Update on BPH

The BPH treatment from Urologix does not work for very long. I think it is not worth the money or the pain. It is now 2 years since the treatment and my prostate continued to grow and my PSA continued to climb to the point that they did a biopsy in December of 2014 and thankfully it was benign. I am now on a single drug- AvoDart, which seems to be working well.

BPH treatment

On a topic not to be missed for middle aged men, I recently was treated for BPH or benign prostate enlargement. No one really knows why the old prostate grows, but mine did to the point that I was going all the time and I got a UTI, which had never happened before.

Went to the doctor and got on some meds which helped, but the meds made me feel bad, so I did not want to keep taking them. My doc recommended this in office procedure: http://www.urologix.com/clinicians/cooled-thermotherapy.php . I had it done a couple of weeks ago.

It is done in the office after a battery of tests to check flow, volume and a viewing of your bladder. It takes 30 minutes and you wear a catheter for 3 days (in my case).

I must say that I hope the results will be good from this. I can already tell a difference, although it will be 60-90 days before I come off all the meds. The full effects of the treatment are not obvious until 90 days and it is supposed to last around 7 years.Anywhere else in the world you would have this done, it would be done in a clinic and you would stay in the hospital for a few days, but I guess this more cost effective.

Some comments on the process-

They run you in and out of there in a factory-like manner. The equipment is brought to the Doc's office by the Urologix people; they have a technician in there with the Doc. You take some happy pills, they numb you up, stick a temp probe up your rear-end and the microwave up your urethra and nuke your gland for 30 minutes.  Yahoo.

It is not a horrible experience, but it surely is not comfortable and the recovery is not either. But when one thinks about it, how could the microwaving of ones insides be pain free and comfortable? However, on a scale of 1-10, this is less than a 5 on the pain scale. I imagine the other more invasive procedures are worse, since you must go to the hospital and wear the catheter longer. There is blood and other nasty looking stuff in the catheter bag for a few days and you don't get much sleep with all that plumbing down there, so its no fun and tiresome, but not horrible.

Please be aware however, that you should give yourself a week to 10 days to get over this. You really can't do much when the catheter is in, and after they take it out you are feeling better, but it still feels like your rear end is about to fall out and you need some pain control. I used Tylenol and it helped a lot.

So two weeks out, its going OK. BTW- the Doc I used here in town was very good about answering the questions and very business like in his treatment and conversations. His staff was helpful.  I will let you know the costs and how I am doing after the first of the year.

Come on, its not that hard

It’s been a while since I have written here, several years in fact. Since 2008, we have been in a recession, I have gotten older, and the world keeps turning and the apples keep blooming in the spring.

Meanwhile, in Washington, hope has turned to gloom. Many people that I respect believe we have entered a paradigm shift that will bring down the current form of economic development and how we define growth. On top of it all, the weather keeps doing weird shit. Believe me, if you work outside all summer on the farm, you understand how hot and dry it was and why the apples came off the trees, two-three weeks early.

We know what we have to do about the climate. The science is there, despite what the Republicans say. We just lack the will, just yet, to get it done. We have bumped into the "limits to growth" just like Meadow's said we would. We are beginning to see innovation as a repercussion to banging into these limits (just like Hart and Gilding and many others said we would). Civil unrest, as the masses realize just how rich the rich are and how poor the rest of us are becoming, is just beginning. The behavior of the markets, consumers and enterprises all reflect a total lack of faith in the future, or we would not be so hard pressed to make the good long term decisions. I think that most have decided that the future will be worse than the past, so the general consensus is to get it while you can. This fundamental lack of faith in the future is the under lament driving our behaviors. It’s kind of sad really, because we really do have a great foundation and a great planet, and we know what to do. We just lack the will, just yet.

