2Old2Blog

Beware of US Bank's Visa Buxx Card

2006-11-10T18:23:00.000-08:00

Since August of this year, I have been at war with U.S. Bank over $1200
in fraudulent, unauthorized charges made in Europe to my daughter's Visa
Buxx card (which has not left the United States this year). Here is my
first letter:

"Dear Mr. Grundhofer:

I write to describe your abysmal customer service before I contact
attorneys to initiate a class action lawsuit against U.S. Bank for
damages arising from your failure to honor your contact with your
Visabuxx holders.

My story is simple. On August 9, 2006, my daughter found her Visabuxx
account drained of money. She immediately notified U.S. Bank by calling
the customer service number on the back of the card. She was told at
that time that she would be sent a form to fill out to document the
fraudulent transactions that she identified. It was not difficult to
identify the transactions, as we live in Santa Monica, California, and
they all were processed with merchants in Europe.

The form for reporting the fraudulent transactions never arrived.
Indeed, we received several letters dated August 21, 2006 in a single
envelope from your company stating that we would be contacted if any
further information was needed. See Exhibit 1.

As an attorney who has represented banks, I remained concerned about
these charges and contacted your company on August 31, 2006 to inquire
about the status and whether I needed to take any further action. On
that date, I sent two emails and a letter, in addition to spending
several fruitless hours on the telephone with your customer service
representatives who could not answer (and still cannot answer) my
questions. My August 31 communications are attached to this letter as
Exhibit 2.

Following my August 31 communications, I received the emails attached
as Exhibit 3 to this letter. As you can see, in each instance, I replied
immediately to any communication from your company. The reverse was not
true. In addition, I was repeatedly assured that no further action was
necessary on our part to facilitate investigation of this matter.

On September 11, 2006, I received five letters from your company
concerning the fraudulent transactions. The letters were all dated
September 3, 2006. The single envelope containing all of the letters was
self-marked and dated September 1, 2006. Let me emphasize that these
letters did not arrive at my home until my regular postal delivery on
the afternoon of September 11. Exhibit 4 is a copy of those letters and
of the envelope containing them. In the letters, you imposed a deadline
of September 11, 2006 for us to respond to an August 18, 2006 letter
that we never received and that was mentioned for the first time in the
September 3, 2006, letter despite our many inquiries concerning this
matter.

I replied via facsimile the same day, September 11, 2006, and called
your customer service line as well. See Exhibit 5. Finally, on September
11, 2006, at 10:30 p.m., Sabrina, CSR # 2865, agreed to fax to me the
fraud forms within 24 hours. I received the forms the next morning,
September 12, 2006, completed them, and returned them to you via fax the
same day. See Exhibit 5. Indeed, the very fax number included on all of
the letters and on the fax cover sheet was not operational so I had to
call your customer service line again on the evening of September 12,
2006 and was given a second number. I immediately faxed the documents to
the new fax number provided, as well as to the fax number shown on your
fax cover sheet. Even then, I was requested after speaking to the
supervisor, Sam, CSR #2541, to resend the faxed forms to second number
(953-377-4438) addressed to Ormela Prashad. I complied with this request
as well. See Exhibit 5.

It is now September 13, 2006, and my account still has not been
credited for these fraudulent transactions despite countless hours on
the phone with numerous customer service representatives. This
transcends fraud; it is theft. Your company has breached its cardholder
agreement and Visa's no loss guarantee. It also has committed mail
fraud. I am able to document my side of the story, as you can see. Can
you document yours? I have not spoken to a single customer service
representative of your company who is able to produce the "August
18, 2006" letter referenced in your September 3, letter. If a letter
was sent on August 18, why on August 21, 2006, two days later, did you
say "if we need additional information from you in order to perform
our research, we may need to contact you"?

As I stated above, I am a lawyer with experience in dealing with these
matters. An ordinary consumer with a 9 to 5 job and no legal training
would be utterly at your mercy. By copy of this letter, I am notifying
the California Attorney General, the Federal Reserve Board, Visa USA,
and any consumer or media group that is interested concerning your
shoddy practices."

