Four funerals and a wedding...Boomer effect?

I don't mean to be morbid, but I'm worried about all of us. That's the cynic coming through. Or the realist. It's all relative.

It has been a month of passages in our family. Within a one-week period from mid to late May, we buried a sister-in-law, an uncle, and an aunt. We did, however during that time attended a beautiful wedding full of people we know, and several high school and college graduations, which were uplifting, to say the least.

This last week marked the loss of two friends -- one of Spouse and one of Son One. More and more people we know have been diagnosed with various types and stages of cancer--more than I care to count. One under-50 friend has a rare blood disorder--they do think of it as a type of cancer--but chemical treatment is having no affect on it. It's got a name no one can pronounce, few have had, and a handful of doctors even know about. A 30-something divorced friend was diagnosed with appendix cancer (which is so odd no one I know has ever heard of it), and because it doesn't produce symptoms, sufferers are not often diagnosed until it's too late to save them. Several neighbors have been diagnosed with breast cancer, one of whom thought she was cancer free only a few weeks before discovering the cancer had metastasized to several areas of her body. And the last discovery was by a 27-year-old friend of Son One who was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer, resulting in a double radical mastectomy.

What the hell is happening? When I posed that question (in a raised voice) to my own doctor recently, she calmly told me that perhaps it is the aging population, or just that I'm noticing it more. I'm not buying it. More and younger people with odder cancers having increased seriousity (my word!) are popping up all over. Maybe it's the "boomer effect." We are, after all, an aging population.

Many of us believe the causes are environmental. We've been waging chemical warfare against humanity for many years, and it's catching up with us. We have more WMDs in labs across the U.S. than Rumsfeld claimed Saddam had stashed in Iraq. I'm not a paranoid person, nor am I the cynic I sometimes claim to be. But I'm inclined to believe the environmental theories. We already know that too much sun worship will leave you leathery and blistery and highly at risk for skin cancer. My young brother had melanoma in his 20's, theoretically caused by sun exposure. My step-dad died of esophageal/stomach cancer in his early 60's, theoretically caused by chewing and smoking tobacco. My mother had breast-cancer in her mid-60's, and since there is no history of the cancer in her family, the doctors blame environmental things like smoking (she's done so for about 54 years, and was exposed to second-hand smoke as well for many of those earlier years).

In our rural farming area, exposure to pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers and other chemicals used to coax some growth and kill others, has long since been declared to be unhealthy. However, we're loathe to make too much noise about it because of the plight of farmers today to produce more and better and bigger crops.

A friend of mine who is now over 90 years old told me at least 20 years ago that he and his wife truly believe the causes of most cancers to be environmental, citing the demise of his wife's aunts and uncles. In her family, all ten of her aunts and uncles prematurely died of cancer. What is obvious to her is that during their lives the world they lived in "evolved" from an environment in which everyone grew organic food (not a 1990's concept after all), ate their own fruits and vegetables and meat, to a world in which chemical preservatives, "-ides" and fertilizers were introduced, and all with nary a health hazard warning. She believes, and with a conviction hard to disagree with, that these people were the transition generation of the time. They were exposed to the worst kinds of changes. We now know that many of those chemicals were deadly or at least extremely unhealthy, and many have been removed from the market. But the danger is that so many more have been introduced, that how do we know what we are exposed to?

The thing is, I don't think that just because we have better chemistry sets or more government regulations and agencies, that we are necessarily smarter now. But we're a whole lot better at marketing and PR.

Pretend Dean Update

New information has come to light since the last blog, regarding Marilee Jones...

Marilee Jones, as you may recall, was the marvelously popular and well-respected dean at marvelously popular and well-respected MIT, who was ousted just a couple of months ago. Somewhere along the line, Dean Jones neglected to obtain the education and degrees apparently necessary to get the job she held for about 10 years. She had worked in the department for nearly 30 years. And she had done a good job, was well-read and respected and had good ideas that were embraced by college recruiters nationally. So no one would have ever thought that she didn't have the bachelors, masters or terminal degree normally required for such a lofty position at MIT--but apparently she didn't have any of those degrees, only chutzpah and lots of experience, and the motivation to take on the job.

I found out this week, by Googling "Marilee Jones," that the former Dean of Students at MIT does in fact have a degree after all. The information seems to have hardly made local news much less the national stage. Ms. Jones apparently did earn a bachelor's degree, though not from the schools she claimed in her vitae. That will make MIT look at least a little better for trusting her in the first place.