f/k/a . . .

With Overlawyered’s Walter Olson taking a few days off

for family duties, I guess it’s up to us to point you to

today’s Tina’s Groove comic strip on Restaurant Lawsuits.

(Seattle Post-Intelligencer, April 21, 2006) It’s well worth

a click. (Hey, buddy, can I borrow your placemat?)

 

                                                                         

                                                                            get Tina products here

 

 

 

early Alzheimer’s

she says she’ll have . . .

the usual

 

 

 

 

 

dining alone

I rehearse

a conversation

 

home

and homesick

all-night diner

 

 

 

 

 

 

late night –

a waitress repeats

the list of pies 

 

 

 

 

John Stevenson 

“dining alone” - Quiet Enough (Red Moon Press, 2004)

“early Alzheimer’s” - Quiet Enough (2004)

“home” - Upstate Dim Sum   (2003/I)

“late night”- The Heron’s Nest (March 2006)

 

 

 

 

coffee shop . . .

      the only empty seat

      still warm

 

 

 

 

all tongue

the clam in the fire’s

hiss

 

  Randy Brooks

     from School’s Out (Press Here, 1999)

 

 

 

 

pretty waitress —

just a nod when we say

we’re getting old

 

     dagosan 

                                                                                                                                                   

One of the worst things about having the medical diagnosis (as I do)

of “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome” is not being able to point to specific,

scientific/medical causes for the myriad symptoms.  Because you

do not “look sick” and can’t “prove” how worn out your body seems

or how much pain you’re feeling, many of the people in your life —

including some doctors — start thinking you are “crazy or lazy,” which

can affect your own self-image. 

 

 

One thing that “makes no sense” to many of my friends and often

to myself, is my felt experience over the past decade that mental and

emotional stressors, and exposure to virtually anyone’s germs, can

be as debilitating as physical exertion or injury for me.  It is with some

relief, therefore, that I read the article “Chronic Fatigue’s Genetic Component: 

Study Clarifies Predisposition to Syndrome,” this morning’s Washington

Post (April 21, 2006), which summarizes ”The results, published in more

than a dozen reports and commentaries in the April issue of the journal

Pharmacogenomics. 

 

The article states, in part (emphasis added):

“An intense battery of medical and psychological tests of people

with chronic fatigue syndrome has strengthened the idea that

the mysterious ailment is actually a collection of five or more

conditions with varying genetic and environmental causes,

scientists reported yesterday.

“But though the syndrome comes in many flavors, these experts

said, the new work also points to an important common feature:

The brains and immune systems of affected people do not respond

normally to physical and psychological stresses.” 

 

” . . . in one analysis, the activity of just 26 genes did accurately

predict which of six categories of chronic fatigue a patient had on

the basis of symptoms and other clinical tests. That is a powerful

hint that those genes — many of them involved in immune system

regulation, the adrenal gland and the brain’s hypothalamus and

pituitary gland, which are involved in the body’s response to stress —

may hold clues to the disease variants.

 

” . . .  It is already known, {CDC’s Suzzane D.] Vernon said, that

the brain can literally rewire itself — breaking old connections between

neurons while building new ones — in response to various physical or

emotional events. Chronic fatigue syndrome may be the result of a

bad rewiring job, she said, in people genetically predisposed to handle

stress poorly.” 

 

“questionDudeS”

“The specific implications remain uncertain for now, said

Vernon, a CDC molecular biologist. “But everybody’s finding

the same five genes to be involved, which is pretty cool.”

 

“Several other studies on the Wichita samples found abnormal

levels of various hormones relating to stress and mood —

additional evidence that chronic fatigue syndrome patients are

genetically and neurologically “wired” to respond to stress abnormally.”

If you think it’s strange to be thrilled finding out you may indeed have genetic abnor-

malities, you probably have not lived with the uncertainties of an illness like CFS.  For

now, I plan to chastise myself less when stressful topics (like here yesterday) seem to

leave me so drained.  I will also keep in mind this crucial sentence in the WaPo article:

“The researchers predicted that continued clarification of the precise genes and hormones

involved will lead to better diagnostic tests and therapies for the ailment, which may affect

close to 1 million Americans.”

 

mom’s arthritis

acting up –

I take two Advil

 

 

 

 

 

her beer breath –

tonight,

we both have headaches 

 

           dagosan 

 

                                                                                     

 

One of the worst things about having the medical diagnosis (as I do)

of “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome” is not being able to point to specific,

scientific/medical causes for the myriad symptoms.  Because you

do not “look sick” and can’t “prove” how worn out your body seems

or how much pain you’re feeling, many of the people in your life —

including some doctors — start thinking you are “crazy or lazy,” which

can affect your own self-image. 

 

 

One thing that “makes no sense” to many of my friends and often

to myself, is my felt experience over the past decade that mental and

emotional stressors, and exposure to virtually anyone’s germs, can

be as debilitating as physical exertion or injury for me.  It is with some

relief, therefore, that I read the article “Chronic Fatigue’s Genetic Component: 

Study Clarifies Predisposition to Syndrome,” this morning’s Washington

Post (April 21, 2006), which summarizes ”The results, published in more

than a dozen reports and commentaries in the April issue of the journal

Pharmacogenomics. 

 

The article states, in part (emphasis added):

“An intense battery of medical and psychological tests of people

with chronic fatigue syndrome has strengthened the idea that

the mysterious ailment is actually a collection of five or more

conditions with varying genetic and environmental causes,

scientists reported yesterday.

“But though the syndrome comes in many flavors, these experts

said, the new work also points to an important common feature:

The brains and immune systems of affected people do not respond

normally to physical and psychological stresses.” 

 

” . . . in one analysis, the activity of just 26 genes did accurately

predict which of six categories of chronic fatigue a patient had on

the basis of symptoms and other clinical tests. That is a powerful

hint that those genes — many of them involved in immune system

regulation, the adrenal gland and the brain’s hypothalamus and

pituitary gland, which are involved in the body’s response to stress —

may hold clues to the disease variants.

 

” . . .  It is already known, {CDC’s Suzzane D.] Vernon said, that

the brain can literally rewire itself — breaking old connections between

neurons while building new ones — in response to various physical or

emotional events. Chronic fatigue syndrome may be the result of a

bad rewiring job, she said, in people genetically predisposed to handle

stress poorly.” 

 

“questionDudeS”

“The specific implications remain uncertain for now, said

Vernon, a CDC molecular biologist. “But everybody’s finding

the same five genes to be involved, which is pretty cool.”

 

“Several other studies on the Wichita samples found abnormal

levels of various hormones relating to stress and mood —

additional evidence that chronic fatigue syndrome patients are

genetically and neurologically “wired” to respond to stress abnormally.”

If you think it’s strange to be thrilled finding out you may indeed have genetic abnor-

malities, you probably have not lived with the uncertainties of an illness like CFS.  For

now, I plan to chastise myself less when stressful topics (like here yesterday) seem to

leave me so drained.  I will also keep in mind this crucial sentence in the WaPo article:

“The researchers predicted that continued clarification of the precise genes and hormones

involved will lead to better diagnostic tests and therapies for the ailment, which may affect

close to 1 million Americans.”

 

mom’s arthritis

acting up –

I take two Advil

 

 

 

 

 

her beer breath –

tonight,

we both have headaches 

 

           dagosan