both soldiers and Marines reported at relatively high rates - 62 and 66 percent, respectively - that they knew someone seriously injured or killed, or that a member of their team had become a casualty.

The full press release can be found here: DefenseLink

The DoD is also implementing a training program called “BATTLEMIND,” which focuses on evaluating the mental health of soldiers before their deployment and upon their return, asses levels and access to mental health care professionals, and to make recommendations on how to improve mental health care for our military.  For further information on how the Army is improving its commitment to behavioral and mental health, click here.

The news seems to get worse: A Johns Hopkins study shows that, among U.S. adults, fruit consumption is holding steady, but vegetable consumption is headed down — even if you count french fries.

Check out the results of the study (which appears in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine) in this story published yesterday:

If you need some help with how to cook vegetables or are interested in vegetarianism, check out an old trusted friend in that lifestyle, the Vegetarian Times magazine.

A 420 pound woman of Garden Grove, CA gave birth recently to a healthy baby boy. What makes this story unique is the woman went into the emergency room complaining of a stomachache. The 39 year old woman was shocked to find out that she was 9 months pregnant according to an X-ray doctor Hameed (UC Irvine Medical Center) took. Due to the woman’s large size it is no wonder the baby growing inside of her was overlooked. Hameed said that due to her “insulated padding” she would not be able to feel the baby kicking nor get morning sickness. The woman,
April Barnum delivered a 7 pound, 7 ounce boy, Walter Edwards II by C-Section.

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