Summer time come and gone my oh my....

It was Labor Day weekend 1977, Red Rocks Amphitheater, Morrison, Colorado, the third night of a three day Grateful Dead concert experience. The days were bright and sunny, as clear and blue as only the skies of Colorado can be, and the Dead were rockin'! We had been treated to an incredible range of favorites and new songs as well, this being the in the era of Mars Hotel, Blues for Allah and the newly released Terrapin Station, some of the Dead's finest efforts. At the close of the first set, a rollicksome US Blues was greeted by a swirling wind. As Donna G0dchaux stood at the microphone, wailing the lyrics "summer time, come and gone, my oh my..." the chilly wind whipped her long hair across her face, and fall was in the air.

This vision came to mind yesterday as we walked Ryder to his first day of school-- 2nd grade at Lincoln School. I was beset with a melancholy, the realization that the summer is over, the school year has begun. As I rode my bike to work early this morning, into the rising sun, my bare arms were chilled in the cool morning air. A brilliant day found us wheeling through the west side, not a cloud in the sky, the big orange sun rising in the east and exceptionally low humidity. Summer time, come and gone, my oh my.

This song, the US Blues is so very appropriate this week as we watch the Democratic Convention in Denver, city of my birth. The media seem surprised to discover what a lovely, vibrant and clean city Denver is. The shots of the 16th street mall with that brilliant blue sky make me so homesick. Uncle Sam has been hiding out in a rock and roll band. And now he is coming out of hiding! Truly stunning speeches by Michelle Obama on Tuesday night and last night Hillary Clinton gave the best and most important speech of her life! Democrats unite! No more Bush, No McCain! hope not fear, health care for every one, government for the people, not the select few! She beat the Democrat Drum brilliantly and I am so encouraged, so excited, and yes, so hopeful, that we can all come together and end the tyranny of bigoted old white men running this country into the ground for too many years! Look at the audience Hillary and Michelle are igniting with passion and excitement-- a broad cross section of Americans. Look who McCain is appealing too-- old white men! No country for old white men, no more. Now its time that fair representation for all of America, not just the privileged few. The Grand Oil Party's days are numbered. If only we can make it to January with out Bush and Cheney starting another war, with Iran-- or Russia? How dare Bush chastise Putin for attacking a sovereign country. Five long years ago Bush did what no American president has ever done-- invaded a sovereign country and waged war under false pretenses-- a conspiracy built on lies and deception to serve big oil and corporate enterprise. Enough! Democrats unite and lets get these fiends out of office!

Row Jimmy, Row

Last week when we were down south, Ryder and I went canoing on Little Grassy Lake for about 2 hours and I found it to be a great upper body workout. I perfected my J stroke and could paddle vigorously, pulling at a good clip, and more or less keep the canoe straight. It was a lot of fun and I really liked the sore muscles I experienced, evidence of a bit of exercise. This week as perused my email, I found a message from the Livestrong.com touting the virtues of rowing. I didn't know I was subscribed to email bulletins from this site, but I was subscribed to the Daily Plate and it seems as though Livestrong consumed them. It is actually quite a nice site with lots of different type of exercise, health, fitness and diet related content. The bit on rowing caught my eye and I recalled how I would row a few years back after I suffered an injury and couldn't run. I really liked it but when I returned to my feet, I abandoned rowing. Well, now that I have to meter out running carefully due to my knees, I was receptive to rowing again, and gave it a try. The Concept 2 machines are positioned so that they look out over the courtyard adjacent to the student union, so its better than television, watching the student body walk by. Especially now that all the students are starting to return for the fall semester and are fit, tanned and aren't wearing winter coats. So I jumped on and rowed 2000 meters in about 14 minutes. It felt great, so I did another 1000 meters and really started to feel it. The next two days I felt tight and trim-- good core, lower back, upper body and leg work.

Today I warmed up and then did 5000 meters, which was just a bit of a challenge. At about 2500 meters my butt started to burn, the gluteus and piriformis. The compression of my knees on the "catch" concerned me and bothered me a bit, but I didn't feel any real pain, just an awareness. I had a whole body experience as I felt my trapezius, lats, pectoralis, deltoids, biceps, triceps, abs, quads and calves, all involved. I breathed into each pull and kept my heart rate up. I really humped to break 30 minutes for the 5000, and when I got off I felt like I had a very good workout. I did a 1/2 mile on the treadmill to stretch out my hamstrings and feel if my knees were ok, which they were. After my matt work I felt really good and quite well exercised. I plan on including a few rowing sessions into my regimen now. I have been dropping weight with 4 workouts a week and watching the carbs. One of these days I will step on the scale at the gym and the beam won't tilt with the 200 lb notch engaged. I haven't been below 200 since I was in my 20s and then before that in my teens. I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now.

