I've found myself coming across various conspiracy theories in the last month. One in particular involves the Sandy Hook School shooting, but a couple others involve old crimes or injustices that have dropped out of mind and into the history books. Reading these accounts, these claims of government's crimes against their people, I have to wonder: why do these theories exist?
My answer in short is that people don't always agree. When trying to place blame, someone always ends up with the majority vote. Once that majority is established, the minority opinions start to get snuffed out. The most outspoken of this minority community ends up labelled the conspiracy theorist, because the majority doesn't believe their opinion is valid.
But I think it goes deeper than this.
Have you ever noticed that "conspiracy theories" always involve a government, political group, or some otherwise infallibly good group of people? Conspiracy theories seem to "reveal the true colors" of these groups. They turn the system on its head.
There's just something dramatic about the stories that we call conspiracy theories. There's a villain and a victim, and the storyteller becomes the hero by bringing the villain to light. We write books about this, make movies about it, support a multi-billion dollar entertainment industry by taking interest in it.
This makes me think the conspiracy theorists, or at least the ones who set up blogs and youtube channels to advertise their theories, are basking in the heroic glow of outing a villain. They probably believe the stories, at least to an extent, but their efforts become more about getting the word out than making sure the word is correct to begin with.
I don't want to bring too much attention to the conspiracy theorists in this story, but I was drawn into the theories about the Sandy Hook shooting a few weeks ago and need set out what I experienced.
There's a 30 minute video somewhere on Youtube with few million views detailing all the suspect conditions of the shooting, eventually setting it out as a government conspiracy to (1) fake the death of 1 or more children, and (2) develop a scapegoat for the gun rights battle. Evidence to support their claims include a FEMA training on dealing with children in crisis held some 20 miles away from the school, misinformation from the forensic pathologist, nonsensical stories from a nearby resident, and details of the scene that just didn't look right.
Honestly, for almost 30 minutes I was riveted, waiting for the final nail in the coffin that the video promised. A lot of things didn't make good sense, although I questioned how relevant those details were. There was some clear misinformation in the original stories that was later corrected, but this can happen with any report that is released too soon, before facts are verified.
Some of the harder obstacles to overcome appeared as accurate facts, but they are easily explained. The biggest was that some Facebook groups and posts were timestamped before the incident. True, incidents blatantly out of order bring question to the entire sequence of events. But the storyteller forgot that we're talking about a website. Not just any website, but one of the biggest websites in the world that has been known to have glitches. We're also talking about timestamps that are seen differently in different time zones, so the captured images could have easily come from a different time zone that showed the timestamp a dozen hours or more prior to the actual posting. The group that was shown as being created the night before the shooting received so much criticism that the creator had to close and re-form the group. While the storyteller presented this as the correction of an error, I finally saw this as an unfortunate story of a grieving family member who had to take action to stop an overwhelming number of false accusations about his painful situation.
It took watching the entire 30 minute video, stewing on it for an hour or so, and talking through some details to fully convince myself that the evidence didn't support any kind of government conspiracy. This bugs me, because I'm so critical of facts in a story and can usually separate relevant information from propaganda pretty easily. The fact that it took 2 hours for me to notice the gaping holes in the story tells me this conspiracy theorist is too persuasive for his own good.
But, after 2 hours of getting over this exaggerated mess, I did find the real story. As with any good lie, this story represented a partial truth. The media immediately swept this into the primary news spot and looked for any other story to piggy back off of it. Soon enough, the battle for gun rights started. The headline policies revolved around assault rifles and large-capacity clips, and always pointed back to Sandy Hook for justification. Our storyteller (correctly) pointed out that while 4 handguns were found to be used in the shooting, the assault rifle found in the shooter's trunk never even entered the school. The inflation of the assault rifle and large-capacity clip issue was purely the result of media misinformation and political agendas.
I'm not saying these weapons aren't used in major crimes, but the media and political propaganda about these weapons was a bastardization of the Sandy Hook shooting. They hold these children up on pedestals for something they don't represent. They charge the country with protecting kids "just like them" from weapons that never darkened their doorstep in the first place.
