Therapy not Sustainable

Here is an update on Mish Weiss.

She had a marrow biopsy last week. The results were good. When you have leukemia, you produce immature blood cells called “blast cells,” and the percentage of your blood cells which are blast cells is indicative of the severity of the disease. Mish just went from 36% to 31%. That’s about a 16% decrease, using 36% as the initial figure. That’s good.

I wish I could say that were the whole story. She got positive results from her last round of chemotherapy, but she is so ill, a continuation of that therapy would be fatal. You have to wonder what would have happened had they started with this particular therapy back when she was stronger.

Treatment has now shifted to a different type of chemotherapy intended to prolong her life. There is a difference between curative therapy and life-prolonging therapy. As a lay person, I don’t know if there is hope that a person in this condition will gain strength until curative chemotherapy can be attempted again. I suppose that’s the obvious question.

Mish is not giving in. A total surrender would mean giving up chemotherapy and focusing on improving her quality of life. She is very, very tough.

My plan? Keep up the prayer. It costs me nothing, and miracles do happen, and it’s a gift to be given a chance to do something for someone in need. There is always a blessing in trying to do good. I can’t think of any significant reward for giving up. I hope people who found Mish through this blog, and who have been praying for her, will think about that. Even if you have doubts about what you are accomplishing for her, you’re doing yourself a lot of good.

Today Drudgebart links to a story about David Wilkerson, the famous preacher. He is predicting a horrible sin-generated American catastrophe, and it seems to center around New York City. He talks about “a thousand fires.”

I hate to say this, especially since I have been attending a church pastored by a man said to be a relation of his, but I would not get too excited about the New York prediction. David Wilkerson has a history of making predictions. I invite you to read up and draw your own conclusions about his batting average. I have doubts, to put it mildly.

Nonetheless, I continue to believe we’re in big trouble as a nation, and I do think it’s because we’ve tested God’s patience. People have always been sinful, but over the last fifteen years or so, we’ve gotten downright gross. In addition to our old sins, we now do bizarre things like cutting up our own bodies for amusement. Our sexual perversions are getting so strange, it is impossible to understand how anyone can find them erotic. And now we have a weird, vacuous, inept, idol-packing President who is the very symbol of human pride, and he’s starting to take an adversarial position toward Israel. He’s also taking our money and using it to fund convenience abortions.

Life is changing. A couple of months back, I noticed that the atmosphere in the US seemed to be altered. Things seem grubbier and dingier. The way they’ve always been in foreign countries that don’t do well. It’s really obvious here in Miami. The grass is brown, and huge trees are dying all over the place. Is it my imagination? It can’t be. I’m surrounded by vacant houses no one can sell. The stores are quieter. The restaurants are often empty. It reminds me of places like Greece and the Bahamas.

It looks like Iran is now a nuclear power. Isn’t that great? The vast bulk of the process of getting nuclear weapons is behind them. Only the easy jobs remain to be done. Obama tried to appease the Russians into negotiating with Iran for us, offering to give up our efforts to protect ourselves with a missile shield. The Russians dealt him a remarkable public humiliation, dismissing his offer as eccentric and half-baked. Good thing. I wonder what he was thinking? If we build a missile shield, it won’t just protect us from Iran. It won’t check a missile’s nationality. We have other Muslim nations to worry about, as well as North Korea. Where did Obama get the idea that Iran was the only reason we needed a shield?

It’s funny that the press didn’t get excited about the Russian slapdown. It was an extraordinary bit of public emasculation, and the MSM ignored it. Obama came across like a little boy trying to break into his dad’s poker game. We’re going to see more of that. He is not man enough for the office. We retired a pit bull who scared our enemies to death, and we replaced it with an attention-starved bichon frise. Obama has been called Carter II, but even Carter had more grit. And Carter wasn’t totally opposed to maintaining a national defense.

I almost feel like God selected our leaders in the past, making sure that even when they were not the best available, they were not utter fools. And now we have served our purpose, and God has decided to let some other nation take the lead, so he is content to let us put rabble in our high offices, as less-blessed nations do. For now it’s Obama. Maybe next time we’ll swing to the other extreme and get a nut like Ron Paul. When no one guards the door, you don’t know who will come in and crash on the couch.

Wilkerson says each of us should have a month’s supply of food. That, I agree with. He’s not the only one saying it.

I think I’ll summon my nerve and check the Dow Jones average.

Pray for Mish.