Tag: Cancer

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Astrology Fun Stuff

Free Will Astrology: Week of 07/20/23

Dario Bronnimann | Unsplash

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Your deep psyche will soon well up with extra creativity and fertility. I hope you will eagerly tap into these gifts. You should assume that you will be more imaginative and ingenious than usual. You will have an enhanced ability to solve problems with vigor and flair. In what areas of your life would you love to gently erupt with a burst of reinvention? Which of your habits might benefit from being cheerfully disrupted? Give yourself permission to change whatever bores you.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): My teacher Paul Foster Case said the color yellow is midway between warm, exciting red and cool, calming blue. “Yellow has an equilibrating influence,” he wrote. “It stimulates the finer functions of the brain, is of assistance in developing alertness and discrimination, and helps to establish emotional balance.” According to my astrological analysis, Taurus, you should emphasize this hue in the coming days. If you call on yellow to help strengthen the qualities Case describes, you will place yourself in sweet alignment with cosmic rhythms.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Because I enjoy joking with you, I am slightly tempted right now to give you one of the following nicknames: Fidgety, Twitch, Jittery, Quivers, or Shakes. But I will take a more serious tack. Let’s instead see if we can influence you to slow down, stabilize your rhythm, get really steady and secure, and stand strong in your foundational power spot. Would you consider adopting any of the following nicknames? Anchor, Unshakable, Sturdy, Rock Solid, Staunch, Steadfast, Resolute.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): The sometimes overly clever author Oscar Wilde said, “When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.” I reject that warped view of reality and assure you it will have no bearing on your life in the coming weeks. If you formulate your prayers with care and discernment, they will lead you to rewards, not problems. Maybe not the exact rewards you imagined, but still close to your hopes and helpful in the next chapter of your life story. (PS: No sloppy, lazy, careless prayers, please. Be precise and clear.)