Little Grassy Lake (SIU part 2)

We left Oak Park at 2 in the afternoon, Friday afternoon, and it took us an hour to make it to I57. I57 connects the north with the south. Not just northern and southern Illinois, but the geographic north/south of the continental United States and the cultural north and south. This great American road, connecting Chicago to Memphis and points south provides smooth sailing with little traffic. I usually drive 137 miles south to the Champagne-Urbana exit to go to the chicken lab. This trip, our second drive to Carbondale, we sailed on by the birds on towards Arcola, Effingham, Mt Vernon, all the way to Marion, and into the Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge to Little Grassy Lake, adjacent to Giant City State park, just on the outskirts of Carbondale. We arrived at campground after the marina had closed so we picked a prime tenter's spot on the tip of a finger of land, jutting into the lake. We were alone in this section of the campground, well removed from the legion of camping trailers and RVs arrayed in bunches along the road to the marina. Long term campers were well entrenched and decorated with Christmas lights, bird feeders, boat trailers, grills, coolers, bug tents, TVs/radios, A/C blaring in the trailers, little gray wheelies connected to the toilet-- every trailer had the same model poop cart. We felt like Spartans just car camping, exiled to the tenter's cove. Kentucky was in the air. Heat, humidity and that drawl. No one was moving very fast-- except in their jon boats on the water. Life is on a different scale at Little Grassy Lake campground.

After we pitched our camp, we cooked a simple dinner of turkey cheese burgers and baked beans. Cooper settled right in but Mirabel would never rest. She chased dragonflies for hours, pointing at them then snapping at them, occasionally inhaling one. Then she discovered that the lake was filled with life, and she spent hours standing in the deep grass in the shallow water, pointing and snapping. Cooper sat like a lion surveying his domain with a pleased countenance. As the darkness gathered around us the sky grew light with stars. Even in the intense humidity the stars shone brightly, not obscured by city lights-- one could forget that there are more than a few dozen stars if you only see the sky in Chicago. The ambient sound intensified in the darkness. Croaking, clacking, cricketing, splashing and rustling-- no sirens, screaming Yamahas, rumbling Els-- or east coast bound 737 shattering the din. Dark and quiet-- what a relief. We could have used a bit of a breeze though-- it was suffer some in the heat. As we lay in the tent on top of our sleeping bags, I could feel my heart racing with the effort of pumping blood to my periphery to cool me off. I could not take my rest, my mind was roaming like a wild beast in the west.... I was profoundly taken with the realization that this was the world we would soon be living in, back to nature. In my more rational mind I knew that on most early August nights in Carbondale will find me comfortable under air, and not camping at Little Grassy-- but just outside my door, just a few miles from Little Grassy, my new back yard will stretch out into the dark and silent. A wonderfully comforting thought that scared the hell out of me. Oh my gawd! what in the world are we doing, moving to the south. We are going to have to learn how to saunter for sure. Adapt to the new sensibility, talk slow and be very polite. I57 carried us to the deep south of Illinois, 30 miles from the Ohio river to the south and 30 miles to the Mississippi to the west. Quiet and dark, heart racing, 5 of us in our spacious tent, even the gentle sounds of two dogs and two other people sleeping couldn't lull me to slumber. All I could think about was that I would soon be living here-- next summer would find us living in Carbondale-- but where we do not know.