Let me be clear. The shooting was pure tragedy. The families deserve all the sympathy this country can muster. The innocent blood that was spilled was unjustified and terrible. But by using their memory to twist into your own agenda is wrong. You're not honoring the children or their families, you're insulting them.
What I learned from this, and other, conspiracy theories is that even though a story might not hold water, every good story starts with a grain of truth. If we look hard enough, we can find this grain of truth in everything.
Always moving forward,
Tyler
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Monday, February 25, 2013
Husbandry
I was married to my best friend on May 27, 2006.
At the time, I was only 20 years old and she was 19. Although we were young, our 6 year dating relationship felt like an eternity. We spent years talking about marriage, and the months before the wedding included advice from friends and family as well as premarital counseling with our mentor who was to marry us. We did a lot of planning, set out our expectations, and tried to figure out what marriage would be like. Finally, I got to practice being a husband.
The first year wasn't all that difficult. Yes, we had to learn to share a space, divvy out chores, and set boundaries in our new home, but none of that was too difficult. We didn't agree on everything, but we hardly ever argued. I was a little spoiled by that first year, because this made it easy to be a husband.
In years since, we've encountered challenges like finding a new church home, transitioning from college to a career lifestyle, and buying a home. With big discussions comes the potential for big disagreement. I've learned something through this, possibly more important than any other lesson I've learned as a husband. I learned that relationships are made and broken in the midst of conflict.
Think about it. When you get along with someone, share hobbies, and enjoy each other's company, the friendship/marriage/etc. feels easy. You're both happy with the give and take, and you don't want to change a thing. But throw a hot topic into the mix. All of a sudden, there's potential for hurt feelings or worse. You find yourself tip-toeing through a minefield, cautions of every word and gesture, hoping you don't cause offense.
Katie and I learned a lot about each other through these big decisions, because we both make these decisions differently. We had to learn not only how to understand what the other wanted, but also how to speak their language. Should I ask about her gut feeling, or should I bring up the pros and cons? Are finances more important than benefits right now? Do we want to live close to work or close to friends and family?
This was the second big lesson I learned about being a husband. I learned that I always have to try to speak the language of my wife. Sometimes this means I avoid a sticky subject when it doesn't need to be discussed. Other times it means I should listen quietly and empathetically instead of trying to give advice.
Speaking her language is my best way of loving her. It makes me think about her wants and needs, not just my own. It helps me to communicate my thoughts and feelings more clearly. It just plan helps us communicate better, and don't they say that communication is what a marriage is all about?
Whatever your methods, being a husband is all about trying to be a better husband today than you were yesterday.
Always moving forward,
Tyler
At the time, I was only 20 years old and she was 19. Although we were young, our 6 year dating relationship felt like an eternity. We spent years talking about marriage, and the months before the wedding included advice from friends and family as well as premarital counseling with our mentor who was to marry us. We did a lot of planning, set out our expectations, and tried to figure out what marriage would be like. Finally, I got to practice being a husband.
The first year wasn't all that difficult. Yes, we had to learn to share a space, divvy out chores, and set boundaries in our new home, but none of that was too difficult. We didn't agree on everything, but we hardly ever argued. I was a little spoiled by that first year, because this made it easy to be a husband.
In years since, we've encountered challenges like finding a new church home, transitioning from college to a career lifestyle, and buying a home. With big discussions comes the potential for big disagreement. I've learned something through this, possibly more important than any other lesson I've learned as a husband. I learned that relationships are made and broken in the midst of conflict.
Think about it. When you get along with someone, share hobbies, and enjoy each other's company, the friendship/marriage/etc. feels easy. You're both happy with the give and take, and you don't want to change a thing. But throw a hot topic into the mix. All of a sudden, there's potential for hurt feelings or worse. You find yourself tip-toeing through a minefield, cautions of every word and gesture, hoping you don't cause offense.
Katie and I learned a lot about each other through these big decisions, because we both make these decisions differently. We had to learn not only how to understand what the other wanted, but also how to speak their language. Should I ask about her gut feeling, or should I bring up the pros and cons? Are finances more important than benefits right now? Do we want to live close to work or close to friends and family?
