Reality is a function of our perception as much as life is a function of our dreams. Gino Isla, Antwerp, Dec 1988.
To my SI friends, life is also what happens to you when you're making other plans [Paul McCartney]. Now, I find that malignant Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma has picked up my dreams and is threatening to smash them on the ground. My son, 21, who you can see here in Queenstown during a year off between school in Japan and University:
crash.ihug.co.nz
has NHL with a 5 year survival probability of something like 60%, but this might be more with treatment which is effective. Or less if not.
So, once again as summer in New Zealand arrives, you will find me absent from the Qualcomm/Globalstar discussion groups. Though you are likely to find me reappear in the biotech area of course! I had planned a couple of years ago to move into biotechs once cdma had run its course into providing the main communications for the world and Globalstar was flying high, filling in all the terrestrial gaps. Biotechs seemed the most important area needing development - that turned out to be personally true sooner than I thought
Globalstar was for me a metaphor for human hopes and aspirations. No small dreams or pure selfishness carried humanity from the forests to amazing collective efforts against the destructive forces of the natural world. The process is moving very fast these days, with 5 billion people in a collective onslaught against all that is bad and in pursuit of all that is good, using technology of infinite array held in our branch clutching hands.
Now, the most important thing in the world for me has developed engine trouble on the launch pad. My child. Who a few weeks ago moved officially into 21 year old adulthood with the seeds of his destruction breeding within.
So with love, sadness and courage, we, along with millions of others today suffering similar circumstances are moving into a new sphere of life's experience. But not one to sit idly by and watch the universe unfold, I intend to do what I can to make life a function of my dreams. Fortunately, many people have gone before and put great effort and intelligent analysis to work, so NHL does not have a free hand to wander unhindered in the bloodstream and lymph of our lives. Many people now go on to live a full life. But many don't.
Like smallpox before it, for which I carry a vaccination scar, NHL may become extinct as a human problem. That is my hope. My dream.
We've had several years in a row of serious things going wrong. Malignant melanoma, caught in time no thanks to a doctor who said just keep an eye on it, but we said "No, take it off now!" He thought it just a minor lesion "probably" of no consequence. A daughter with a benign tumor in her neck, misdiagnosed for 3 years; no further effects though some damage to facial nerves. Then a marital split and reconciliation. Now our oldest in trouble. I tell you, life was never like this in the good old days! Childhood and early adulthood were a happy doddle. As it should be. As it still is really, funny though it may seem.
So, best wishes to you all and especially to my special friends. No doubt your satellites have done or will crash on take off. Have strength and hope. Meanwhile, may all your satellites fly high in the sky. Maybe Globalstar and Tarken are stuck on the launch pad, but with brains and application, I'm hopeful that they'll lift off safely.
But remember, things are never so bad that they can't get worse! So you might as well enjoy what you've got and do what you can to make sure they DON'T get worse and in fact, get better.
Meanwhile, I can now talk about monoclonal antibody products like Rituxan for relapsed or refractory low grade or follicular B-cell Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Leucocytes, T-cells and mitosis are becoming well worn friends of a few days standing.
cdmaOne photon phragmenters with Fourier wave functions at Piha are not for me just now.
With love,
Maurice, the sherry drinking shepherd. Dolly's pal.
PS: Hmmmm. Human cloning sounds like a damn good idea to me. Imagine having 10 clones running around. You'd be like a really tough gang. Need a bit of marrow? No sweat! Want a kidney - yep, got some over here. Skin graft? For a fee of course!!! If fact, with a bit of imagination and scientific skill, there are very wide vistas for cloning humans. But I'll save all that for another day. |