This was not the end of the story, however. The rest is contained in
this letter to the OCC and the California AG:

"This letter supplements the above-referenced complaint. As you may
recall, we submitted forms to the bank identifying five fraudulent
transactions on September 12, 2006. We received form letters from the
bank acknowledging receipt of all of our dispute forms in September. On
October 20, 2006, we received 4 (four) additional letters from the bank
concerning four of the five fraudulent charges. These letters were dated
October 13, 2006, but the envelopes transmitting those letters were
dated October 18, 2006. See Exhibit 1. We responded to those letters on
the date we received them, October 20, 2006.

On November 1, 2006, I spent 3 (three) continuous hours with customer service at the bank
concerning my daughter Hilary's account, which I could not and still
(two days later) cannot access online. I was informed by the bank at
that time that we received credit for the four fraudulent charges
relating to the four October 13 letters, but that one of the charges,
for $212.76, had not been permanently credited to our account. We have
received no additional correspondence from the bank other than the
September acknowledgement of our dispute form concerning this charge. We
disputed this charge substantially more than 45 days ago, the maximum
time allowed by the customer agreement.

As I informed your representative, Electra, on November 1, the customer
service practices of U.S. Bank regarding their prepaid cards amount to a
"no customer service" policy. Victims of fraudulent charges are
given a customer service phone number that connects the caller to a
customer service center in India which has no direct access to the
disputed charges unit in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. We the consumers are
unable to discuss these fraudulent charges or the actions taken thereon
with anyone in this country who has access to the paperwork concerning
the fraudulent charges. In short, the entire system is designed to
frustrate the customer into acceding to the fraudulent charges rather
than disputing them. In my case, this has been exacerbated by my
inability to access my daughter's account online for three days
without any explanation from the bank.

I understand that many employers now use these prepaid cards to pay the
wages of their employees. I suggest that the OCC examine the safeguards
implemented by the issuers with respect to unauthorized charges before
allowing widespread use of prepaid cards for employee wages."

Unbelievably, I still cannot access my daughter’s account!!! Of course,
we are closing her account when it is empty.

Interesting List

2005-10-05T08:19:00.000-07:00

They tell me I'm cured, my hair looks almost normal (though it's curly now) and I'm trying to get back to life as usual. So I haven't been blogging lately. But this list was worth posting:

Democrats:
* Richard Gephardt: Air National Guard, 1965-71.
* David Bonior: Staff Sgt., Air Force 1968-72.
* Tom Daschle: 1st Lt., Air Force SAC 1969-72.
* Al Gore: enlisted Aug. 1969; sent to Vietnam Jan. 1971 as an army
journalist in 20th Engineer Brigade.
* Bob Kerrey: Lt. j.g. Navy 1966-69; Medal of Honor, Vietnam.
* Daniel Inouye: Army 1943-47; Medal of Honor, WWII.
* John Kerry: Lt., Navy 1966-70; Silver Star, Bronze Star with Combat V, Purple Hearts.
* Charles Rangel: Staff Sgt., Army 1948-52; Bronze Star, Korea.
* Max Cleland: Captain, Army 1965-68; Silver Star &Bronze Star, Vietnam. Paraplegic from war injuries. Served in Congress.
* Ted Kennedy: Army, 1951-53.
* Tom Harkin: Lt., Navy, 1962-67; Naval Reserve, 1968-74.
* Jack Reed: Army Ranger, 1971-1979; Captain, Army Reserve 1979-91.
* Fritz Hollings: Army officer in WWII; Bronze Star and seven campaign ribbons.
* Leonard Boswell: Lt. Col., Army 1956-76; Vietnam, DFCs, Bronze Stars,and Soldier's Medal.
* Pete Peterson: Air Force Captain, POW. Purple Heart, Silver Star and Legion of Merit.
* Mike Thompson: Staff sergeant, 173rd Airborne, Purple Heart.
* Bill McBride: Candidate for Fla. Governor. Marine in Vietnam; Bronze
Star with Combat V.
* Gray Davis: Army Captain in Vietnam, Bronze Star.
* Pete Stark: Air Force 1955-57
* Chuck Robb: Vietnam
* Howell Heflin: Silver Star
* George McGovern: Silver Star &DFC during WWII.
* Bill Clinton: Did not serve. Student deferments. Entered draft but received #311.
* Jimmy Carter: Seven years in the Navy.
* Walter Mondale: Army 1951-1953
* John Glenn: WWII and Korea; six DFCs and AirMedal with 18 Clusters.
* Tom Lantos: Served in Hungarian underground in WWII. Saved by Raoul Wallenberg.

