Looking Ahead

LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis

G’day, Bruno:

Getting treated by an Aboriginal doctor in the Outback accompanied by didgeridoo music may be an aggro experience for your mates Down Under, butlet me tell you that we have its match here in the US. Although we EastMidtown New Yorkers are people of the Bedpan Alley, living next door to allkinds of medical miracles and the new tools that help them happen, a personal exposure to such things as MRIs, CT scans and nuclear stress tests can also be crook.

MRI, the magnetic resonance imaging machine, is used to discover heart,cranium, spine, and abdominal and other problems by having a major magnetgenerate a field some 10,000 times stronger than the natural magneticemissions. The story is that magnetic "rays" realign certain hydrogen atomsin our tissues, and then FM-like radio broadcasts identify them, producinga highlighted picture of our bodies and enabling the visualization of bothexpected and unexpected features. The physician-reader can then suss outthe latter for the therapist who ordered the reading, and treatment canbegin, if necessary.MRIs are non-intrusive procedures, unlike conventional radiology andcomputed tomographic imaging (CT scan), which use potentially harmfulx-rays to visualize.

The MRI "slices" the body in narrow bands, which,when placed side-by-side, produce a contiguous picture, so my mentorexplained. All very rational, not to aggro yourself.Nevertheless, having an MRI done filled me with trepidation. Thesarcophagus aspect, the idea of being rolled into this big fat white tomb,after relieving all pockets of metal objects, was daunting. Apparentlythe metal objects, which I shed, can create burns and other damage ifexposed to the flesh. And then there are the dangerous items we haveimplanted in our bodies. According to the pre-test questionnaire I filledout, pacemakers appeared to be no-nos, as were defibrillators, aneurysmclips, ear implants, electric stimulators, infusion pumps, coils, cathetersor wires in blood vessels, artificial limbs, joint replacements and heartvalves, magnetic dental implants, IUDs, tissue expanders for futureimplants, and tattooed eyeliners (popular in the 1970s, they used mercury,I was told). One is left with wonderment about how bionic we have become.Fortunately, dental fillings are fair dinkum, else we'd all be ineligible.

The reading of the precautions had sort of eased my mind, as I entered tothe MRI room. There, stretching down on a gurney, stuffing my ears withplugs and having my head anchored down with Scotch tape to inhibitmovement, seemed almost normal. The technician told me to close my eyesduring roll-in and watch the mirror that let me see people were around. Thewhole experience, recording my cranium in some nine slices would take 20minutes Then the procedure began, a musical event, I wish I had knownenough to bring a tape recorder with me.First, three taps on metal, followed by a further drumming sequence. Then,a buzz-saw, in several modalities, and a rhythmic blower sound, alsovarying in tone, with added instruments, then, blissfully, a sound like thebeach, with waves rolling in. But not for long, the gurney moved an inch ortwo, and the sequence repeated itself, more or less. I was settling down toeuphoria, but it was not to be. This time, several six-knock sequences wereinterchanged with six or more toots of the blower, about 20 times. The nextsequences were also variations of the original, but with enough mystery tobe interesting. and entertaining, believe it or not. I began discoveringand superimposing a house music rhythm to the stream of sounds, sort ofrhythm heard at weddings after the old-timers have left the floor and theyoung crowd takes over. The whacky sequences of drills, whips, sirens,saws, steam pipes and whirrs was overwhelmingly interesting, to the pointof almost making me wish for more. But it was over, after nine or tenslices.

Perhaps someone younger or less scared of the outcome or moreadventuresome will record it, superimpose it to a cut or two and generate apiece of techno-rock. Good luck, and send me a CD.As to the outcome, no fear, mate. They say a few tiny blood vessels havedried up in the cerebellum, all age appropriate, which explains why Isometimes address people as "buddy" and "sweets," until the namessurface, a minute or two later. The CT scan shows no problem, maybe achronic sinus infection, New York-appropriate. Trot on the nuclear stresstest, I'm ready. Ta for now.