We enjoyed exploring Carbondale on our own this time. Nothing scheduled until Monday's house hunting. We visited the farmer's market and were delighted with the locally grown veggies and fruit-- blueberries, peaches, melons, tomatoes, squash, onions-- we provisioned ourselves for camping, and enjoyed the ambiance of what will become our new weekly farmer's market pilgrimage. It was mighty hot, that's for sure. We shared the shade with two women who had moved to Carbondale from San Antonio last year-- they agreed it was hot but liked that it cooled off at night here. yeah, right I thought. We are so accustomed to camping at altitude when it does cool off at night. But I suppose, compared to San Antonio, this was mild. The best thing to do in the heat is to get in the water. So we drove west through Murphysboro to "the spillway" at the southern tip of Lake Kinkaid. It took a bit of navigating and some visitors had turned back when they discovered the pond at the foot of the spillway was flooded. This didn't slow us up. Ryder, Mirabel and I jumped in and swam across the pond, then clamored up the rocks to the cascading water. A family with three young children were enjoying the water, sitting with the water crashing over them. Ryder and I joined them in the warm shower, such a delight. We climbed all over the rocks, then swam back to Cooper and Cookie. I swam with Cooper who was reluctant at first to swim, but with some maneuvering joined the fun. What a relief to get into the water. We will be spending a lot of time being wet once we move to C'dale.

On the way back to Little Grassy Lake we visited Makanda for an ice cream cone. It was nearly 5 PM and the locals had gathered on the porch to share some joy, and were a very welcoming crew. We visited with the old hippies for a while, and I felt right at home, though not quite as grizzled as some of these gents. A very different air to this place than at Little Grassy, though the atmospherics were much the same. I have a feeling that I am really going to like living among these folks who are organic, artistic, erudite and real easy going. Ryder scored a beautiful tie-dye a the Smelly Hippie-- a candle and tie-dye shop with a bigger name than inventory.

The days remained hot but the humidity lessened and indeed, it did cool off nicely at night. And the less humid it got, the brighter the stars shone. As the dusk gathered we went fishing and as soon as we cast our lines, we caught fish. Ryder was so excited with the two small crappies he caught, he really wanted to clean and eat them. I felt guilty about keeping 5 inchers, but he would have been so disappointed had I thrown them back, so we took them back to camp. He proudly showed them to his mom. I cleaned them and we threw them into a skillet with some butter. And bless his little heart, Ryder ate both fish, working his way around the bones, fins and skin. He agreed that next time we would throw the little ones back, and wait until we caught a bigger fish to eat. The whole time I was bleeding inside, lamenting the bad Karma of killing something to eat it-- and I know that the Buddha would not kill the fish. But he would eat it if I caught it and gave it to him. A thin line to cross-- or is it? I even hate threading the squirming worm onto the hook perhaps even as much as gutting the wiggling fish. None the less, I am planning on going fishing again.

Monday we spent the whole day looking at houses with Marcia. By the 6th hour it was 96 degrees and we were exhausted. Karen and Ryder drove with Marcia and I drove the Subaru with the dogs, who endured the long hot day mostly from inside the car. Our first stop was a 1908 brick plantation with 45 acres just a few miles from town. the house was awful, simply dreadfully kept up and decorated. It was dank and dark, with 1950's era everything. Less that 400K for this monstrosity on all that land. We could parcel the property off, tear down and rebuild a nice modern house.... ugh. Then we visited the "Victorian legend" again, a property we'd seen in May and really liked. 1895 Victorian completely restored with new wiring and plumbing, a modern kitchen-- it is a real beauty. And on 40 acres with a working barn and pond. The more we thought about this place, the more I was sure this was the one we wanted. We looked at our options for trying to secure this place now for future purchase-- we have to sell our Oak Park house before we can buy one in Carbondale. But what if this IS the one? Well, we had to be sure. It is indeed spectacular. But it only has two bathrooms and three bedrooms. A nice formal parlor and dinning room, much bigger than our current place. It is a bit of a drive from SIU, about 8 miles, and the nearest neighbor is 1/4 a mile a way. Quite a change from Oak Park.

We took a much more extensive look this time, exploring the basement, the out buildings and we all walked down to the pond. Ryder was so excited to see the doc and pond. We could see dozens of fish in the water-- Mirabel saw them too and jumped into get them! Ryder hung on to her leash, but didn't follow her in. Cooper and Karen ambled to the pond, pausing to flick the tics off the dog. Yup, tic country. And chiggers too we've now discovered.... OK, so maybe the Victorian Legend is not ideal, but wow, what an amazing place. So much land and such a beautiful house. Not unlike the devil we know, our 1913 mini-Victorian in Oak Park. Renovated or not, this house would be a perpetual project-- and 40 acres?

