Virtual Stamp Collection: Featuring Zebras

Prologue: I wrote this on Monday - while doing my bowel prep... and going on an internet stamp hunt turned out to be a great diversion.

For the past 2.5 hours, I've been drinking 8 ounces of my blue-colored, mucus-flavored bowel-prep concoction every 10 minutes, as directed.


In between gagging down this terrible elixir, I decided to write a letter to my sister to take my mind off of things; not an email or facebook message - a real, honest to goodness, pen-to-paper, letter.

After I was finished, I thought about how perfect it would be if I had a zebra stamp to stick on it. (Carcinoid ribbon color is zebra striped). There is something so romantic about stamps - especially ones that have a faded, foreign postmark, smothering them, as they cling to the right hand corner of a yellowed, hand addressed envelope.

Then I thought - well, hey... there have to be countries that feature zebras on their postage... and how cool would it be to start a stamp collection? While I probably write more letters than most, I too am guilty of indulging in the immediacy of virtual messaging on a daily basis - so I found it sweetly ironic (and immediately gratifying) to create a virtual collection of zebra postage stamps from around the world.

From time to time, I'm going to add to my virtual collection, and maybe someday I'll affix my own foreign stamp to a postcard telling of some adventure I'm having - a miniature zebra winking from behind a smudged ink-ring - symbolic evidence of my triumphant return from the land of cancer.

Congo (1993)

Rwanda (1984)

Rwanda (1967)

Cuba (1970)

Guinea (1975)

USSR (1968)

This is a collage of stamps that I created through a program called Smilebox, which includes stamps from the following countries:

left column: Kenya (1966); United Nations (1984), Rwanda (1984); center column: Angola (1953), Portugese colony of Mozambique Companhia (1937), Belgian Congo (1942); right column: Vietnam (1982), Dependency of Ajman, Manama (1969), Zimbabwe (1980), Republic of Guinea Bissau (1988), Arab Democratic Republic of Western Sahara (1996), Nigeria (2001)

If you happen upon any zebra stamps out there in your travels - please send me a picture :)

Stamp Entry 7/23: Submitted by My Friend Jean in NJ

Chasing Zebras: The Unofficial Guide to House, M.D.

"I look for zebras because other doctors have ruled out all the horses." Gregory House, M.D.

Last May, I wrote a blog post chronicling appearances of "carcinoid" on the popular show House, M.D. (one of my mom's favorite shows). Recently, I came across this "insider's guide" to House - with a title too good not to include in my blog.

BOOK EXCERPT:

“It is an axiom of medicine: 'when you hear hoofbeats, you think horses, not zebras.' Dr. Gregory House and his elite team of diagnostic fellows chase medicine’s “zebras” — the anomalies, the odd presentations, the diseases so rare that most doctors would not have encountered them in a normal medical practice.

House, M.D. is, itself, a zebra in a herd of horses. It is a rare find of a show blessed with consistently sharp, intelligent writing: densely packed and multifaceted. It features one of the most complex characters ever to have been written for the small screen, Dr. Gregory House, brought to life through Hugh Laurie’s brilliant and nuanced performance."

Title: Chasing Zebras: The Unofficial Guide to House, M.D.
Author: Barbara Barnett
Genre: Television Nonfiction
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Ecw Press (September 1, 2010)
Available on Amazon

Zebra Cover: Smithsonian Magazine

A friend of mine texted me the Smithsonian Magazine cover for March 2011. Pretty neat!

After reading the magazine's featured article about the 20,000 plains zebras that wander through Botswana’s Makgadikgadi Pans - I'm even more convinced that the zebra is the PERFECT mascot for carcinoid survivors, because we share many of the same qualities ...

* Spirited: zebras have a wild spirit that makes them nearly impossible to tame or domesticate;

* Unique: like a human fingerprint, each zebra stripe pattern is identifiably different;

* Resilient: zebras "walk 34-mile round trips every two to four days to get from water to food, to water again, on an endless journey between thirst and hunger"; it's estimated that they travel more than 2,300 miles a year.