Bruno B. is the writer's high school mate, a retired Australian executive living in Melbourne. As to the Australian: aggro is what it looks like, aggravated; crook is like aggro, only stronger; to suss is to spy, investigate; fair dinkum is good, acceptable; in a question it means "no kidding?"

LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis

Volunteers lead better lives, according to recent research

It was the first Thursday of January, the opening night of the Homeless Shelter program at Brotherhood Synagogue, and I left the premises practically dancing.

Some things had gone wrong - only nine folding cots had been sent for the ten homeless guests who were coming, we were four blankets short, the deliveries had not been made. But things straightened out – miraculously, only nine guests from the Heuss House intake center arrived, and the sleepover volunteer was able to have his own cot, instead of curling up on the bench in the Synagogue atrium. There were six eager teenager volunteers, and some of their parents, watching their kids learn social responsibility, and making sure that they get home safely. One of the parents has been a sleepover volunteer for the past five years, staying over every Thursday night for the three months that the shelter is open. The Thursday coordinator has also been taking his turn on the designated night without fail for at least twelve years, if memory serves.

One eight-grade volunteer from Spence was also a veteran Thursday regular. She knew all the routines, from cutting rolls (donated by a local bakery), making sandwiches with egg and salmon salad fillings, packing Care bags for the morning, to checking the arriving guests against the manifest they brought from Heuss House. Their school bus, miraculously, arrived at the requested time, 8:30 PM (late arrivals had plagued us for years, endangering the young helpers’ sleep time). The youngster also knew how to serve the two hot dishes (all donated by volunteers), ask “how many sugars” for coffee (homeless guests take a lot of sweetening in their hot drinks), and to sit with the guests, chatting about the day’s events. The new volunteers learned a lot from her and from another veteran participant, a senior from Stuyvesant High.

Why do they all do it, with joy and pride and dedication and a sense of accomplishment, year after year? The volunteer who makes the salads and cooks the soups for the January through March program, why doe she religiously start her cooking early in the Fall, with fresh well-chosen vegetables, freezing the stock in a basement freezer, year after year? The synagogue office manager who has volunteered, for years, to do the actual enrolling of workers and who has discovered that the community-service minded youngsters are the best resource for seeing to the needs of our homeless guests? The member who jumps in with a check to fund parts of the program when donations appear endangered? Is it that being good by doing good is good, for the mind and the body?

And then it came to me, remembering a Thanksgiving article I picked up for a twice-a year newsletter that I write. The title was “Boost Your Health With a Dose of Gratitude.” The WebMD physician authors speak of the long-known benefits of feeling and expressing gratitude, recently viewed by a movement called positive psychology that studies the health benefits of such virtues, noting such results as ability to cope with stress (all varieties, everyday, post-traumatic and loss-induced), boosting the immune system, and generating optimism in health-compromised lives. Something real, not just intuitive. Further reading brought up a possible link to neural physiology, a connection to the mysterious substance called serotonin.

Some talking with friends revealed extended aspects of the subject. The contributor known to you as the Prince of Darkness, more dour than Dr. Paranoia, brought into the picture the possible release of the above neurotransmitter that creates the euphoria known as “runner’s high,” and spoke of research that links the physical act of smiling with release of serotonin. The Old Curmudgeon, aka OC, denied the potential of smiling as a physical medication, but spoke of adrenalin, while Moose (actually his college nickname was Mousse, due to a predilection for desserts, but his size makes the former more appropriate) remembered Norman Cousins, the late editor of Saturday Review, who fought sickness by secluding himself in his UCLA Medical Center room, playing old Marx Brothers movies, taking megadoses of Vitamin C and having friends over for storytelling and jokes.

Cousins had anklyosing spondylitis, a potentially fatal arthritis of the spine, and had found that laughing while watching slapstick comedy relieved his pains. In 1969 he wrote “Anatomy of an Illness,” describing how he was cured, and spent the last decade of his life at UCLA’s Department of Behavioral Medicine, researching and preaching the humor cure. Loma Linda University has published a study of significant rises of function in patients’ immune systems with humor therapy, and in 1997 Duke University had a report about significantly improving the effectiveness of heart arteries with positive emotions.