Republicans -- and these are the guys sending people to war:
* Dick Cheney: did not serve. Several deferments, the last by marriage.
* Dennis Hastert: did not serve.
* Tom Delay: did not serve.
* Roy Blunt: did not serve.
* Bill Frist: did not serve.
* Mitch McConnell: did not serve.
* Rick Santorum: did not serve.
* Trent Lott: did not serve.
* John Ashcroft: did not serve. Seven deferments to teach business
* Jeb Bush: did not serve.
* Karl Rove: did not serve.
* Saxby Chambliss: did not serve. "Bad knee." The man who attacked Max Cleland's patriotism.
* Paul Wolfowitz: did not serve.
* Vin Weber: did not serve.
* Richard Perle: did not serve.
* Douglas Feith: did not serve.
* Eliot Abrams: did not serve.
* Richard Shelby: did not serve.
* Jon! Kyl: did not serve.
* Tim Hutchison: did not serve.
* Christopher Cox: did not serve.
* Newt Gingrich: did not serve.
* Don Rumsfeld: served in Navy (1954-57) as flight instructor.
* George W. Bush: failed to complete his six-year National Guard; got assigned to Alabama so he could campaign for family friend running for U.S. Senate; failed to show up for required medical exam, disappeared from duty.
* Ronald Reagan: due to poor eyesight, served in a non- combat role making movies.
* B-1 Bob Dornan: Consciously enlisted after fighting was over in Korea.
* Phil Gramm: did not serve.
* John McCain: Vietnam POW, Silver Star, Bronze Star, Legion of Merit,
Purple Heart and Distinguished Flying Cross.
* Dana Rohrabacher: did not serve.
* John M. McHugh: did not serve.
* JC Watts: did not serve.
* Jack Kemp: did not serve. "Knee problem, " although continued in NFL for 8 years as quarterback.
* Dan Quayle: Journalism unit of the Indiana National Guard.
* Rudy Giuliani: did not serve.
* George Pataki: did not serve.
* Spencer Abraham: did not serve.
* John Engler: did not serve.
* Lindsey Graham: National Guard lawyer.
* Arnold Schwarzenegger: AWOL from Austrian army base.

Pundits &Preachers
* Sean Hannity: did not serve.
* Rush Limbaugh: did not serve (4-F with a 'pilonidal cyst.')
* Bill O'Reilly: did not serve.
* Michael Savage: did not serve.
* George Will: did not serve.
* Chris Matthews: did not serve.
* Paul Gigot: did not serve.
* Bill Bennett: did not serve.
* Pat Buchanan: did not serve.
* John Wayne: did not serve.
* Bill Kristol: did not serve.
* Kenneth Starr: did not serve.
* Antonin Scalia: did not serve.
* Clarence Thomas: did not serve.
* Ralph Reed: did not serve.
* Michael Medved: did not serve.
* Charlie Daniels: did not serve.
* Ted Nugent: did not serve. (He only shoots at things that don't shoot back.)

Please keep this information circulating
--Illinois State Sen. Howard W. Carroll

2005-07-30T19:48:00.000-07:00

Three generations in :London

Menopause and Hormones

2005-07-13T08:15:00.000-07:00

After heavy duty chemotherapy, menopause is virtually a given regardless of your age.

Before I was diagnosed, though, I had menopausal symptoms that drove me crazy. I had hot flashes virtually every day at 6:15 p.m. which, coincidentally, was 15 minutes before I left my office to head home. I had cramps for the first time in my life. And more . . . well, I'll spare you the details.

My doctor immediately suggested hormones. Many of my friends -- primarily my working friends -- said hormones had saved their sanity. Now I admit that my life has not been without its experiments, but before I had cancer, I never took a pill every day for anything for more than a 21-day cycle of antibiotics. So I chose to tough it out and make lifestyle changes, e.g., more exercise and less stress. And my strategy worked for the most part.

So the study on hormone therapy that was publicized today underscored what I have come to believe after chemo and menopause and life itself: the less medicine you take, the better. And the more exercise you take, the better. Not exactly profound, but when you are in the middle of an uncomfortable but not life threatening physical crisis, don't reach for a pill.