The answer to the economic issue is just not that hard to see. As a country, we have lost all of our production and manufacturing jobs. There are some things that are just basic to any modern society. We need to be self reliant for energy, transportation, food, water, and manufacturing of items critical for a resilient country. In the textile industry alone, since 1995, over 700000 jobs have been lost. Add to that steel production, auto production, food production, energy production, and you can hear Perrot’s great sucking sound. That's right; it sucks for most of us. I am not anti globalization but I am pro self sufficiency and resilience. So, if government would lead and set a goal of 75% internal sufficiency for food production, 75% internal sufficiency for energy production, 75% sufficiency for critical component production for critical systems, we could have more balance… and create the jobs we need. Would costs be higher? Yes, I think they would, but not over the long haul, only for the short term. Over the long haul they would be steadier over time and more truly represent the real costs of living in a place. What are the real costs of these peaks and valleys we keep creating in the economy? I think they cost a lot, but the losers have not yet started killing the ones that made money during the bad times. This may come.

So, all you powerful people in Washington and Wall Street take note. It just ain't that hard to make things right, just yet. It does take leadership and guts with a vision for the future that includes a brighter picture for what is possible and a longer view of things.

Sam

election time

Well, the stage is set and the game of politics is on. Make no bones about it, I am voting for Obama and Biden. There are several major reasons for this:

1. The power of incumbency is too great for the republicans to create real change. There will be too many residues from Bush that they cannot get rid of and these rats must be flushed out of Washington.
2. McCain is 72. My Dad died at 72. I do not believe that there is any person at 72 that has enough vigor for this job. Especially not a man that has had melanoma. He is a good man, just not the man for the job.
3. It is the youth of this country that must bear the brunt of dealing with the major issues of our time, clean energy, the allocation of the commons, social justice, etc., globally. We need someone that can represent both generations.
4. Pallen is an abomination. This is a family that thinks it is OK to bring 5 children into the world. If every family on the planet had 5 children, we would all be over run. She says that this choice is a family choice and yet she want to legislate such choice for others. Nutcase. George Bush has shown us what an anti-intellectual, god fearing, fundimentalist can do. Do we want more?
5. Obama is smart. He is well educated. He is vigorous. He represents his generation. He has Joe Biden.
6. I do not think most people want less government. I think they want a government that works. We have seen what happens when the private sectors is given the power to make socially correct decisions. Fanny Mae and Mac are great examples. We will not hear the republicans fight this govt. takeover because its the only way to stop this private sector, poorly run trillion dollar business from crashing our economy. The airlines are next and maybe GM. People will expect the govt to step in and fix it because the market has no soul and no social outlook...by definition.

This can go on and on. Obama will make mistakes. He will not make severe ones because in his own way he is conservative and he will have great advisors. What he does have going for him is can link more that 5 words together, he reads, he understands the issues of health care and environment, and he understands the importance of local economies. He understands that we are in a rapidly expanding global circumstance, and that we must dialogue with everyone, friends and enemies.

I have had enough republicans, its time to give the other party a chance. How much worse could they screw it up?

Generic America

After 22 years of growing up and education, my wife and I deposited our daughter at graduate school last week to become a doctor of audio logy. It was a big experience and one that most parents hope for. I am very proud of her and the challenge she is undertaking.

This also gave me the opportunity to drive from Elon, North Carolina, to Mobile, Alabama. It is a drive of almost 700 miles and for the most part, the roads are in great shape. Here are some observations from the trip:

America is now almost exactly the same. Whether you in NJ or in Al, all the cities along a major highway have the same stores, the same restaurants, and the same banks and hotels. We are now generic America.

One thing we always do on trips, is to look for, (and it is becoming harder), to find the “local” spots, i.e., the places that are regional and local to a place.

Many local folks eat at the chains. They are full of people. Why is this when the local places are so good?

The Gulf Coast looks like a tough place to be. Dauphine Island off Mobile has about every other house for sale. The locals say it is due to high insurance costs. Insurance premiums are now almost $10k per year. $10k can buy a lot of exclusive vacation time in a very exotic locale. I suspect that the Gulf coast is what the entire coastal area of the US will look like after global warming has impacted fully.

Did you know that asphalt is made from oil? It is the bottoms of the crude oil fraction that is polymerized and laid down with gravel. So, not only are we dependant on oil as fuel but also oil as roads. This story just keeps getting deeper all the time.

