RAH RAH RAH !

It seems it happens every time I spend time away from work. Something significant happens to someone or something drastically changes affecting us all at the workplace. So, I've come back from some vacation time only to see that it has happened again. There has been a change in our staff.

The last twelve or so days I have been somewhat introspective about a number of things. I have been constantly thinking about how life was 30 years ago for me. June 11th marked the 30th anniversary that I lost my brother Frank. At the time, I was 16 and he was 12. Frank contracted childhood leukemia and died 13 months after suffering its first effects. It started with low grade fevers that would start and stop for a couple of days at a time. I will never forget the searing image of my mother with her head bowed, pensively rubbing her forehead, talking soft spokenly on the telephone to my grandmother and telling her about her grandson's very recent mysterious bouts with these fevers. I remember my mother telling her how the doctors haven't yet figured it out.

Thirty years later, doctors haven't yet figured it out yet either. While the occurrence of Leukemia in children has been fairly steady across the general population in the United States for the past 30 years, medicine has made very big advancements in treating the disease. Leukemia has a much lower incidence of death in children today. Chemotherapy is much more refined and bone marrow transplants have helped curb the death rates dramatically. Remission is no longer deemed a miracle, remission is now something that treatments are formulated to achieve.

While I've had these past days just to myself, I've also been preoccupied imagining what my brother would be like today had he lived. I've been thinking about the Arizona Health Sciences Center and the staff who became familiar faces those months. I've been thinking about the revered doctor who was my brother's main care giver. Through the internet, I have found out where he is practicing today. Dr. Ronald Rosen lives and practices in Nevada now and appears that he is a proactive crusader of sorts regarding awareness and known causes of that childhood malady.
http://www.rgj.com/news/stories/html/2002/06/03/15879.php?sp1=&sp2=&sp3=
http://nevada.sierraclub.org/sngroup/text/pressrel2.html
http://epw.senate.gov/hearing_statements.cfm?id=214065

I feel like writing him a letter and telling him about my family and me some thirty years later. When I get around to it, I will tell him about us....the survivors of Leukemia.

Regrettably, it's the very recent passing of someone I know well that has inspired this downer and somber entry today. There comes a time for everyone, and the time came for a colleague of mine over my recent retreat from work. I learned on Saturday that Bob at work will no longer be around filling his tall coffee mug in the mornings. I found out that Bob will no longer be sending e-mails with jokes from around the English speaking world nor video files of images that make one think "How did they do that"? I found out on Saturday that I will no longer enjoy pleaseant and intelligent conversation from Bob any longer. Bob made a grand exit last Friday morning and took that car of his with him.
http://www.bergen.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkzJmZnYm
VsN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk2OTQ5MzI2

A Dieux Bob!

Many will miss you.

*!*