About Lugnut -- Patrick Malone

---Stupid question alert---
What is happening in Miami that everyone but me is talking about?

I've been invited to a members home to listen to some tonearm/cartridge comparisons with some other guys and maybe catch some rays in the process. I might not want to come home until May or so. ;)

Dean, I've found a pastel t-shirt. Think that would work? I might even have some pastel socks but did Sonny ever wear socks?

Patrick: I haven't encountered this thread before today, and didn't have time to read through it all just now. But you and I had some enjoyable correspondences in the past when I was more active around here, and I've always highly regarded your thread contributions. You just kind of know who you'd personally like and respect on Audiogon were you to meet them in the flesh (which I hardly ever do, since I don't go to shows or join clubs, etc.), and I certainly count you as one of those guys.

I've endured too many losses due to cancer in my as-yet fairly young life to indulge in much cheery well-wishing. Tomorrow, my brother and I will rendezvous on the opposite coast to visit with a cousin who grew up as a virtual twin brother of our late father's (the two of them even shared the same names); at 80, he has what is now metastatic colon cancer and is on his second course of intensified chemo in under a year.

We wanted to see him while he's still in relatively good shape and spirits, and have a lot planned over four days, including attending a talk this cousin will give to a civic group concerning his WWII experiences helping to liberate a Nazi death camp. Within a month after we leave, he and his wife have a 2-week trip planned to Italy in between doses.

My cousin knows medicine and death - he was chief of anesthesiology for one of the country's largest metropolitan hospitals, while his first wife died of lung cancer - and though he is committed to fight his disease, he has made it clear that he does not want any treatment that overly diminishes his ability to live fully in the time he has left. I look forward to spending some of it with him; he's the closest thing to a parent I have left.

When my brother got married the year before last, his bride's father was slowly dying from kidney failure resulting from advanced cancer. With continued treatment at that time, he could have lived several more months or longer, but didn't feel well enough under the grueling regimen to attend their wedding. I didn't know this man - I met him for the first and only time at the gathering. He had discontinued treatment and dialysis expressly so he could travel to make the event. He had to lie down during the ceremony, but seemed very happy just to be there, with his family all around him. He died two weeks afterward.

It's a very tough call. My own mother worked, ironically enough, for the National Cancer Institute, so that when she got agressive ovarian cancer in her late fifties, all the most cutting-edge protocols were tried on her over an increasingly brutal 18-month period before she died. The whole situation left me feeling she was more of an experimental guinea pig than a nurtured patient. It had been her regular gynecologist who had initially found her disease; when she operated on it, she blanched and began crying, telling my mother there was no hope from what she had found. My mom was furious at her for her unprofessional reaction and ended their relationship, but it turned out this doctor and former friend had been more correct in her impression than the parade of well-intentioned truthsellers that followed. I was close by to my mother for all of that time, and to this day I couldn't tell you if the kindled and dashed hopes, let alone her extended physical torment, could ever have been worth it compared with possibly taking a different, probably shorter but more certain and maybe humane approach.

However, she was also reacting in a way to the death of her mother (my grandmother), who when she got breast cancer for the second time after many years having been cured, broke my mom's scientific heart by blithely ignoring her expertly-researched advice and doctor-shopping until she found one who told her she didn't need any treatment and could live comfortably until she would have died from old age anyway, whereupon she soon became sick (and unfortunately demented - it must have gotten to her brain) and died within a year - needlessly, so her daughter was sure. What proved to be my mom's fatal diagnosis came only two months after my grandmother's passing; my father was always positive the two things had a causal link. As for myself - not being as generally optimistic by nature as my dad was or as steadfast as my mom - witnessing my sister-in-law's father's choice cast my grandma's actions in somewhat of a new light.

On the other hand (leaving out several more instances on the first hand, I'm sorry to say), a daughter of the cousin I'm about to go visit has survived, taught school, danced flamenco, and raised a beautiful family while fighting cancer in four separate bouts over probably two decades, and we'll be seeing her on our trip as well. And my girlfriend's sister recently survived a virtual terminal diagnosis for inoperable cervical cancer the size of a grapefruit - on top of which she contracted chronic hepatitis while in the hospital - but she's in amazingly good health today. (Her hair grew back curly, just like my mom's did at one point.)

So to you I simply say, whatever you do, do it well my friend. I'll look for you around here whenever I can, and one day I'll make good on that threatened return and peregrinate all the way from the bottom to the top of Idaho state (or what's left of it after W. and Jeb get through :-) and maybe stop by, or if not then think of you sometime.

Peace Love & Light, Alex.

Alex,

The stories you tell about your personal experiences with cancer are heart breaking and, sorry to say, all too common. As I have said before I am one of the lucky ones. I was diagnosed in 1988 with mixed cell nodular lymphoma. I didn't respond to the traditional West Coast therapies so I was placed on a very aggressive regimine as practiced on the East Coast. This type of lymphoma is considered 100% non-cureable. I've lived until now without any evidence of a return only to get this shit.

This last Wednesday we met with my oncologist to establish a course of treatment. I had decided that no further treatment was the best course of action since I had reacted so severely to the first round of chemo. There is another drug that's usually reserved for people with a fighting chance for cure. It requires you to be hooked up to a pump for 21 days and then one week off. The side effects are minimal and the drug is a good one for slowing the progression of the disease. The pharmaceutical company that had developed this drug has now developed an oral dosage of the same compounds. That was offered to me on Wednesday. It was an exciting prospect since it would only require me to take 8 pills, 4 twice a day. So, here's the problem. The iv drugs are covered almost 100% by my insurance but the oral meds are covered under our standard prescription plan. Since there is no generic equivalent we pay 80% out of pocket meaning that the per dose cost would be close to $50 per pill. For the mathematically challenged, that's $400 per day for 14 days and then one week off or $5600 every three weeks. That's not an option for us and I wish I didn't even know about it.

I continue to work on my system and can say in no uncertain terms that the Audio Points made a substantial difference when used with my speakers. Imaging has become more stable and the stage is layered more than before. Interestingly, it seems to get better each time I listen and I guess that this is a function of breaking them in. I'm using Audio Points under my two amplifiers and am also using the Ridge Street interconnects from the preamp to each amp. The interconnects have made the biggest difference in my system with an increase in detail, transparency and smoothness in presentation. I'm now using the Ridge Street speaker cables to the tweeters on my speakers and a pair of basic transparent wires on the mid/bass drivers. I think I need some break-in time with these but will say more detail than ever is getting through. I'll let you know what I think after a week or so of burn in. I'm sure I'm approaching the maximum potential of my system.

Steve (Vetterone) has found a piece of vinyl that is really special. So special that I consider it to be the finest recording I've ever heard. When I listened to it on his system last week I was simply blown away. Finally, a piece of software that set his wonderful system free. I've urged him to write a review of it now that I've got my own copy coming my way. I'm guessing that it will be one of those records that will demand big money on the used market as I think it will be a limited production piece. I can't speak intelligently of the recording techniques used since it was in a language other than English but I believe it is a direct to disk recording. If only all software was this good.

Sad to report that the Syrah did not get fixed. But get this, Steve has purchased another one for me to use. It should be here soon. What a guy!! You gotta love him.

Pat, it's alot of fun getting to break-in and tune-up a whole new system, isn't it?

Hey, that Steve is a great guy to get another Syrah for you, like he did. Paul and Doug did a great service with their spearheading the system donation efforts. All the donators are wonderful for their generous actions too.

In fact, I think everybody that has done anything, posted on these threads, or did any praying or well wishing, is a heck of a guy, and I'm proud to be associated with people who'll come together for a buddy in tough times.