See the study at: http://jama.ama-assn.org/

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor

2005-07-01T08:12:00.000-07:00

Rumors circulated last year that Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, was planning to resign. With the diagnosis of Chief Justice William Rehnquist's thyroid cancer, the buzz flew around his possible resignation (still a possibility, I'm sure). But it surprised me to find tears in my eyes when I heard of Justice O'Connor's announcement this morning. Not because I always or even often agreed with her opinions and reasoning, and not because she is more of a loss than Rehnquist (though she is, in my view). Rather, for all women who have practiced law in this country in the last 50 years, Sandra Day O'Connor is an icon of success and grace.

My favorite Sandra Day O'Connor story goes something like this: When she graduated third in her class from from Stanford Law School, she applied to venerable law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher for an associate position. Instead, she was offered a secretarial position (after all, she was just a woman). Yet when Gibson Dunn celebrated its 100th anniversary and invited her to be its keynote speaker, she agreed. She did not ignore the earlier incident, but with humor and intelligence used it as a pivot to illustrate the advances of women in the law.

Thinking about this story (and being a less generous-natured woman than Justice O'Connor) led me ponder how far we really have come. This article reinforced what I really already knew: http://www.abanet.org/lpm/lpt/articles/mgt05041.html. Although approximately fifty percent of law school graduates are women, the are significantly underrepresented as partners in the large law firms (16.8% in 2004, up from 12.7% in 1993). The New York City Bar Association published a diversity benchmarking study in 2004, showing the percentage of women partners at 15.6% and minorities at a dismal 4.7%.

See http://www.abcny.org/pdf/report/Public_benchmarking_report.pdf

The study concluded with respect to diversity that time alone would not correct the imbalance (polite term for injustice) in the system and stated:

There is considerable diversity across race and gender in associate ranks, while the face of the partnership at signatory law firms remains predominantly white and male. Over one in five associates are racial-ethnic minorities and two in five are women. In contrast, the vast majority of special counsels and partners are both white and male. Only 4.7 percent of New York area law partners are considered racial/ethnic minorities. Women fare somewhat better than minorities comprising 15.6 percent of the partnership at signatory firms.

. . .

Often the paucity of women in the pre-partner pool due to turnover is cited as the reason why few women are partner. However, one-third of remaining class of 1996 is women. Looking at the data another way, 58 women were promoted to partner in 2004 compared to 182 women in the class of 1996 (31.8%). Meanwhile, 226 men were promoted to partner compared to 368 men in the class of 1996 (61.4%). This data suggests that attrition is not the only barrier to women’s advancement in firms.

When I was in college and law school many moons ago, I certainly would have predicted that this situation would be corrected by the millenium. But then when I was in college, I predicted that marijuana would be legal by the millenium. Hope springs eternal.

Blind Auditions Increase Women's Odds of Advancement

2005-06-28T07:33:00.000-07:00

From http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pwb/01/0212/7b.shtml

Efforts to conceal the identities of musicians auditioning for spots in symphony orchestras significantly boost the chances of women to succeed, a study co-written by a Princeton economist suggests.

Traditionally, women have been underrepresented in American and European orchestras. Renowned conductors have asserted that female musicians have "smaller techniques," are more temperamental and are simply unsuitable for orchestras, and some European orchestras do not hire women at all. Proving discrimination in hiring practices, however, has been difficult.

The study by Cecilia Rouse, an associate professor in Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the economics department, and Claudia Goldin, a professor of economics at Harvard University, seems to confirm the existence of sex-biased hiring by major symphony orchestras and illustrates the value of blind auditions, which have been adopted by most American symphonies. Their report was published in the September-November issue of the American Economic Review.

"This country's top symphony orchestras have long been alleged to discriminate against women, and others, in hiring," Rouse said. "Our research suggests both that there has been differential treatment of women and that blind auditions go a long way toward resolving the problem."

Florence Nelson, director of symphonic services at the American Federation of Musicians, described the research as a "very important statement, especially to those of us who have done auditions both ways -- behind a screen and without the screen." She has played flute and piccolo in major orchestras.

Traditionally, new members of the great symphony orchestras were handpicked by the music director and principal player of each section. Most contenders were the male students of a select group of teachers.

To overcome bias, most major U.S. orchestras began to broaden and democratize their hiring procedures in the 1970s and 1980s, advertising openings, allowing orchestra members to participate in hiring decisions and implementing blind auditions in which musicians audition behind a screen that conceals their identities but does not alter sound.