This was the second big lesson I learned about being a husband. I learned that I always have to try to speak the language of my wife. Sometimes this means I avoid a sticky subject when it doesn't need to be discussed. Other times it means I should listen quietly and empathetically instead of trying to give advice.
Speaking her language is my best way of loving her. It makes me think about her wants and needs, not just my own. It helps me to communicate my thoughts and feelings more clearly. It just plan helps us communicate better, and don't they say that communication is what a marriage is all about?
Whatever your methods, being a husband is all about trying to be a better husband today than you were yesterday.
Always moving forward,
Tyler
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Give Me Your Tired...
I've never taken a huge interest in politics. Around election time, when debates are in full swing, I'll take part in discussions about issues I feel are relevant, but I honestly don't care much about who is in charge for 2 main reasons.
First, by the time we get down to 2 leading candidates, I typically don't like either of them. The leading candidates get to where they are because they follow party lines, not because they have particularly good ideas (which leads me to my second reason).
Second, I don't like party lines. It seems that more and more the 2 major parties (and the candidates who best represent them) try to artificially differentiate themselves from one another. Once you read between the lines, they agree on 90% of the issues, yet they focus on the other 10% by trying to downgrade the competitor's position and separate themselves from it as much as possible. The result gives us the option to choose between 2 extremes, and personally, I think there are great solutions right down the middle of the road.
Today, I just want to focus on one political topic, which was inspired by this blog post:
Announcing Our New American Citizen
There's always talk about our borders, especially here in Texas. The typical response is complaints about all the "illegals" who work under the table, so that they don't pay taxes yet still reap the benefits of living under our government. Honestly, it's a real problem. Especially when you look at the budget dollars spent to build our roads, police our streets, and defend our country, and compare it to the near-zero tax dollars paid by those with cash-only income and no social security number.
However, and I want to be very clear here, this is the ONLY problem with illegal immigration today.
When people get into rant mode over issues like this, they tend to get into all kinds of things that seem to rationalize their opinion. But these are not problems on their own. In fact, any one of us could find the holes in these theories that debunk the statements completely, we just get sucked in by the original argument and let ourselves assume that the additional points are true enough.
Rather than arguing over the problem, though, let's talk about the solutions. The most often heard solution is closing our borders more tightly to new immigrants, usually coupled with deporting illegal immigrants. This would clear out the "problem people" at a pretty high cost to the government, and we would get to pay the taxes to support their efforts until it finally paid off.
The other solution is one people don't seem to talk about: granting them citizenship (or at least the right to earn a paycheck). Now I'm not saying we should ask the government to approach every illegal immigrant and hand them a free pass, but the system right now is more akin to defending yourself in court. Think about it, it's easier to get your driver's license, a document that allows you to operate the type of vehicle that contributes to tens of thousands of deaths every year, than to move across the border! All this does is deter people from pursuing legal immigration.
So, what if we make the path to citizenship a little easier?
First, if immigrants had the legal right to work, they would start paying taxes! (honestly it wouldn't be 100%, but the percentage would increase drastically from the current 0%) Suddenly, tax revenue would increase, spending would increase (with all the new jobs available to the newly-legal immigrants), and because legal immigration is easier, the government would have to put fewer resources to guard borders against illegal immigration. Since the number of people earning unreported income would decline, it would even be easier for law enforcement to address the issue of wages paid under the table.
Second, we just have to look at our roots. Very few of us are truly "native" Americans. The ones who are native were mistreated for centuries before we tried to bring them into equality. So, do you know what that makes the rest of us? Immigrants! Your ancestors earned the rights to citizenship by traveling here from somewhere else and asking for it. There's even a big plaque under a huge statue in New York that reads "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," a longstanding call to people of oppressed nations to come find better life here.
If you haven't yet, I encourage you to read the post linked above, because this is the fuel for my fire today. Here's the Cliff's Notes version.
The woman who writes this blog has 2 children who were adopted. One of them is 6 years old and was adopted 3 years ago from another country (not sure which). With his adoption finalized, their son Kembe has all the rights of their biological children, which includes US citizenship, since both parents are US citizens themselves. However, with the adoption long-finalized, Kembe was only just granted citizenship.