As for myself, I’m opting to spend significant time with Turner Classical Movies, humor variety, and less with Law and Order, particularly the more depressing recent offshoots, Special Victims Unit and such. I’m also soft-pedaling the watching of the blood and gore on CNN news. I’m also stepping up my responses to most e-mails with a thank you. Results of this study will be reported in a future issue of this journal.

LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis

When last met, I asked an old friend whether he still drinks four ounces of Scotch daily (“Anstie’s Limit, makes me a standard risk,” this old underwriting executive always claimed). “Heck no, I switched to vodka since I stopped playing golf, Scotch kills your antioxidants, “ he replied. I never expected to hear such language from Charles, also known as Handsome, who took his vitamin C straight from the bottle, with a little soda, and since his retirement has been on the golf course daily and at the poker table twice a week, unfailingly. But at 92 one can be expected to slow down a little.

This came up in a discussion of New Year’s celebration aftermaths, men’s talk. Is there a serious cure for hangover? The customary advice is to limit your alcohol intake to one drink every five hours. Otherwise, keep looking for inventions. A month-old article by Jonathan Glater in the Paper of Record provided some new thought.

The scientists support Charlie’s switch to vodka, advising that the darker the drink the heavier its content of congeners, poisonous byproducts of fermentation. Rums are the lightest, then tequila, Scotch and bourbons, the heaviest. Tannin in wine (more so in red) and some ingredients in dark beer or stout such as Guinness also carry the same curse.

Scientists say that congeners may set off flights of cytokines, molecules released from white cells to fight off inflammations, viruses and other attackers. This causes the hangover, an achy flu-like feeling. Alcohol related problems, including hangover, allegedly cause $150 billion worth of damage a year in the US. Can a hangover cure effect some savings? Yes, by making the body less vulnerable, and avoiding hangover- related mistakes of judgment, and of motor and critical skills.

As to cures, the Times article mentions a prickly pear extract that staves off such hangover symptoms as dry mouth and nausea, and an activated calcium carbonate and activated charcoal extract, marketed as Chaser, two caplets of which are claimed to work for three hours of drinking six drinks. Charcoal, which does not bind to alcohol, could in theory block the congeners. There are more cures which the Times does not mention, the most interesting being RU-21, claimed to be a James-Bondish spies’ medicine, used by the KGB agents to keep a clear head. The most important hangover cure still is to drink a lot of water between shots. Dehydration goes with booze, a diuretic. Water slakes thirst, dilutes the alcohol and lessens the desire to drink.

The several hangover cures noted in literature do not seem to claim an bility to reduce intoxication, they only lessen the poison acetaldehyde, to which the body converts ethyl alcohol, and which, in the heavily strained liver, is turned into acetic acid (vinegar), then into carbon dioxide and water, both eliminated through the kidneys and lungs. Drinking too much overloads the liver and lets the poison escape into the bloodstream and damage mitochondria (the energy-extracting body cell element) and other organs.

As to folk medicine – the MDs claim that raw eggs do not work (although they contain cysteine, an anti-acetaldehyde, available as a food supplement). “Hair of the dog,” drinking a small dose to quiet the nerves, is counter-productive, leading to worse results down the road; hot coffee and big breakfasts or carbonated drinks are not much help. Some of the Irish remedies - a breakfast of tattie (potato) bread, soda bread, eggs, black pudding, white pudding, optionally with baked beans poured over – sound fascinating. Orange juice, Gatorade or other sports drinks that replenish electrolytes may help; aspirin and ibuprofen are useful pain relievers. Tylenol may burden the liver some more.

Tomato juice may hold off the dehydration, by virtue of its salt content, a minimal justification for the beloved Bloody Maries (although you may want to keep in mind my Emergency Room Mary, the drink for when you’re short of time and ingredients – vodka, Ragu spaghetti sauce and water, other pungent sauces optional ).