Of the "Big Five" symphonies -- the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra -- only Cleveland still does not hold blind auditions. Use of the blind auditions varies among the other orchestras, with some holding them only in preliminary rounds.

In their study, Rouse and Goldin examined lists of personnel from 11 major orchestras, including the Big Five, and actual accounts of the hiring process maintained by personnel managers in eight major orchestras.

Among musicians who auditioned in both blind and non-blind auditions, about 28.6 percent of female musicians and 20.2 percent of male musicians advanced from the preliminary to the final round in blind auditions. When preliminary auditions were not blind, only 19.3 percent of the women advanced, along with 22.5 percent of the men.

Using data from the audition records, the researchers found that blind auditions increased the probability that a woman would advance from preliminary rounds by 50 percent. The likelihood of a woman's ultimate selection is increased several fold, although the competition is extremely difficult and the chance of success still low.

As a result, blind auditions have had a significant impact on the face of symphony orchestras. About 10 percent of orchestra members were female around 1970, compared to about 35 percent in the mid-1990s. Rouse and Goldin attribute about 30 percent of this gain to the advent of blind auditions.

"Screens have been a very important part of the whole audition process," Nelson said. "My sense is that blind auditions have made a tremendous difference in the amount of hiring discrimination women face."

Nelson recalled how sensitive she was to the gender issue while auditioning. She remembers being told in the 1980s to remove her shoes while walking to center stage behind a screen, so the judges would not hear the "clickety-clack" of a woman's high heels.

Runaway/Missing/True Crime

2005-06-26T16:20:00.000-07:00

I confess: I am obsessed with missing person/true crime stories. When Jennifer Wilbanks went missing, I was on the case, primarily because I was convinced, as soon as I saw her picture, that she was a runaway and not an abducted woman. I followed the Elizabeth Smart case and persist in believing that the Groene children are alive. Since my first job out of college, as the editor of police trade magazines, I have read true crime stories avidly. I even hired a freelance writer to interview Richard Speck for the magazines in 1976.
So when Natalee Holloway went missing, I entered my usual information gathering mode. What amazed me was that I immediately was addicted, along with thousands - maybe even hundreds of thousands - of others. Why? I think I know. This could have happened to me. It could happen to my daughter, her friends, my friends. You meet a guy on vacation. He is an honors student, his dad is judge, he is going to school in the states, he speaks three languages, he is a champion athlete. I would have gone to the beach with him. I'm guessing a lot of other women would have too. And we too could be missing, probably dead, now, with teams of hundreds unable to find us on a tiny island in the Caribbean. Pretty terrifying, and enough to hold my attention for another day.

A Different Study

2005-05-25T18:56:00.000-07:00

Another woman suggested to me today that yet another study might examine the ages of the participants in the competition study. She clearly has more faith in the progress of humanity than I do.

Stayin' Alive

2005-05-24T12:50:00.000-07:00

It has been nearly a year and I'm still here, still in remission, and ready to move on from cancer to more interesting topics . . . like women in the workplace. I have been particularly interested in this subject since Larry Sommers expressed his views and since I attended an Advanced Mediation Training seminar in federal court in Los Angeles attended by 45 men and 5 women (this despite the fact that my graduating class from Columbia Law School in 1983 was nearly 50% women).

http://www.stanford.edu/~niederle/Women.Competition.pdf

It took me 20 minutes to dig up this study that I read about in the New York Times because typing in search terms like "women work Stanford" or "women career success" only led to stories about how women with more education 1) sleep better or 2) should work the night shift to give the kids the benefit of more dad time.

When I was at Harvard as an undergraduate, Matina Horner called it "fear of success." (I called it "love of pinball".) Now they call it "aversion to competitive environments." Is it really surprising, though, that women who are conditioned from childhood to avoid confrontation choose not to compete in a so-called "tournament"? (It also seems significant that men significantly overestimated their relative performance: 75% of men thought that they were the best in their group of four, vs. 43% of the women).

What may be significant about the competitive environments study is that it examined grown women. I wonder if the results would be different if it studied the same behaviors beginning at age 5. Or how about studying the same girls and boys beginning at age 5 through adulthood for these behaviors. Those results might be more surprising.