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Leo theologian Bernard McGinn defines mysticism as “the consciousness of the immediate presence of God.” In other words, people having a mystic experience are filled with a visceral sensation of the divine intelligence. It’s not just an idea or concept; it’s a deeply felt communion infused with intimate tenderness. You Leos will be more likely than usual to have such contact in the coming weeks — if you want it. If you don’t want it, or don’t believe it’s real, or don’t think it’s possible, well, then, you can of course resist it. But why not give it a whirl? There’s nothing to lose, and it could be fun.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Here’s a parable for you. Once upon a time, there was a woman who could read the future in the night sky. She regarded the planets and stars as her divine informants. On one moonless evening, she took a walk down a dirt road near her home. It was so dark she could barely see two feet ahead of her. Oops! She should have brought a flashlight. Lost in wonder, she gazed up at the heavenly bodies, watching and listening for revelations they might have for her. Then one of the lights, the planet Saturn, whispered, “Stop and look down, friend.” The woman turned her eyes from the sky to the ground just in time to find she was two strides away from stepping into a deep, muddy hole. What’s the moral of the tale? Here are some possibilities: 1. Sometimes the heights provide useful information about the depths. 2. Soaring visions may help you tune in to practical details. 3. To become aware of important facts you’ve overlooked in your daily rhythm, consult your higher mind.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): A Libran writer I know received many rejection notices when he launched his career. I was amazed at how undaunted he was. In fact, he was the opposite of undaunted. He taped copies of his rejection notices to his bedroom wall. Seeing the evidence of his failures motivated him. It drove him to improve his writing and churn out even more articles. It fueled his search for a wider array of publications that might host his work. During the fourth year of this approach, luck and fate turned in his favor. Within the next eight months, 12 of his pieces appeared in print. My muses tell me, Libra, that you need to hear this story right now.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): The cartoon character Bart Simpson is one of the stars of The Simpsons animated TV show. According to him, “Life is a paradox. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.” While that principle may sometimes be true, I believe you will be exempt from it in the coming weeks. In fact, I suspect you will be as free as it’s possible for a human to be of grueling contradictions, frustrating oppositions, clashing truths, and paralyzing contraries. There’s a good chance you will also outwit and avoid annoying incongruities and silly arguments. Congratulations in advance, Scorpio! Take full advantage of this phase of simple clarity.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): The dragon has appeared in the myths and legends of many cultures. Europe, China, and Mesoamerica are just a few places where the fire-breathing flying reptiles have fascinated the human imagination. In some traditions, they are dangerous and predatory. In China, though, they have been harbingers of good fortune and symbols of great power. Emperors claimed the dragon as their special emblem. In assigning the dragon to be your soul creature, Sagittarius, I am drawing from Chinese lore. What would you like to accomplish that would benefit from you having access to fierce, dynamic, indomitable energy? Call on the dragon for help and power.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): “There is a world of people who will love you for who you are,” writes author Cheryl Strayed. “A whole, vibrant, fucked-up, happy, conflicted, joyous, and depressed mass of people.” In the coming months, one of your prime tasks is to specialize in communing with these folks. Make it your intention to surround yourself more and more with interesting, imperfect, ever-changing life-lovers who appreciate you for exactly who you are — and who inspire you to grow more and more into the full idiosyncratic glory of your authentic self.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): What psychic or prophet is most popular with a-list celebrities? I can assure you it’s not me. Few of my millions of readers are world-famous. What about the planet’s most scientifically accurate astrologer? Who might that be? It ain’t me. I don’t regard astrology as a science, and I mistrust those who say it is. In my view, astrology is a mythopoetic language and psychospiritual system that nurtures our souls and helps liberate us from our conditioning. We shouldn’t try to get “scientifically accurate” information from it. Now I encourage you to do what I just did, Aquarius. Have fun telling people who you are not, what you don’t believe in, and which goals you aren’t interested in pursuing.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): To come up with your astrological reports, I study the positions of the sun, moon, and planets in relation to your sign. That’s the technical part of the work, the framework within which I unleash my intuition and imagination. To augment this work, I meditate and pray, asking higher powers to guide me in providing useful information for you. I often consult books written by my favorite astrology writers. (Currently reading Steven Forrest’s The Elements Series.) I also ask my deep mind to slip me info that might not be accounted for by traditional factors. How about you, Pisces? How do you do the work that you love and care about? Now is a good time to take inventory and make necessary adjustments.

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At Large Opinion

The Remissionary Position

Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland rocks a kerchief. (Photo: @CalltoActivism | Twitter)

I wrote a column in late January called “Daze of Christmas Past,” in which I recounted how I got diagnosed with cancer — large B-cell non-Hodgkins lymphoma — a couple weeks before Christmas. It was a really not-fun holiday surprise. As a bonus, since the tumor was attached to the front of my spinal column, I had to undergo a reconstruction of my upper spine to stabilize it prior to cancer treatment.

By the time I got home from the hospital, on Christmas Day, no less, I was stiff, sore, using a walker, and breathing from an oxygen tank at night. I felt like I was 95 years old. It will get better, the doctor said. Be patient. Or a patient. I can’t remember which. I didn’t move around much for a couple of weeks, but I began keeping a daily journal that I cleverly called “Cancer Diary.” I was scheduled to begin chemotherapy in late January. The odds of a cure, they told me, were 70 percent. Not so bad.

I watched on television as Congressman Jamie Raskin announced that he’d been diagnosed with the same cancer I had. He was about a month ahead of me in treatment, it appeared, so I decided to keep an eye on his progress. He was wearing a kerchief to cover his newly bald head — not a great look.

I read a lot about various natural cancer-fighting foods and decided to begin each day with a bowl of Cheerios and fresh berries, and with liquid mushroom extracts — lion’s mane, turkey tail, and reishi — on the highly scientific theory that it couldn’t hurt.