We then visited houses in the Unity Point district, reported to be the best school district in the area. The house we visited on May Apple lane was like a cabin, rather small, decorated with vast numbers of hunting trophies and chicken wall paper and kitsch. The wife was a quilter and the husband was a hunter. Oddly similar to a house we'd seen in May in Cobden, deep in the woods, filled with trophies and camoflogue clothing, only at this place the wife was a scrap booker. The thing we like best about the May Apple place was the kennel with German Shorthaired Pointers in the back and the awesome fishing pole rack in the garage. It was rather small, dark and the lot was entirely wooded.

Next we saw "the house". Still under construction, on Lake Lenore, a beautiful, modern house on 5 acres, with a lake a few hundred feet from the walk out basement. We were very attracted to the idea of living in a newly constructed, fully modern house-- 4 full baths, 4 bedrooms, granite and Corian counters, slate tile, beautiful hardwood floors-- every detail well executed and conceived. We met the developer/contractor who was working on the master bath when we arrived. Wow, this place just blew us away. The lot seemed too small as a good portion of it contained a part of the lake, and we had to travel a newly built and rather primative gravl road to access the place. But it was only 4 miles from SIU, and did I mention-- brand new? It was a lot of fun looking at this place and we have moved it to the top of our list-- in a tie with the Victorian Legend. We hope that these places will be availalbe when we have earnest money in hand. The way the housing market is moving now, this is a real possibility. If only we can sell our current home when its time. By the time we saw the next two properties we were pretty burned out from house hunting, over heated and hungry. The two we liked the most made the others pale by comparison. We do anticipate that there are other very attractive properties to consider, and know that each place will have its pluses and minuses.

We enjoyed one more night at Little Grassy Lake then rolled up the camp and drove on home to Oak Park. Not a bad drive at all-- until you get to the outskirts of Chicago when the traffic snarls and the tempers flare. What a different world it is in southern Illinois. We can hardly wait to move there. We spent the rest of the week-- my summer vacation, painting the stairwell and entry way. Gorgeous. Our house is looking really good! The irony of making it so beautiful for someone else. Looking at houses instucts us in how to prepare ours for sale. I must take all my hunting trophies down and put them away. Yeah, right.

We finished the week with our annual gala block party. We love our neighborhood and are so fond of all our neighbors. This will be what we miss the most when we move. Not the traffic, the light and sound pollution, the cost of living, the crime etc, but all of our dear friends and neighbors. Such is the price of moving.

White Sox Win!

It couldn't have been a nicer day for a game-- sunny and warm but not too hot. The whole lab went to the Cell to see the White Sox play the Texas Rangers, taking the afternoon off to enjoy the splendor of MLB on a mid-summer's day. Kristine organized the outing, bought the tickets and made all the arrangements for the 12 of us. We massed in the lab at 11:30 and took the El en masse to 35th and the Dan Ryan, to the home of the Chicago White Sox. Ryder had two pals along, Sam and Tiger so we had great hope that the fireworks would not perturb him. We found our seats on the 5th level-- nose bleed seats, down the 1st base line near the foul pole- great seats with a perfect view of all the action. Truly, there isn't a bad seat in the house. Our first test came just after the singing of the national anthem when the sky exploded with sky rockets-- and Ryder stood cheering and clapping his hands wildly over his head! It almost brought tears to my eyes seeing his enjoyment, instead of seeing him with his hands pressed over his ears and that look of abject terror. His near pathological fear of loud noises, especially fireworks has plagued him-- and us. You never know when you might encounter fireworks, at most major league sporting events is one place for sure. And there were plenty of fireworks at the game. Especially in the 8th inning when the Sox came from behind to score six runs. It was Carlos Quentin's 3 run homer that set off the fireworks. Thome had a solo homer in the first inning too, and during all of these displays Ryder soldiered through, barely affected by the booming explosions which were very near our end of the stadium. A huge breakthrough. And for the girls in the lab too-- die hard Cubs fans, they all seemed to enjoy going to the south side and seeing the Chi-Sox kick some Texas booty. The big gun, Josh Hamilton struck out 4 times and popped up to end the game. It is always a pleasure to see a team from Texas get their butts kicked, especially one formerly owned by the worst president in the history of world, one whose days are numbered-- thank goodness! I do not believe he will return to his failed career as an owner after his failure as president. In fact, other than getting elected, he's failed at every thing. Notice the price of gas recently?

and the road goes on forever...