This is a problem. If someone like this easily and clearly meets the qualifications of citizenship, yet it takes 2-3 years to push the proper authorities to grant him this right, how much harder is it for someone to legally immigrate to the US to escape a life of poverty or oppression?
What I find is that the Land of Opportunity is severely lacking in opportunity. We've gone from inviting people into our home to constructing barbed-wire fences around it. We've stopped offering to help people find a better place, and instead we taunt them with our wealth and refuse to share, like a spoiled kid on the playground. Honestly, when did we get the right to be such jerks??
Those of you with more insight into international law may have reasons not to pursue this path, but as a person who wants to follow the words of Jesus in Matthew 22:39, I think it's time we started loving our international neighbors as we love ourselves.
Always moving forward,
Tyler
PS: Don't expect politically-inspired posts regularly. Sorry about the rant, we'll be back to your regularly-scheduled broadcast shortly.
First, by the time we get down to 2 leading candidates, I typically don't like either of them. The leading candidates get to where they are because they follow party lines, not because they have particularly good ideas (which leads me to my second reason).
Second, I don't like party lines. It seems that more and more the 2 major parties (and the candidates who best represent them) try to artificially differentiate themselves from one another. Once you read between the lines, they agree on 90% of the issues, yet they focus on the other 10% by trying to downgrade the competitor's position and separate themselves from it as much as possible. The result gives us the option to choose between 2 extremes, and personally, I think there are great solutions right down the middle of the road.
Today, I just want to focus on one political topic, which was inspired by this blog post:
Announcing Our New American Citizen
There's always talk about our borders, especially here in Texas. The typical response is complaints about all the "illegals" who work under the table, so that they don't pay taxes yet still reap the benefits of living under our government. Honestly, it's a real problem. Especially when you look at the budget dollars spent to build our roads, police our streets, and defend our country, and compare it to the near-zero tax dollars paid by those with cash-only income and no social security number.
However, and I want to be very clear here, this is the ONLY problem with illegal immigration today.
When people get into rant mode over issues like this, they tend to get into all kinds of things that seem to rationalize their opinion. But these are not problems on their own. In fact, any one of us could find the holes in these theories that debunk the statements completely, we just get sucked in by the original argument and let ourselves assume that the additional points are true enough.
Rather than arguing over the problem, though, let's talk about the solutions. The most often heard solution is closing our borders more tightly to new immigrants, usually coupled with deporting illegal immigrants. This would clear out the "problem people" at a pretty high cost to the government, and we would get to pay the taxes to support their efforts until it finally paid off.
The other solution is one people don't seem to talk about: granting them citizenship (or at least the right to earn a paycheck). Now I'm not saying we should ask the government to approach every illegal immigrant and hand them a free pass, but the system right now is more akin to defending yourself in court. Think about it, it's easier to get your driver's license, a document that allows you to operate the type of vehicle that contributes to tens of thousands of deaths every year, than to move across the border! All this does is deter people from pursuing legal immigration.
So, what if we make the path to citizenship a little easier?
First, if immigrants had the legal right to work, they would start paying taxes! (honestly it wouldn't be 100%, but the percentage would increase drastically from the current 0%) Suddenly, tax revenue would increase, spending would increase (with all the new jobs available to the newly-legal immigrants), and because legal immigration is easier, the government would have to put fewer resources to guard borders against illegal immigration. Since the number of people earning unreported income would decline, it would even be easier for law enforcement to address the issue of wages paid under the table.
Second, we just have to look at our roots. Very few of us are truly "native" Americans. The ones who are native were mistreated for centuries before we tried to bring them into equality. So, do you know what that makes the rest of us? Immigrants! Your ancestors earned the rights to citizenship by traveling here from somewhere else and asking for it. There's even a big plaque under a huge statue in New York that reads "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," a longstanding call to people of oppressed nations to come find better life here.
If you haven't yet, I encourage you to read the post linked above, because this is the fuel for my fire today. Here's the Cliff's Notes version.
