American Chestnut Tree

Considering that last post was kindof serious and considering I’m no longer in such a serious mood, I thought I’d post something funny or interesting. First of all, the fact that I’m in a good mood is entirely weird. I spent the first half of the day locked in a room with a bunch of dead bodies and their spinal cords. Surprisingly, that put me in a good mood. Make of that what you will.

I should tell you about the American Chestnut Tree. DO YOU know about the American Chestnut Tree?

Prior to the 1900’s, there existed a tree that dominated the eastern United States. It accounted for one in four trees in the Appalachians. The American Chestnut Tree was a major cash crop as it could be used for fence posts, furniture, sticks to hit your brother with, flooring, and bar tops! It was also a beautiful wood for those of us who like woodworking. And they were huge. They could be over 100 feet tall and 10 feet in diameter. They were the Giant Redwoods of the East.

Linked from the Forest History Society Image Database

The chestnuts were apparently amazing! Ever heard of the song “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire?” Well it’s about the American Chestnut. I guess they were sweet and you could either roast them in the oven or just pluck ‘em off the ground.

But then in 1904, in New York City*, they introduced** the chestnut blight. Cryphonectria parasitica was just a common fungus and native to the Chinese Chestnut, which is the tree most people have nowadays.*** However, the American Chestnut was overwhelmed by the non-native infection and the entire population of 4 billion trees was completely decimated in a few decades. Deforestation and replantation over the years has eliminated almost any trace that the trees even existed. It makes national headlines when a single tree is discovered nowadays.

There are several efforts to cross breed the American Chestnut Tree with the Chinese Chestnut to get the resistance mechanisms and maintain all the other characteristics of the American Chestnut. It takes a long time—at least five years per generation—and there aren’t very many people who know enough to miss the old giants. The effort is small, but it’s there, and in several years they’ll have trees to start repopulating.

There ya go. Now you know about the American Chestnut Tree. At least I didn’t tell you about my fun morning alone in the Anatomy Lab… egh.

Mike!

* damn city dwellers
** “ooh I swear it wasn’t me… it must have been Jersey”
*** it’s a weakling… tiny, poor wood, and the nuts don’t taste good… yuck

Uncertainty

My Mom said something to me today. She said that we can so easily become lost in the things to come that we forget to focus on what we’re doing now. I suppose I’ve been doing the former at the expense of the latter. The most difficult problem with my cancer has been that I have been so focused on the future that I’ve often stopped enjoying the moment.

Your response might be that all medical students are like that. Perhaps mine are expounded because I’ve had to take a half-year off and have all the time in the world to ponder my situation. But I don’t think that’s that case. I don’t just think about how hard school will be; I’m terrified that I’ve lost too much cognitive ability to do it at all. I don’t just think about residencies; I think about residencies I can go into with my disease. I don’t just think about whether I can provide good care; I worry about hurting patients down the road. I could go on and on and write a book about each of them. They are very real concerns and I will come to face them sometime.

I’ve always been one to plan ahead. If I thought about something long enough, I’d come to the right answer. No matter how big a problem seemed to be, no matter how many there were, I could always just put a little bit of time into it. Now, I’ve spent months looking at so many uncertainties without any logical answers. Without having had realized it, I’ve driven myself into a really bad place. I’ve considered not providing care, not attending residency, driving back home and not doing school at all.

My Mom in her sweet, unassuming sort of wisdom sprung the idea on me that it’s okay to leave extremely important things uncertain. It’s fine to proceed without having any idea how you’re going to deal with the later stuff. I don’t have put “a little bit of time into it,” not because those things are unimportant, but because I can’t answer them now. And I guess that’s okay too.

Thanks Mom.

Shortest Post of All Time

This'll be my shortest post ever. Both the solid tumor and the cystic part shrank during the last month! Woohoo!

Also, we're approaching the landmark of 1000 people having had visited this site since it's inception. While I thank you very much for your support... the internet has many more interesting things out there. Look up youtube.com. It's interesting too.

Mike

Putzing Around School

Hey all...

Sorry I've been so neglectful of the blog, but there's just not much to say! My brain is pretty normal (well, normal for me haha) and the tumor still stable. I'm going to have another MRI tomorrow, moreso to ensure that I'm okay to reduce the steroids (I'm on dexamethazone) than anything.* Losing the steroids will be great because they are the reason for pretty much all of the ill effects of my drugs.

From here on out I hopefully will have the MRI's on 2 month cycles rather than 1 month. If there's anything going on in my pretty little head, I'll know before the MRI does and can alert the doctors.

For all of you who have seen me around school moping about... looking lost and sad and confused... there's actually been a reason for me being there besides me pretending to be a third year. I have been getting research started in the neuropath department, maybe some with a neurosurg resident (I haven't heard back from him yet), going to grand rounds, and have been observing the Neuro Oncology Tumor Board, which hopefully I'll help manage in a few weeks. So really, there's a reason for me to be there other than steal your cookies and cranberry juice.

I can't really think of much else to say. Maybe I'll amuse you with my musings at another date. For a blog that's supposed to be about my cancer, I thank God there's not much to say. Perhaps I'll expand further into other topics... such as why I spent 4 hours today listening to my heart beat on the stethoscope and waiting for somebody to page me on my brand new pager. My mom did once I asked her to. And my brother. How sad.

Mike!

*For all you medical dorks out there, the dex reduces the mass effect from the tumor. On my last MRI the mass effect appeared to be going down and I feel significantly better... so we're gonna reduce the dex and hopefully drop it.