On January 24th, I began the first of six chemo treatments — one every three weeks — at West Clinic in Midtown. After I arrived and had some blood taken, I was escorted into the chemo area, a large room with 20 or so matching reclining chairs, each next to a rolling stand holding medical drip bags. There was a wall of windows facing Union Avenue, the cars filled with people who, like me, had probably never noticed this building or had any idea what happened inside. A Wendy’s was across the street.

I was taking the “R-CHOP” protocol, a well-established treatment for large B-cell lymphoma. It’s a regimen of cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, prednisone, rituximab, and vincristine. So there. Mmmm.

The process began with three 40-minute drips: Tylenol, Benadryl, and an anti-nausea medication. The heavy stuff was to come a couple hours later. I was to be there “all day,” the nurse said. Two of my fellow drippees chattered ceaselessly on their phones. Others slept or listened to music through headphones. I guessed they were old hands at this. Six hours later, and I was no longer a chemo virgin.

Thus began the next five months of my life. I never had the horrible reactions to chemo that many people get — headaches, nausea, and other gastric thrills — but I got three or four days of extreme fatigue about halfway through each three-week cycle. My hair fell out in mid-February. I tried wearing various theoretically cool-looking toppers but decided finally to just roll with a chrome dome. Once my facial hair was gone, my head looked like a thumb.

I started writing my column again in late January and only missed a couple of weeks. I read voraciously on the Kindle my son bought me. It’s light and easy to hold in bed. My mother-in-law came from Spain to stay with us and help out until I “got better,” and she was a delight.

I had a couple of setbacks that led to visits to the ER and hospital stays, but I weathered the storms. The scans I took showed the tumor was shrinking — from an egg, to a walnut, to a grape, over the course of three months. Then, in late April, Congressman Raskin announced that “chemotherapy has extinguished the cancer cells.” I took this as a good sign. In the meantime, I was starting to feel pretty “normal.”

After my last chemo on June 5th, I got another PET scan. Three days later I got an email from my oncologist. “Scan showed remission,” it said. “More details when we meet.” Details, schmetails. I still have some follow-up treatments to get through, but apparently “chemotherapy has extinguished the cancer cells,” and I count myself a lucky man.

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Music Music Blog

Jessi Zazu: In Memoriam

CREDIT: Linwood Regensburg

Linwood Regensburg

Jessi Zazu

Last week, Jessi Zazu Darlin passed away after battling cancer. Jessi had what you call true grit. She talked and walked the way she wanted to. She was a true outsider, in a family of outsiders, which made her part of a wild tribe. When you met Jessi, you felt that you had been ordained an honorary member.

Jessi packed a big, adventurous life into a short amount of time. In fact, she’s the only person that I know of that has been on the cover of the Nashville Scene three different times – once in a story about the Southern Girls Rock & Roll Camp, again with Those Darlins, and then a profile of her unique life when she announced her illness. We used to jokingly sing “On the Cover of the Rolling Stone” and replace it with “Nashville Scene,” always being careful not to take things too seriously, while also trying not to take them for granted. Jessi was not only a talented and creative musician, but also a very accomplished visual artist. She saw things other people didn’t see and expressed her vision and interpretation of the world through her art.

We played music together for six years, during which time we played countless shows while doing laps around the country, recorded in NYC and Atlanta, released two records on our own record label (with bandmates Linwood Regensburg and Nikki Kvarnes , and manager John Turner), landed songs in hit TV series and a national KIA campaign, licensed records in Australia and Japan, and toured in Australia.

I met Jessi when she was twelve at the Southern Girls Rock & Roll Camp, but I didn’t really get to know her until she moved to Murfreesboro. She felt isolated in the small town where she lived in Kentucky, got her GED and moved to Tennessee, where she began doing design and screen printing work. She and Nikki lived together in what can only be described as a shack with a tin roof where we formed a tongue-in-cheek social club called H.A.R.L.O.T.S. (Highland Avenue Regal Ladies of Traditional Secrets) with our friend Mandy, whose kitchen we cooked in while practicing clogging. I was working a lot – full time for a live sound company that provided sound systems for large commercial country acts and as the director of the girls rock camps, helping empower others to play music, but I was not actually playing any music myself. When Jessi and Nikki invited me over to play music, I felt like I had finally found my people. I felt free and understood.