The woman who writes this blog has 2 children who were adopted. One of them is 6 years old and was adopted 3 years ago from another country (not sure which). With his adoption finalized, their son Kembe has all the rights of their biological children, which includes US citizenship, since both parents are US citizens themselves. However, with the adoption long-finalized, Kembe was only just granted citizenship.
This is a problem. If someone like this easily and clearly meets the qualifications of citizenship, yet it takes 2-3 years to push the proper authorities to grant him this right, how much harder is it for someone to legally immigrate to the US to escape a life of poverty or oppression?
What I find is that the Land of Opportunity is severely lacking in opportunity. We've gone from inviting people into our home to constructing barbed-wire fences around it. We've stopped offering to help people find a better place, and instead we taunt them with our wealth and refuse to share, like a spoiled kid on the playground. Honestly, when did we get the right to be such jerks??
Those of you with more insight into international law may have reasons not to pursue this path, but as a person who wants to follow the words of Jesus in Matthew 22:39, I think it's time we started loving our international neighbors as we love ourselves.
Always moving forward,
Tyler
PS: Don't expect politically-inspired posts regularly. Sorry about the rant, we'll be back to your regularly-scheduled broadcast shortly.
Monday, February 18, 2013
Bridging Gaps
About 9 months ago, I took a new job that was a big change for me. Before the move, I worked in an office where the lowest-paid employees were the admin assistants. Even the entry-level employees made at least $35k a year plus benefits, wore slacks to work, and kept up the "corporate" feel. The new job was a pay raise for me, but it brought me a new perspective to the workforce.
The biggest difference in my new work environment was having my floor full of mostly office workers, but the first floor full of mostly field workers. Around me were engineers, CAD designers, managers and directors. It felt very "corporate" like the old job. But when you went downstairs, it was to visit the people who fix the water pipes, or the guys who maintain the parks, or the ones who fill potholes. Excluding a few who bridged the gap, these were two separate worlds.
My job is one of the unique positions that naturally bridges this gap. I work with several departments, so I'm in direct contact with several of the managers and supervisors, and in some departments have opportunities to built relationships with the front-line field workers. And I enjoy this part, because I also see how people upstairs (sometimes very directly) demean these guys just because of what they do for a living. Getting to know the field workers helps me to defend them.
It shows me not only that they deserve respect as much as any person, but I get to hear about the supervisor who dealt with his wife's recovery from surgery, the sewer worker who has 3 little girls at home who he would do anything for, and the guys who have hobbies just like mine. I get to be reminded constantly that regardless of the car they drive, the clothes they wear, or the numbers on their paycheck, that they are just like everyone who works upstairs. But they probably deserve more credit, because while they live the same lives as everyone else, they manage to make due with fewer resources.
Do you want to know the flip side? There are "upstairs" workers who won't hear of equating the two groups. This was a particular incident just before Christmas.
A group of water an sewer workers were sitting in a training room upstairs for most of a morning. The training happened to coincide with a day that an upstairs employee brought doughnuts for the office, and one of the trainees found out. He grabbed a couple pastries (after asking for permission), but one of the upstairs employees found out. It wasn't 5 minutes before the sewer manager received a text message asking him to "tell his guys to keep their nasty hands off our food" (to the best of my memory, this is a direct quote). This came from the same person who blocks downstairs workers from participating in any pot-luck lunches upstairs, but also the same person who is found downstairs every time the field workers provide lunch.
Is it me, or does this sound exactly like the radical racism this experienced not 50 years ago? Has it somehow wrong to target someone because of their race, but OK to target them because of their profession? If this is true, have we moved forward at all? Even now we stand in the middle of a nation-wide push for social reform surrounding homosexuality, with outspoken, opinionated individuals on both sides.
Honestly, I think the above situation is rare. People don't often say such direct, offensive things to people who haven't wronged them some way. The real problem is the response to these offensive comments. How often is the person left to defend themselves? How often does everyone try to ignore it, leaving no opposition to what we all thing is wrong? How often do we just avoid contact with a person because we "don't want to say the wrong thing," and leave them feeling alone and unsupported?
