I was reading Card Blue's blog regarding Vicodin and Percoset and the great Acetominophan debate as chronicled in the NY Times. A Federal Advisory board wants to ban these drugs because a few people a year and it was very few, abuse the drug by taking too much and damage their liver. Perhaps my Libertarianism is just shining through here but has the Federal Advisory board ever been in an Infusion Therapy Room? Have they ever seen what a cancer patient on VAC or MAID protocols looks like? Chemo drugs can potentially destroy the heart, the liver, the kidneys, the immune system and that is considered to be "Good Medicine." As we had a mother in MN recently court ordered to infuse her son with these drugs and abandon the natural, holistic, protocol that she wanted to follow to treat her son's cancer, I am more convinced that more government is just not a good thing. That we, as patients, as people, have the right to make decisions good or bad. Life never came with a guarantee of safety and we, as individuals, were given a mind, a brain, and a reasonable amount of intellect and our lives do belong to us. As Clint Eastwood quipped in Unforgiven, "life is all we have and all we're ever gonna have." Put a warning label on the damn bottle of tylenol and let people make their own decisions. The Constitution never guaranteed us safety. It does guarantee liberty and liberty is the freedom to do something stupid as much as it is the freedom to do something smart. There are just some things, such as people's ability to really do dumb things, that we just can't legislate. We can only hope that my neighbors dumb mistake, does not harm me. As I'm a cancer patient, I know more than anyone that there is no guarantee of anything. Life is uncertain. It is our job to make the most of the time we have as we never know how much time is in the hourglass. For the next couple weeks, I'll be making the most of it by abadoning the city and heading to the woods. Up there, I have no phone, no computer, no TV. There is only music, only trees, only bugs...lots of those, only beach, only quiet. There is no President. There is no Congress. There is no North Korea aiming missles at Hawaii. There's nothing but the hog report and news about where the good fishing is. I will arrive packed with my nutritional tools, a juicer, a hand held mixer, and all sorts of organic goodies that are just not too easy to find in a meat and potatoes area. I will arrive with a few good books to read on the beach and on our porch swing. I will arrive with a nice bottle of red wine to sip at our firepit. I will leave behind Big BOx Mart, Ma Bell and Cancer.

Have a Happy 4th of July and please don't take that Nyquil with a couple extra Tylenol....unless of course you want to.
I'll see you all when I get back, hopefully armed with some beautiful pictures of God's country.