Home Again, Home Again

2004-07-25T08:04:00.000-07:00

I felt like I was gone for months, but it was only four days. Two days taking my older daughter to camp, two days with Eric in San Francisco, and then the drive home. The trip was as perfect as could be. Hilary and I started at home and drove to San Luis Obispo, where we stayed in the Madonna Inn. Then we went on the early morning tour at Hearst Castle the following morning and drove the rest of the way to Santa Rosa, where her camp is located. I had always wanted to make this trek via the Coast Highway, and it was as wondrous as I had heard. Big Sur is almost mythical and deserves further exploration, I am sure, but the diversity of California's topography is overwhelming on this drive, as you travel from desert to woodlands to mountains.

The trip was made a bit more challenging by the fact that our car broke somewhere between San Luis Obispo and Big Sur. It didn't break completely, but the power steering, which is electronically controlled, conked out and the steering was no longer power. Not dangerous, but not fun either.

After dropping Hilary at camp, I headed for Eric in San Francisco. We went to Harvard together in the dark ages, and we hadn't lived together since the summer after my senior year, when he returned unexpectedly (this is another long, long story) from a trip to the West Coast. While two days cannot be truly characterized as "living together," the years between vanished and we settled in like family. I made chicken soup and my anti-flu concoction (recipe below) while Eric worked; we went to the gym at 6 a.m.; we went to the barber where Eric had his beard trimmed and I had my head shaved; in other words, we did really nothing except read and talk and laugh. It was the best.

Although while I was with Eric, the car was in the shop in San Francisco and ostensibly was repaired, I guess not. The steering kicked out again right before the Grapevine on Route 5. I still made it home in 6 hours despite Eric's questionable directions (I realized I was headed the wrong direction when I hit Richmond) and a terrible traffic jam almost the minute I hit the 405 in Los Angeles. As much as I loved my little roadtrip, it was great to get home. Now on to my second to last chemo on Tuesday, and then I only have one more to go. Yessss.

Anti-Flu Concoction

3 lemons

3 large ginger roots

6 cloves of peeled garlic

1 Tablespoon Paprika

1 Quart Water

Add water to saucepan. Halve lemons, squeeze juice into saucepan, and then add lemon halves to saucepan. Slice ginger root into thin slices and add to saucepan. Mash garlic cloves and add to saucepan. Add paprika to saucepan. Simmer with top on pan for no less than 45 minutes. Then ladle out liquid only. More water can then be added and the mixture resimmered. It should cause you to sweat profusely and feel better within a day. If not, consult a doctor.

2004-07-24T15:24:00.000-07:00

The day I put my eyebrows on purple instead of brown. Oh, well - it was dark when we left in the morning.

2004-07-24T15:22:00.000-07:00

With Eric on his front steps in San Francisco.

This is not fun. . . .

2004-07-15T08:21:00.000-07:00

Every few weeks come into the life of a cancer patient a series of scans to assess you status. This was my week in spades. On Monday was a CT scan, on Tuesday a MUGA scan, and yesterday a PET scan.

The CT scan is short for a computed tomography scan. This is the test most of us think of when we think of scans, since you have to drink the disgusting, chalky barium mix and refrain from drinking and eating after midnight the day before the scan. Although they have new flavors of mixes (I prefer the mixed berry), it still is pretty gross. They tell you it tastes like smoothie - certainly no smoothie I've ever paid for. Then the next day, the insert an IV, inject a tagged (i.e., radioactive) solution, give you a little more "smoothie", and stick you on a bench that slides in and out through a donut shaped machine. If your appointment is at noon, as mine was, then you feel nauseous the rest of the day, since for many hours the only thing you have ingested or injected has been radioactive solution.

Next was the MUGA scan. This was a new one to me. I guess they find that the course of chemo I am undergoing (CHOP + Rituxan) causes damage to the heart in some patients. So to assess the potential damage, after six courses of chemo, they order a MUGA scan. MUGA stands for "multiple-gated acquisition". For this test, they don't just use plain liquid - they actually extract your own blood and reinject it with the radioactive substance mixed in. They then attach electrodes to your chest much like an EKG and take pictures of your heart beating to determine whether it has been affected by the chemo.