This is called Unconscious Racism (or Sexism, or Agism, etc.), and I know I carry some guilt from it. But I've also learned a lot about prejudice in the last year. From getting to know these field workers and the people who dislike them, to reading a book written by a single white woman who adopted a little black girl, I've been given a whole new perspective on prejudice. Even moreso since Katie and I have realized how happy we would be to take home a baby whose skin tone doesn't match ours, or whose racial heritage is different from ours. We've had long discussions about what we would do to make "our" birth mother comfortable in our home, even though society might expect her to feel inferior to us in some strange way.
It has become about bridging gaps, whether racial, financial, religious, or any other. It has made me realize that everyone deserves love and respect. It has driven me to make new friends and resurrect old friendships. It has brought me back to the words of Jesus:
Today, I choose to love.
Always moving forward,
Tyler
The biggest difference in my new work environment was having my floor full of mostly office workers, but the first floor full of mostly field workers. Around me were engineers, CAD designers, managers and directors. It felt very "corporate" like the old job. But when you went downstairs, it was to visit the people who fix the water pipes, or the guys who maintain the parks, or the ones who fill potholes. Excluding a few who bridged the gap, these were two separate worlds.
My job is one of the unique positions that naturally bridges this gap. I work with several departments, so I'm in direct contact with several of the managers and supervisors, and in some departments have opportunities to built relationships with the front-line field workers. And I enjoy this part, because I also see how people upstairs (sometimes very directly) demean these guys just because of what they do for a living. Getting to know the field workers helps me to defend them.
It shows me not only that they deserve respect as much as any person, but I get to hear about the supervisor who dealt with his wife's recovery from surgery, the sewer worker who has 3 little girls at home who he would do anything for, and the guys who have hobbies just like mine. I get to be reminded constantly that regardless of the car they drive, the clothes they wear, or the numbers on their paycheck, that they are just like everyone who works upstairs. But they probably deserve more credit, because while they live the same lives as everyone else, they manage to make due with fewer resources.
Do you want to know the flip side? There are "upstairs" workers who won't hear of equating the two groups. This was a particular incident just before Christmas.
A group of water an sewer workers were sitting in a training room upstairs for most of a morning. The training happened to coincide with a day that an upstairs employee brought doughnuts for the office, and one of the trainees found out. He grabbed a couple pastries (after asking for permission), but one of the upstairs employees found out. It wasn't 5 minutes before the sewer manager received a text message asking him to "tell his guys to keep their nasty hands off our food" (to the best of my memory, this is a direct quote). This came from the same person who blocks downstairs workers from participating in any pot-luck lunches upstairs, but also the same person who is found downstairs every time the field workers provide lunch.
Is it me, or does this sound exactly like the radical racism this experienced not 50 years ago? Has it somehow wrong to target someone because of their race, but OK to target them because of their profession? If this is true, have we moved forward at all? Even now we stand in the middle of a nation-wide push for social reform surrounding homosexuality, with outspoken, opinionated individuals on both sides.
Honestly, I think the above situation is rare. People don't often say such direct, offensive things to people who haven't wronged them some way. The real problem is the response to these offensive comments. How often is the person left to defend themselves? How often does everyone try to ignore it, leaving no opposition to what we all thing is wrong? How often do we just avoid contact with a person because we "don't want to say the wrong thing," and leave them feeling alone and unsupported?
This is called Unconscious Racism (or Sexism, or Agism, etc.), and I know I carry some guilt from it. But I've also learned a lot about prejudice in the last year. From getting to know these field workers and the people who dislike them, to reading a book written by a single white woman who adopted a little black girl, I've been given a whole new perspective on prejudice. Even moreso since Katie and I have realized how happy we would be to take home a baby whose skin tone doesn't match ours, or whose racial heritage is different from ours. We've had long discussions about what we would do to make "our" birth mother comfortable in our home, even though society might expect her to feel inferior to us in some strange way.
It has become about bridging gaps, whether racial, financial, religious, or any other. It has made me realize that everyone deserves love and respect. It has driven me to make new friends and resurrect old friendships. It has brought me back to the words of Jesus:
'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. (Matthew 22:37-40, NIV)
Today, I choose to love.