I had some really good friends that watered my orchard while I was away and the temperatures rose above 100F for a week. Bless them for doing that.

People from the South are just gracious and nice. They go out of their way to be hospitable.

The Boiling Pot in Mobile has the best friend shrimp I have ever eaten. It is not a chain.

100 degrees for days on end will sap your strength and energy.

The average speed on I-85 is 74 miles per hour from Elon to Montgomery. If it was not for a couple of spots of construction, I suspect it would be close to 80 mph.

It was less stressful, riding in the car for 12 hours and driving, that it would have been flying to Mobile. We would have had to change planes twice and the difference would have only been 4 hours less, net-net.

That's all for now.

Sam

Las Vegas is not a good place

I recently went to Las Vegas with some very good friends. It was my second trip there, the first time I did more than spend one night. I was shocked at the number of children there. Why would anyone bring a child to such a place? The food was mostly bad and very expensive (there were exceptions). We went to visit the new Indian sponsored glass bridge on the west rim of the Grand Canyon, only to find it was almost $200 bucks a person to see it, and this was after a 4 hour drive, the last 22 miles over the worst dirt road I have ever been on in a normal car. Everywhere you go, the focus of the place and the people is to part you from your money. I am ashamed of a country that sees this as the future of entertainment.

It is a shitty place.

Ending and beginning

After over 30 years of getting up every morning and going to work in the family business, one day this week I will go into Burlington Chemical, and the place will be owned by someone else. We signed all the papers Friday to sell the company because we were unable to overcome the challenges of managing a community based company in a globalized market. It has been a sad 10 years, riding the bike backwards, leveraging the assets of the firm, trying to find the key that unlocked the value that we knew, just knew had to be there. Unfortuately, we failed. Not due to lack of effort, imagination, or even in the beginning cash flow, it was a lack of understanding of one of the fundimentals of market economics and indeed of life itself. Sometimes, somthing must die for others to live. Our company lived within a community that had been the lifeblood of a region, that being the textile community. It was a community that was not without problems, poor labor relations, a history of environmental and social exploitations, cotton dust, toxic chemicals, but it was a community that had survived and improved itself over hundreds of years, and now it, along with our company, it has moved on to someone or somewhere else.

I suspect that somewhere over in China, there is a person that sees the opportunties in the growing textile industry there, and I hope that the chinese textile community can support this person and perhaps his family through several generations, granting the boon of success and teaching from the failures and nurturng these families through the business of life. My Dad went to church each day he set his foot in Burlington Chemical. The place he built and the spirit and the opportunity that grew there was felt by most that labored for our customers.

He died a couple of years ago, knowing that unless something radical happened, the two generations of our family that worked to build that firm, would be the last to find success there. The world had changed. We could not change fast enough to find our new community. Oh, we are in good company, Interstate 85 is littered with the ghost of plants and the textile museums telling the stories of the good old days, in fact, one of the most successful textile mills in Concord has been torn down and a biotech research center has been developed. From the splicing of cotton yarn to the splicing of genes, same old process, one just being done at 10 to the minus 9th and one being done of the back of macro industial technology.

Just as I know that I and every person I know will die, the old ways are also dying. I do not have a good value judgement for that. Is it good? Is it bad? Does it matter? Damned if I know, but I do know that lots of good folks and some part of my heart and reality are gone. They teach us now that change is good and that change and the ablity to change is the only true competitive atvantage. I suspect that with technology cycles in acceleration and trade cycles mimicing technology, that the race will keep getting faster and faster and success will be based on being able to change. This leaves all of us with one simple reality, and that is the relationships we have with other people and with the planet are our only constants.

I do not know how to feel about the business going to someone else. I can only hope that the company will florish and that under a new leadership and with new financing, the firm will find a new value proposition that works. It will not be ours. We will not create the heroic turnaround story we were all working so hard for. This will be someone else's story and someone else's success or failure. For me, there must be a new reality, a new reason to get up and get going in the morning. There will never be another time and another slice of life that is what was. All that is left is memories, ghosts, and good stories.