My MUGA scan turned into something of a fiasco. After the techs repositioned me several more times that I thought was necessary, I made a crucial mistake . . . I asked if something was wrong. "Well, actually," replied the tech, " we are having trouble getting a clean picture of your heart because your spleen is so enlarged. Do you want to see?" Well, I was pretty alarmed that my spleen was so enlarged that it was blocking my heart, and so I looked at the picture. I could see my heart filling and emptying and I could see a large balloon shape in front of it that she pointed out as the enlarged spleen, which was, in this picture anyway, larger than my heart. After wallowing in my fear for a couple of hours, my husband convinced me to call my wonderful doctor, who I always hate to bug lest he think I'm neurotic. But I did call, and he told me that the report on the MUGA scan didn't even mention my spleen, but he would follow up. The next day he left a message saying that my spleen looked "borderline" on the CT scan but better than before. Well, that's weird, since I had no idea that my spleen was borderline to begin with.

Then there was the PET scan. More on that later, as the story isn't complete yet.

Time flies. . .

2004-07-07T12:23:00.000-07:00

Some of it has been fun, but some has not, like the chemo yesterday, which does get progressively tougher as the docs promised.

The good: two kids happily ensconced in camp, only two more chemos left, in remission and feeling pretty good today.

The bad: Yesterday. I haven't vomited and I haven't dug a hole and crawled into it as many chemo patients do, but I have started to have "physical memories" of how the chemo feel a day or two before my treatment. As busy as I kept over the weekend (went to Catalina Island for visiting day at one camp, packed my second daughter and delivered her to camp in San Diego on Monday, then stopped at a casino to play a little blackjack with Michael on the way back), I still had the physical memory all day Sunday and Monday. The first time this happened was with my bone marrow biopsy. Let me tell you - if you ever have to have one, let them knock you out first. It is agonizing in a very deepseated way. So for month after the BMB, my butt ached when I drove by the hospital. The chemo is more of a lowgrade nauseated flu feeling, with the mental spaciness and fatigue typical of the flu. I don't mind so much having it for one day of chemo (each treatment lasts 5 hours) but to feel that way before is so unfair. In any event, I will be done on August 16. Hopefully my mental acuity will return with my physical well-being.

No Hair Anywhere

2004-06-27T17:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I lost what little was left of my eyebrows and eyelashes. This morning I used an eyebrow penscil to draw new eyebrows on, which made me realize just how weird it looks to have no eyebrows. What I find particularly strange is that I see women all the time who pluck off all of their eyebrows and then draw new ones. What is that all about?

http://www.hilandcarmetkiki.blogspot.com/

Check the link above. The family that blogs together . . ..

Viva Las Vegas

2004-06-25T08:29:00.000-07:00

Back from three days in Las Vegas. We took the kids for the first time, and went with another family - mom and two 14 year old friends of Hilary. I won three hundred dollar in about fifteen minutes when we got there and basically stopped gambling in any major way after that, since I had to give the winnings back. Michael broke even after a struggle, but he's lucky in love so what does he want . . . . I finally got really tired of wearing hats etc at the the pool and took my scarf off. I guess you get an idea of what it's like to have an obvious deformity when you are bald and have a port-a-cath* that sticks out of your chest like a third breast. You'll be lying on a beach chair with your eyes closed or looking a particular direction, then suddenly open your eyes or turn your head to find the person next to you fixedly staring at your shiny scalp or your third breast. Thank God I'm not sensitive. Michael said maybe people were confusing me with Sinead O'Connor. What a dreamer!

*I had a catheter surgically implanted just below my breastbone before chemo to avoid destroying my veins. It is a bit unsightly but I can swim and do any activities with it, and I recommend it to anyone undergoing chemotherapy.

Back to the Y Chromosome

2004-06-22T07:15:00.000-07:00

Tedious woman that I am, I cannot let go of this story I began and lost. As I was carefully explaining before my musings were ignominiously deleted from the screen, my niece Anna comes from a long line of distinctly and biasedly Y chromosomes on her father's (my brother's) side. Indeed, I was the only girl child born to the Himmelriches in three generations. First there was Bupee (pronounced Bup' ee) with the Bup rhyming with shtup, aka Alfred Sr. Bupee was the only child of his generation. His mother so doted upon him that she checked into Shepard Pratt, the local loony bin, when she returned from vacation to find him married to my grandmother, Hilda. Bupee was the sole heir to the Himmelrich name in his generation and honored accordingly. Then came two more sons, my father Sam Sr. and uncle Alfred Jr. (not to be confused with Anna's uncle/ my brother Alfred II). Now you understand the preeminently sensible Jewish tradition of NOT naming after the living. These days, we frequently have three Sams in a room.