Always moving forward,
Tyler
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Cancer Sucks - Part 2
Last time I wrote about this topic, I had some questions asking if everything was ok. At the time, it was. If you read the earlier post, you know that almost 4 years ago my dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer. At the time he was diagnosed (June 2009), they already called it Stage IV, which is the worst it gets.
If you're like me, you've probably heard "stage IV cancer" in a negative context and just assumed it was bad. What it really means is that the cancer has spread. Stage I is a minor occurrence of cancer in a specific part of the body. For prostate cancer it's in the prostate, for breast cancer it's in the breast, etc. Stage II is when it starts to advance within the localized area, and there's some distinction in the type of advancement that moves it into stage III.
By the time you get to stage IV, the cancer has spread outside of the original spot. You'll hear these called "mets," because the cancer has "metastasized" to other parts of the body. The bad part about this is you can't contain the disease anymore. With stage I-III, you may have the option of surgically removing the affected part of the body, or directing radiation toward the small section of cancerous cells, but with stage IV those treatments almost entirely lose their effectiveness.
Once the cancer spreads, there's nothing holding it to one spot anymore. With my dad (and I assume with most prostate cancer patients), the mets went to the bones. CT scans (or bone scans) would find mets that showed up as dark spots on the bones, and the number and size of these spots would help the doctors gauge how well the treatments are working.
The treatments are the most difficult part, as I discussed in the earlier post. With the cancer not contained, the strongest treatment option is some form of chemo. In the first year they tried a hormone therapy, because prostate cancer is known to feed on testosterone. Limit the testosterone, limit the amount of fuel the disease can build from. It was great in that it had minimal side effects (at least compared to other cancer treatments), but it didn't work for long.
After about a year and a half of taking it slow, the chemo started. First every 3 weeks for about 8 months. Things got much better, and stayed that way for a good, long time. We got to stop worrying as much about the disease, and the treatments turned to trying things like short bouts of radiation on the most symptomatic areas. But this also came to an end.
In the fall, he went back to chemo. Again, it was every 3 weeks. This was a different formula that they hoped would make a more long-term impact on the disease, but after 8 treatments it had basically stopped working.
And this has been the last month of our lives. The chemo has stopped working. Radiation might give some symptom relief, but the likely side effects are just as bad as the symptoms they're trying to relieve. There are other kinds of chemo, but after 2 long tries with chemo they need to try something else. And that something else just isn't out there yet. Last week, the tests came back that the cancer hasn't just stopped shrinking, it's still progressing. Just weeks after ending chemo, it's hitting harder than ever.
Because of all of this, last weekend was one of the toughest my family has experienced. What started with a trip back home to hear the full story quickly progressed into discussions to prepare for end-of-life care and making sure my mom will be taken care of when he's gone. Our usual Sunday tradition of going to my parents' church (where I grew up) was filled with weepy hugs as the news spread. Even a piece of amazing news on the adoption account (to be detailed in a later post) was tear-filled in light of the emotions of the weekend.
Now, I hardly know what to do with myself. My brother and I agreed to do everything we can to help our mom be as ready as possible, and we both want to spend as much time with dad as we can. But every discussion gets harder, not easier. Even in sharing the news with a close friend, I could hardly get the words out. When I talk to anyone about this I have this overwhelming urge to tell them how great a man he is, and how much I've appreciated the life he has lived. Yet, every time those thoughts come out, I feel like I'm already attending his funeral.
The one thing I want to say about my dad today is how amazing he is through this process. Since the diagnosis, he has always absorbed as much of the negative stuff as he can, and just showed love and respect to the family and friends who care about him. Even now, he talks down his symptoms as if they're no big deal, all the while chatting with family and letting his grandkids play in his lap. I know many people tend to shut down in his position, but I don't think he's ever going to stop treating us all with the love and respect that he has always shown. That's the kind of strength I will always admire.
So, with regard to my work and day-to-day life in the next few weeks or months, I might be a little unavailable. I'm going to try not to be, but I already find myself drifting and losing focus, and I'm sorry about that. Don't feel bad for talking to me about the responsibilities I'm ignoring, because I probably just need the reminder to get going again. And if you don't know what to say to me, a hand on the shoulder says more than enough.