A glorious mid-summer day with perfect sunshine, low humidity and not a cloud in the sky. The wind is blowing off the lake bringing the temperature down to the mid-seventies in the afternoon, still quite brisk this morning. I had a great ride in. I was about two minutes behind my riding buddy so I chained up to the big sprocket on front and cranked. By the time I caught her 2 miles later I had been cruising along at over 20 mph and huffing. It was good to catch my breath when we joined up. The rest of the ride was very pleasant, always nice to have company, especially if you can still cruise along at a decent pace. The group dynamic suffers from slow riders pulling back the pack, but we are tuned into a very nice 16-18 mph pace, getting me to work before the electronic lock opens the door. Just as I clicked out of my peddle the door clicked open, 27 minutes from Austin to the College of Medicine West. My homies let me know how close I was getting to my partner. At Laramie, the newspaper man told me that the lady said I would be trying to catch her, sure enough, he was right. At Kostner the euphonious one chimed out "ice-screammmmm" then let me know "lady ice-cream" was just ahead. As I rounded the corner back on to Harrison south of the Ike, there she was, 2 blocks ahead. It was a good sprint to catch up before the light at Pulaski changed.

As I ride through the hood on my way to and from work, I alway see the same folks, always in the same place, doing the same thing-- year after year. We all seem to disappear in the winter, but during the warmer months, there they are. The constant welder, the guy with the world's best work ethic at Latham industries, always at work always giving us the fist up salute as we cruise past. And the folks sitting on their front stoop in the evening as I ride home. I was struck by the realization that those 6 or 8 people, ranging in age from small children playing in the postage stamp front yard, to the old woman sitting on steps-- possibly 5 generations of the same family, all must live in that brownstone two story home. What struck me was knowing that this is what they have to look forward to. Nice and cool on the porch, watching the world go by. Day after day, year after year, this is their neighborhood, their world, their reality-- their future. No plans for leaving, just dreams of it. As their path stretches out forever before them, I rejoice in the certain knowledge that my path is about to change. Not the path of my life or my beliefs, this is THE PATH, the way, but my surroundings, my environment, my reality. My new bike ride to work will be on country roads up and down the hills of southern Illinois. Evenings spent on the wrap around porch looking out on the the fields and ponds and forests of my own property. Taking dog walks on my own land. Our neighbors not feet from our door, but hundreds of yards away. We'll hear birds singing, not the neighbor singing in the shower in the morning. The sirens screaming by will be the mythical creatures of Odysseus, not the cops on Harlem running down speeders. As I look to the future, I can only use my imagination to see what my surroundings offer, instead of knowing that just past Cicero heading west on Harrison there is a pot hole just past the bus shelter that I have to go around every day.

Bastille Daze

My favorite month is July and today is the perfect July day, low humidity, bright sun and clear blue sky. Alas, I am at work enjoying this lovely day from the other side of the computer screen. Today the French celebrate the revolution and I celebrate my birthday. Double-nickles, half way to 110. I was starting to feel old, promoted to professor and having reached the top rung of the academic ladder all I could envision was no prospects other than more of the same. Then the incredible opportunity came along and my path changed course, now leading me to a new academic challenge-- chairman. Now I feel young! A young chair with many fruitful years in my career ahead of me to devote to building the department. Now my efforts won't be micromanaged and unappreciated, and I can give my heart and soul to the job and it will be my department I am doing this for. I am energized and excited. I can hardly wait to assume the helm and take the reins. And move to Carbondale. So much to do to get ready yet it seems like such a long time to wait.

When I was on the treadmill last week, preparing for my OCCAM lecture at the NCI, I was in a bit of a funk not happy with the few pounds I've gained during the course of all my travels, and all the distraction of travel and pending moves, have gotten me off track with my day to day work. As if an electric current suddenly was connected to the treadmill, I felt this buzz begin in my feet and the vibrations traveled like a jolt of lightening through my body and out of my head-- with goose bumps and chills the epiphany came to me--BEGIN WHERE YOU ARE.

yes, of course, it always takes work, we are never there-- the journey not the destination-- yes and I have lost sight of the path. Begin now, start here, at this moment and go forward. Forget about self deprecating recriminations. Forgive yourself and go on. Having rediscovered this bit of wisdom reminds me of the story of the two monks traveling through the country side. They encountered a divan carrying a wealthy noble, stuck in the middle of a muddy road-- the rich woman demanded that the monks carry her across the muddy road so she wouldn't get soiled. The old monk slogged through the mud, picked her up and carried her across, depositing her on the dry side of the road. The rich woman said nothing, not a word of thanks, and turned and walked on her way. The monks continued down the road. After several hours the younger monk said to the older one-- "how could you do that for her? she demanded that you carry her and then didn't even thank you! Are you not angry?" The old monk said "I carried her and left her back there, yet you are still carrying her with you. Who now has the greater burden?"