To Read the full article in the Smithsonian Magazine: "Nothing Can Stop the Zebra" click HERE.

iphone picture 6/1/11

A few weeks ago, I chaperoned the senior class trip to Six Flags Great Adventure and escaped the 94 degree heat for a while by partaking in the largest drive-thru safari outside of Africa. The 350-acre wildlife preserve has more than 1,200 exotic animals - including zebras of course!

But the Smithsonian article has me thinking - maybe I should take a trip to Africa to see these magnificent creatures, that hold so much meaning for me now, in the wild.

Managing an "Orphan Disease"

"Carcinoid cancer and carcinoid syndrome are orphan diseases that do not garner as much attention as more common diseases, but we are trying to change that" - Dr. Richard Warner



There are about 11,000 to 12,000 people diagnosed with a carcinoid tumor each year in the United States. About two-thirds of all carcinoid tumors are in the gastrointestinal system. Specifically, appendiceal carcinoids account for about 26% of all carcinoid tumors, and out of these - only about 5% of appendiceal carcinoid tumors are greater than 2 cm.

Bottom Line (approximatly): less than 156 people are diagnosed with an appendiceal carcinoid tumor greater than 2 cm every year in the United States; I am one of them.

My friend Christine jokes that I won the very elusive "unlucky lottery" - and when you consider that 1,600 new lottery millionaires are created every year...she makes a darn good point.

If it wasn't enough to have a rare cancer, I also have a laundry list of very unusual symptoms:

* constipation after a right hemicolectomy (Dr. Nash teasingly pointed out during my last visit that this symptom has been conspicuously missing from my previous blogs... touche doctor). Usually, people without half a colon have the "opposite" problem with their bowels. Again, leave it to me to be the odd duck. It's rare, but sometimes the nerves in the colon negatively respond to surgery and the colon doesn't work as well afterward. Dr. Nash said he only sees this reaction in a few patients a year, and I'm on a daily dose of Colace (perhaps permanently).

* a heart rate that drops as my exercise intensity increases

* weakening muscle strength and increased joint pain

* exhaustion to the point of tears

* fevers and nausea

The most frustrating issue is that I'm getting progressively worse with each month - sometimes it's even hard to walk now. Is it related to the carcinoid? Since the MRI didn't show signs of the carcinoid metastasizing in the liver - probably not... but it's such a rare disease, how can we be sure? In search of answers, Dr. Nash and I have mapped out the following plan (including my annual colonoscopy since mid-gut carcinoid increases my risk of colon cancer):

Future Schedule

May 5th: cardiology appointment - Dr. Avendano (Cardiovascular Interventionalists)
June: rheumatology appointment (Hospital for Special Surgery in NYC)
July: colonoscopy - Dr. Maloney Patel (Robert Wood Johnson Hospital, CINJ)
October 7th: follow-up appointment - Dr. Nash (Sloan Kettering)

Thanks everyone for your continued support, love and prayers; I couldn't have gotten this far without you.

Carcinoid Cancer Awareness

Zebra stripes are used to symbolize rare or “camouflaged” conditions. The Carcinoid community wants med students to flip the old adage, and think: “When you hear hoof beats don't assume it's a horse, it might be a zebra.”







Wearing a zebra pin or a zebra-striped bracelet or ribbon shows your support to promote awareness and to fund the education and research needs related to carcinoid cancer.

TWO GOOD WEBSITES:
www.caringforcarcinoid.org
www.carcinoid.org

Stripes on the Run (Zebras escape from Augsburg Circus)

Escaped Zebras! In Augsburg! Today, four Zebras escaped from a circus. From a circus! Pedestrians cornered one, but the police chased the other three through Augsburg (65 Kilometers from Munich) until they finally caught them. But then, one escaped again, and they needed two hours to corral him.

I can't help but make allusions to an old fashioned police chase and escaped prisoners...