Wally Dobelis offers his best New Year’s wishes to the readers, and the best Holiday headache cure – drink moderately, if at all.

hLOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis

In the 1980s the writer Susan Sontag, who passed away late in December2004, was a neighbor of ours. She lived on East 17th Street, on thethird floor of a brownstone building, for eight years, while her son, DavidReiff, rented an apartment further down the block, both addressescomfortably near theoffices of Farrar Straus & Giroux at 19 Union Square, her publisher andhis employer. Her landlady, the artist Rosalee Isaly, remembers Ms. Sontag as a pleasant quiet neighbor, easy to talk to and always offeringperceptive observations on whatever topic. We met her and David because ourson, who at 10 was training himself to be the basketball jumpshot championof Friends Seminary and always ran out of our building by leaping the frontsteps, once crumbled and fell, right in front of thse two neighbors, whohelpedhim up. Thereafter, when our paths crossed, Susan Sontag would ask abouthim.The writer was highly visible at events, with her huge mane of black hair,streaked white. She once joined us in a chat about Wordsworth, at thepoet's 1988 exhibition in the NY Public Library, and we would occasionallyexchange pleasantries at public occasions and at the Strand.Starting in 1993 we read her dispatches from Sarajevo, where she spentseveral years staging plays and doing her human rights activist mission.Both she and her son wrote much about the horrors of the Balkan wars in the1990s. As president of American PEN, she also campaigned on behalf ofpersecuted and imprisoned writers. Her eventual successor at PEN, SalmonRushdie, in an AP interview characterizes her as a true friend in need, agreat literary artist, a fearless and original thinker, ever valiant fortruth, and an indefatigable fighter in many struggles.

The late actor Jerry Orbach was also a neighbor, living in what used to beHell's Kitchen, on West Side. The audiences first knew of him as a singingstar, introducing the haunting "Try to Remember" as the narrator of "TheFantastics," a musical that closed in 2001, after the longest theatre runof all times, remaining an Off-Off-Broadway favorite for 42 years and over17,000 performances.After three Tony nominations and one award ("Promises, Promises," 1969) ittook a television career for Orbach to earn a worldwide fame and success inhis 12 seasons as Lennie Briscoe on "Law and Order," the ex-alcoholicdetective who opened each episode's crime investigation with an earthyobservation ("I want first claim on his liver," or, "his watch stoppedticking when he took a licking"). His quintesdsential New York characterhumanized the life of a policeman so well that the NYPD regarded him as oneof their own, and he participated in the 2001 demonstrations asking forbenefits for NewYork's Finest. Cops would offer him rides in their squad cars, stilling hisprotests with "we'll not get in trouble, we will put you in the back andcuff you." NY Landmarks Conservancy, a private group that finances repairsof deserving buildings, in 2002 declared him (along with Sam Waterston, thegruff ADA Jack McCoy) a Living Landmark.

Television pictures and stories about the horrors of the tsunami inSoutheast Asia reminded us of a boat trip in Auckland, New Zealand, wherethe crew wore tee shirts from Phuket, Thailand. Upon inquiry, a youngmate went into ecstatic descriptions of the resort area and its beaches,which she described as the most beautiful in the world.While we Americans were shuddering at the first reports and amateur videopictures of people just like us running away from the same beaches andresorts that looked just like those or our shores, information had juststarted seeping through about the true magnitude of the horror. It was notonly of visitors lost but also of thousands (that soon became tens ofthousands) of ordinary people dying and lost in the fishing villages ofSumatra, South India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, far away from the eyes oftourist cameras. Even the governments of countries that were donating firstaid were unaware of the true magnitude of the disaster, and had to adjusttheir estimates of contributions several times over.

As we celebrate the New Year, a most fitting gift to the world would be donations for the care of the victims of this, possibly the largest natural disaster ever. When making your contributions to the American RedCross or other relief agencies, be sure to check whether your employer has amatching giftsprogram that recognizes non-educational institutions as fit recipients. Youmay be able to multiply the value of your donation.

Wally Dobelis and the staff of T&V offer their best New Year's wishes ofhealth andwellbeing to our readers.