We were a ragtag trio looking to get out of Murfreesboro and see the big world and have some even bigger times. We first began touring in a Buick, and would often bring my dog Chewy. We booked our shows through MySpace and printed Mapquest directions. Before there were smartphones, we would settle arguments on the road by phoning our moms. Then we would argue over who’s mom was right. We bought a van for $300 and toured it up and down the East Coast, until it almost left us stranded on the Pennsylvania turnpike. It was baby blue Aerostar from 1989 – the same year that Jessi was born.

Jessi loved Memphis. Those Darlins played Memphis a lot – we loved it here and Memphis loved us. People understood us here. They got it that we were a punk band – that being a punk is an identity and not a sound – while many others thought we were trying to be a glossy country band and simply failing at it. We got a last minute offer to play a weeknight show at the Hi-Tone and of course we took it cause we pretty much just wanted to play any chance we could. We used to line up in a row straight across the stage and I remember asking Jessi, who always stood in the middle, what song we were doing next. For some reason, Nikki thought I said, “tell Nikki I said to go fuck herself.” She got upset with me, threw down a washboard and stomped on it. There were only a few people at the show, but the next time we played Memphis, we played to a packed house. Apparently word spread that we had gotten into a fight onstage and smashed things, and this was a welcome thing in Memphis.

Jessi was only 5’1” – the same height as Prince. When we first started performing, she played a big black acoustic electric guitar that looked even bigger when strapped to her tiny body. She made up for it with big eyes that stared people down when singing “16 Tons” or “King of the Road.” We bonded over a shared love of old country music and the silliness of songs by Roger Miller and Shel Silverstein. Her humor and wit was on par with Dolly Parton or Loretta Lynn and she and Nikki played into one another’s comedic timing.

Jessi was such a huge part of making rock camp work, by volunteering every year, teaching screen printing and guitar, and doing countless hours of design work to help promote the program. Besides all of the work she put into sustaining the program, she was a mentor and inspiration to so many of the girls who attended the camp. She was a success story and embodiment of what was possible if you just kept at it.

She was part of the original crew of volunteers who helped establish a girls rock camp program in Memphis, which continues at Hutchinson School today. The first year we ran the camp here, we rented some rooms and hosted the out of town volunteers at the French Quarter Inn in midtown. I remember Jessi seeing the place for the first time and going, “wow, this place is fancy!” with complete sincerity in response to the brassy gold wall sconces. If you ever saw the French Quarter Inn, you know that it was not exactly what most people would call “fancy.”

Jessi had both wisdom and innocence. She was always forward-looking and didn’t spend time on regrets. She had too much to look forward to and too much work to do to be bothered with the past or who did or didn’t like her. She approached life with a kind of play and inspired others to do the same.

My heart split when the band and I went separate ways in 2012. It broke again when I found out the band was calling it quits in 2016. I thought they’d keep going forever, rotating out members like Fleetwood Mac, and that some years down the road, I might even share a stage with them again one day. I followed their activities on the road, read every interview, and lived vicariously through their adventures. I still believed in Those Darlins.

My heart broke again when I heard about Jessi’s illness. I felt that I had somehow failed to help keep someone I cared about safe. During the years we were touring, we did not go to the doctor for preventative check ups. Trips to a doctor were reserved only for extreme things like broken arms or strange rashes. Many people don’t realize what a hard lifestyle touring can be and the toll it can take on one’s health.

As an undergrad, I worked with a feminist organization to raise awareness around women’s health and campaigned on campus, encouraging women I didn’t even know to get their annual exam. But I did not do this for myself and I did not encourage the women who were closest to me to get tested. What I try to carry away from all of this, rather than regret (which Jessi wouldn’t have liked anyway), is that you need to take care of yourself and take care of your friends. Listen to yourself and check in with your friends to maintain the health of your friendships.