yes, leave it behind, go forward, start now, begin where you are. do the work, mind the calories, get the papers written the grants submitted, get the garden weeded and house cleaned-- forget that you have lagged behind on all these things, don't carry that burden, instead, get the work done, start now, do it.

takin' off those sailin' shoes

At least for a while I will be staying around town. In the past 12 months I've traveled ~15 times, including 4 trips to DC, Yellowstone, Hawaii, Colorado 3 times, Carbondale twice, San Francisco, Ann Arbor, camping with the Indian Guides in Wisconsin twice.... now for the so called "road warrior" who travels regularly for business, this number of trips would be laughable, but for me it is the most I've ever traveled in a year. Just this week made a very quick trip to Washington DC , Bethesda actually, to visit the NIH. I was invited to give the monthly lecture at the OCCAM, a division of the NCI. Office of Cancer Complementary Alternative Medicine in the National Cancer Institute. This was one of my finest moments, I must say, going to the temple of science and presenting our work on dietary intervention in ovarian cancer. I could tell I delivered a good talk that was well received and garnered many good questions and lots of positive feedback. The cancer community was impressed with the chicken model and our results on suppression of late stage ovarian cancer with flaxseed created quite the buzz. I am working feverishly now to get these data into publishable form. I struggle with how much to say in how many papers. A good problem to have. The OCCAM is a great niche to find myself in. In a few weeks my talk will be published on the NIH website: http://www.cancer.gov/CAM/ under the monthly lecture tab. One of my new colleagues at SIU, Laura Murphy gave the previous talk. We will have the foundation of a critical mass of CAM research at SIU, which is one of the strengths I plan on building my vision of the department around. I felt like a dignitary visiting the NIH in this capacity. My previous trips to the DC area for study section have been much more work than this, reviewing all those grants and assigning scores knowing full and well that only one of two, if that many will get funded. The state of funding for biomedical research is in a terrible crisis. We have an unfunded war costing the US $500,000 a minute, yet the whole of the NIH budget is less than $28 billion for the year-- about a month of funding for the war. And what good is all that spending doing us? NOT ONE SINGLE THING! I must always remind myself of what Werner Herz told me when I graduated from UCHSC with my PhD in Biochemistry-- 25 years ago (!!!) "there will always be a shortage of good people" and so, the answer to the crisis is to do the best you can do, and as I've found in my incarnation as a cancer biologist, its important to be nimble.

Oddly enough when I was googling OCCAM to find the link to the monthly lecture videocast, the first search term that came up was for Occam's Razor, the postulate that simply states: "All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best." Rather a cosmic coincidence. I believe I have found my niche in CAM as we embark on our 2nd funded study, this one to see if broccoli prevents ovarian cancer. And yes, chickens do eat broccoli. Consider Pliny the Elder who wrote Naturalis Historia (AD 79). He is known for his saying "True glory consists in doing what deserves to be written; in writing what deserves to be read". Relevant to my work, he described the anticancer properties of the calabrese a Mediterranean cultivar of broccoli. This made us question, when was cancer as a disease first recognize? The word cancer came from the father of medicine, Hippocrates, a Greek physician. Hippocrates used the Greek words, carcinos and carcinoma to describe tumors, thus calling cancer "karkinos". The Greek terms actually were words to describe a crab, which Hippocrates thought a tumor resembled. Although Hippocrates may have named "Cancer", he was certainly not the first to discover the disease. The history of cancer actually begins much earlier. The world's oldest documented case of cancer hails from ancient Egypt, in 1500 b.c. The details were recorded on a papyrus, documenting 8 cases of tumors occurring on the breast. It was treated by cauterization, a method to destroy tissue with a hot instrument called "the fire drill". It was also recorded that there was no treatment for the disease, only palliative treatment. There is evidence that the ancient Egyptians were able to tell the difference between malignant and benign tumors. According to inscriptions, surface tumors were surgically removed in a similar manner as they are removed today. (from http://cancer.about.com/od/historyofcancer/a/cancerhistory.htm)

So, its good to be staying put for a while, so I can get back to work.... speaking of which....