I know it's going to get harder before it gets easier, but maybe someday it won't hurt so much.
Always moving forward,
Tyler
If you're like me, you've probably heard "stage IV cancer" in a negative context and just assumed it was bad. What it really means is that the cancer has spread. Stage I is a minor occurrence of cancer in a specific part of the body. For prostate cancer it's in the prostate, for breast cancer it's in the breast, etc. Stage II is when it starts to advance within the localized area, and there's some distinction in the type of advancement that moves it into stage III.
By the time you get to stage IV, the cancer has spread outside of the original spot. You'll hear these called "mets," because the cancer has "metastasized" to other parts of the body. The bad part about this is you can't contain the disease anymore. With stage I-III, you may have the option of surgically removing the affected part of the body, or directing radiation toward the small section of cancerous cells, but with stage IV those treatments almost entirely lose their effectiveness.
Once the cancer spreads, there's nothing holding it to one spot anymore. With my dad (and I assume with most prostate cancer patients), the mets went to the bones. CT scans (or bone scans) would find mets that showed up as dark spots on the bones, and the number and size of these spots would help the doctors gauge how well the treatments are working.
The treatments are the most difficult part, as I discussed in the earlier post. With the cancer not contained, the strongest treatment option is some form of chemo. In the first year they tried a hormone therapy, because prostate cancer is known to feed on testosterone. Limit the testosterone, limit the amount of fuel the disease can build from. It was great in that it had minimal side effects (at least compared to other cancer treatments), but it didn't work for long.
After about a year and a half of taking it slow, the chemo started. First every 3 weeks for about 8 months. Things got much better, and stayed that way for a good, long time. We got to stop worrying as much about the disease, and the treatments turned to trying things like short bouts of radiation on the most symptomatic areas. But this also came to an end.
In the fall, he went back to chemo. Again, it was every 3 weeks. This was a different formula that they hoped would make a more long-term impact on the disease, but after 8 treatments it had basically stopped working.
And this has been the last month of our lives. The chemo has stopped working. Radiation might give some symptom relief, but the likely side effects are just as bad as the symptoms they're trying to relieve. There are other kinds of chemo, but after 2 long tries with chemo they need to try something else. And that something else just isn't out there yet. Last week, the tests came back that the cancer hasn't just stopped shrinking, it's still progressing. Just weeks after ending chemo, it's hitting harder than ever.
Because of all of this, last weekend was one of the toughest my family has experienced. What started with a trip back home to hear the full story quickly progressed into discussions to prepare for end-of-life care and making sure my mom will be taken care of when he's gone. Our usual Sunday tradition of going to my parents' church (where I grew up) was filled with weepy hugs as the news spread. Even a piece of amazing news on the adoption account (to be detailed in a later post) was tear-filled in light of the emotions of the weekend.
Now, I hardly know what to do with myself. My brother and I agreed to do everything we can to help our mom be as ready as possible, and we both want to spend as much time with dad as we can. But every discussion gets harder, not easier. Even in sharing the news with a close friend, I could hardly get the words out. When I talk to anyone about this I have this overwhelming urge to tell them how great a man he is, and how much I've appreciated the life he has lived. Yet, every time those thoughts come out, I feel like I'm already attending his funeral.
The one thing I want to say about my dad today is how amazing he is through this process. Since the diagnosis, he has always absorbed as much of the negative stuff as he can, and just showed love and respect to the family and friends who care about him. Even now, he talks down his symptoms as if they're no big deal, all the while chatting with family and letting his grandkids play in his lap. I know many people tend to shut down in his position, but I don't think he's ever going to stop treating us all with the love and respect that he has always shown. That's the kind of strength I will always admire.
So, with regard to my work and day-to-day life in the next few weeks or months, I might be a little unavailable. I'm going to try not to be, but I already find myself drifting and losing focus, and I'm sorry about that. Don't feel bad for talking to me about the responsibilities I'm ignoring, because I probably just need the reminder to get going again. And if you don't know what to say to me, a hand on the shoulder says more than enough.
I know it's going to get harder before it gets easier, but maybe someday it won't hurt so much.
Always moving forward,
Tyler
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