Access to healthcare for lower income people and funding for women’s health centers are very personal issues for me. I believe that Jessi’s story is a narrative that could have been avoided, and if even one person reading this is encouraged to make sure they get an annual exam, then maybe Jessi will have helped save someone’s life.

Her impact on so many people’s lives was huge, both in breadth and depth, and she will be greatly missed and greatly remembered.

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News The Fly-By

Local Cancer Clinic Offering Low-Cost Treatment

At the age of 35, Molly Meisenheimer was already planning her funeral. Her battle with breast cancer was taking a toll on her body. She had to have a mastectomy.

The married mother of two was distraught, clueless, and horrified. Cancer didn’t run in her family, and she considered herself to be in great health before she was diagnosed.

“It was a real shock when I found a lump in my breast,” Meisenheimer recalled. “Cancer was scary. I felt like I had been hit in the head with a load of bricks or something. I didn’t really understand all of the new terminology I had to learn.”

Treatment from Dr. C. Michael Jones at the Jones Clinic enabled Meisenheimer to ultimately triumph in her battle with breast cancer.

and a patient

The Jones Clinic is offering clinical trials for new cancer treatments at essentially no cost to people who can’t afford it. Execution of the trials enables oncologists to determine what new treatment options may be most effective and beneficial for patients. Breast, lung, colon, and pancreatic are among the forms of cancer eligible for the Jones Clinic trials.

Last week, Dr. Jones discussed the state of cancer treatment in the Mid-South during an informational session at the Jones Clinic.

Jones said that the use of personalized medicine and immunotherapy treatment would make a significant impact on the state of cancer this year. Through the two approaches, doctors are able to look at the genetic mutations in a cancer patient and then tailor drugs and treatment for that individual and their condition.

The strategies could eliminate the possibility for cancerous tumors to recur in patients and also for patients to experience toxic side effects.

“There are some drugs now that block the body’s and the tumor’s ability to evade the immune system by your body recognizing that it’s foreign,” Jones said. “When you think about it, cancer really rises from your own cells. And those cells have mechanisms to avoid the immune system. There are ways now to block those so that your body recognizes those as being foreign.”

The Jones Clinic is an independent oncology practice, and cancer treatment provided there is significantly cheaper than treatment offered at area hospitals.

According to IMS Health, patients pay an average $134 more per dose for commonly used oncology drugs in hospitals than at independent practices. Independent oncology practices are especially helpful for people with low-incomes and inadequate access to health care.

Cancer is the second most common cause of death in the nation. It accounts for nearly one of every four deaths, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS).

This year, 1,658,370 new cancer cases are estimated to be diagnosed in the nation. Of this amount, 589,430 are expected to succumb to the disease, according to the ACS. More than 38,000 of these deaths are estimated to occur in Tennessee.

Although cancer remains a massive burden, Jones said oncologists are able to do a lot more now to combat the disease thanks to advances in medicine and technology.

“Cancer survival rates in the U.S. continue to improve,” Jones said. “It’s no longer a death sentence.”

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Special Sections

Noted Memphis-born Dancer Lowell Dennis Smith Dies

Lowell Dennis Smith, a ballet dancer and teacher who for some years was a principal dancer with the Dance Theatre of Harlem and later was director of the company’s school, died October 22 at UCLA Medical Center. He was 56.

The cause of death was lung cancer, said his longtime friend Rick Frey. Smith had been dividing his time between Los Angeles and New York City.

Born in 1951 in Memphis, he studied dance at the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem and then performed as a dancer and actor in Memphis and later with the Eglevsky Ballet on Long Island, New York.

He joined the Dance Theatre of Harlem in the late 1970s and danced with the company for 17 years. One of his best known roles was as Stanley Kowalski in a dance adaptation by Valerie Bettis of the Tennessee Williams play “A Streetcar Named Desire.”

Read more about Smith at the Los Angeles Times website.