I divert from my story. So Alfred Jr. had two sons, while my parents had one girl -- me --and three boys (still called "the boys"), Anna's father Samuel Jr., Alfred II described above and in Anna's baseball card entry, and our youngest brtoher, Bill, sensitively described by my parents as their "accident" conceived in San Francisco with no diaphragm.

But it wasn't until Anna came along that things really began to change. Silly but notable is the change she engineered in the Himmelrich Christmas eve day tradition. Though we are distinctly if not devotedly Jewish, the men in our family went to lunch, generally fancy lunch, and then shopping for my mother, Barbara, on the day before Christmas eve. I know little about the goings-on of those days, as I was never invited. Like the family business and the golf course and the off-shore fishing trips, this Christmas eve day was a pointedly male-bonding event. All I ever knew was that every year, my father would proudly present my mother with yet another ugly present (my personal favorite was the fake fur coat) that she returned on December 26.

Anna changed all of that. As soon as Jacob was old enough to join the troops, Anna went along. And though I never went myself, I always thought that was the beginning of a sea change in our family.

Y Chromosomes in the Himmelrich Family

2004-06-21T12:09:00.000-07:00

Don't you hate when you forget to save and then you lose your connection and drop a full page of text. So more on Y Chromosomes in my family tomorrow. Believe me, it is a strange and fascinating subject (again inspired by by niece Anna).

Boo Yankees!

2004-06-20T08:21:00.000-07:00

We have a severe rift in my family. My husband and younger daughter, Molly, are fans of the team that bought MLB - the Yankees. I, like my niece, Baltimore born and bred, am an Orioles fan, while my older daughter, Hilary, is a Dodgers fan. Thanks to two very generous friends of a friend, we actually had the privilege of watching the Yankees trounce the Dodgers 6 to 2 at Dodger at Dodger stadium. The pros: the seats were field level, practically on the field; the company was the best; the weather was perfect. The cons: the Dodgers lost (if you are an Orioles fan, all you ever want is the Yankees to lose); the parking is absolute chaos, more like carnival bumper cars than a professional event; and the peanuts are all salted. We had a lot of family togetherness, though, especially in the parking lot after the game. Finally, an intelligent fan pulled aside a barrier that allowed a few dozen of us to sneak out a service road. So arrest us!

Happy Father's Day to all of the daddies, especially my own father and my sweet husby who is not yet mature enough to be called a husband. Maybe next year.

One step back and two steps forward . . .

2004-06-19T07:08:00.000-07:00

So to move forward, I should back up a little. It all started with the hives (well, Barbie, it really all started with you but that goes too far back). Not bee hives, hives on my back and my arms and my stomach. The worst of it was that the hives were not in any visible locations, so my suffering was pretty much in unobservable silence. Underwear was unbearable; elastic meant an instant eruption; and a bead of perspiration created angry welts wherever it fell. The doctors, and there were a few, were less than helpful. The male doctors in typical fashion thought it was a neurotic reaction to god knows what, despite my total avoidance of doctors for 50 years. The female docs thought it was a "female" problem, and missed the opportunity to diagnose my swollen lymphs nodes, seeing them instead as endometriomas. Not that I'm angry, mind you. Just a little bit amazed that all of this medical talent couldn't quite sort out my misery. I even had a $20,000 gynecological procedure in hopes that it somehow would relieve the itching. But I'm not angry . . ..

Finally, after many months of itching and scratching myself raw, of eating until I had packed on 20 unneeded pounds, of tearing off my clothes before the front door was even shut behind me, all of my lymph nodes swelled to visible proportions. Now the doctors could make a diagnosis - even I could make a diagnosis. I had lymphoma.

Am I 2old2blog?

2004-06-18T18:51:00.000-07:00

This blog was inspired by, and therefore is dedicated to, my beautiful and talented niece Anna (see http://himmelwriting/blogspot.com) who began her own blog several weeks ago. Perhaps it might have been more brilliant to begin a few weeks ago myself, when I had more pressing news to deliver to a wider circle of family, friends, and others. But now that the crisis is over (more on "the crisis" later), I suspect my ramblings will be more entertaining and amusing, unless you are of goth persuasion or overly fond of Doc Maartens. So do you think 51 is 2old2blog?