Author Archives: gaussling

About gaussling

Gaussling is a senior scientist in the chemical business. He occasionally breaks glassware, spreads confusion and has been known to generate new forms of hazardous waste. Gaussling also digs aerospace, geology, and community theatre.

Attacking Syria for nerve gas use in Ghouta

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In the news there are reports of pending action by the US in Syria. Maybe I have a blind spot. Maybe there is some fundamental principle I am missing here. But how is it that a mass killing by gas elicits a response from the US when a larger mass killing by bullets and high explosives does not? Where are sympathetic Arabs in the region? How are they exempt from delivering bombardment as justice for the dead?

Obviously, gas attacks lie across a firebreak of some kind. What is the Syrian death toll now- 90,000 + by bullets and bombs? And that does not trigger international action? Apparently, grisliness is not a deciding factor.

This isn’t about justice at all. It is a smack down on setting a precedent with NBC warfare- nuclear, biological, and chemical. It is a genie we cannot allow out of the bottle … in the land of the genie.

So, here is the scenario-  the US will begin a strike at 3 am with cruise missiles to soften up the target area and air defenses. Stealth fighters will fly in to attack everything that flies. Penetrator missiles will demolish air, missile, and command and control bases. But what to do about the nerve gas armaments? Are they bombed or isolated? Who recovers them right after the attack? Al Qaeda? Let’s hope not.

This whole thing is a troubling moral discontinuity. By policy we watch many tens of thousands murdered by bullets and high explosives, but act on policy that triggers when gas is used. There may not be an answer, but there certainly is a smell. The smell of death.

The Squamous Chronicles. Finish one and start another.

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8/27/13.  As of today, I have 3 more x-ray treatments culminating in a dose of 63 Gray to the throat. The pain has required narcotics pretty much continuously and the attendant constipative delights that go with that. Pills are difficult to swallow and the gag reflex is heightened. The final chemo was yesterday so I am done eating platinum.

I began hormone ablation treatment for an aggressive form of prostate cancer two weeks ago. While the throat cancer is substantially beatable, the prostate is a different story. Here is the deal fellas. While you can gauge with PSA numbers, it is the Gleason grading system that tells the tale. And to get that you must do a biopsy. In order of increasing severity, the Gleason score goes from 2 to 10. I pulled a 9.

Hormone ablation is delicate way of saying chemical castration. The spread of prostate cancer can be controlled somewhat for up to 2 years by shutting down testosterone production. This they do by injecting a synthetic peptide, Degarelix, into belly fat to control the dosing to the pituitary gland. Had my first hot flash a week ago. It was a eunuch sensation.

Interesting anecdote.  My medical oncologist described an MD patient who had been using sunscreen on the radiated area of his throat. He soon experienced an increase in surface burning of the throat on continued x-radiation. Turns out he was using a sunscreen that had titanium dioxide that was scattering/absorbing radiation on the affected surface. He stopped and the accelerated damage ceased.

Schneier on Security

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Schneier on Security is one of my favorite non-chemistry blogs. The particular link here is to a post on the NSA and It’s apparent commandeering  of the internet for its own, opaque purposes. Bruce Schneier developed the Blowfish encryption algorithm.

While I have previously criticized Libertarianism and its peculiar conflation of civilization with Austrian economic thinking, I am enough of a civil libertarian to be deeply alarmed by post-911 security paranoia with its narrow readings on the 4th amendment and attending case-law.

Ask yourself, how much of your life do you want to be subject to structural snitch features that trigger silent alarms when your face is recognized in a building, when you called the front desk of a business or agency, or when you download particular information from the internet or just do keyword searches on Google?

You can bet that hordes of NSA folk as well as contractors are working feverishly on what else they can do with this metadata and location data accumulating in datacenters.

Many friends have said half joking that they feel sorry for spooks who have to sift through their chatter and insignificant browser searches. But what if an NSA spook were standing over their shoulder while they did it? How would they feel then? Maybe fellow citizens who approve of this kind of activity should be flagged for participation and the rest of us left alone. Would they feel the same about it?

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The Squamous Chronicles. Radiation, biopsy, gastric tube and chemo.

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As of today, I am 18/30 of the way through radiation. Last week I was unable to eat much, resulting in a large weight loss (ca 10 wt %) and necessitating the placement of a gastric tube. This was done under general anesthesia, but while I was awake. A fluoroscope was used to view the procedure. This was a bizarre experience. I could feel the stomach being punctured and sutured to the abdominal wall.

As weird as this experience was, it was nothing compared to the prostate biopsy the next day. Eight corings of the prostate though the rectum wall producing 8 little meat sticks of sample. It felt like the snapping of a tight rubber band against the tissue. The doc tried to ask about my hobbies during the procedure for distraction. Glad that is over.

The biggest side effect of this has been fatigue. I’ve experimented with more exercise to good effect. Freshly juiced vegetables help compensate for the drug induced constipation. And a large influx of calories through the gastric tube all add up to an improved energy level. I have been juicing beets and swiss chard.

In general, owing to the radiation on the throat (they say) my taste buds are operating improperly. Everything tastes really bad.

This week, a day past the third 90 mg drip of cisplatin, I am experiencing hair loss.

The Squamous Chronicles: A flea market of side effects.

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So, here I am wide awake trying to recall what the Ambien molecule looks like. I’ll probably have to look it up.

Later this morning is my 3rd chemo treatment of 6. Something is knocking me down. The x- radiation plainly has been doing what it does best- giving a 3-D sunburn. The throat is developing mucositis and Is crazy sore. Blistering should start soon.

I’m using magic mouthwash, comprised of lidocaine, benedryl, and Maalox. This pharmacy concoction has the snotty rheology of melted ice cream.  The throat issue is definitely interfering with getting enough calories for body weight maintenance. Have lost ca 10 lbs to date. I’m gonna get a talkin’ to from the dietitian today.

Other than sore throat, the next unpleasant drug side effects are those from the anti-nausea meds. The anti-emetic meds prevent one from hurling through a sore throat. They are also very effective at constipation. So, one gets to know the offerings at Walgreens.

The Squamous Chronicles. I am a platinum ligand.

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This afternoon I’ll get my 7th dose of 1.8 Gy of x-rays on the way to 54 Gy. The machine doing the deed is a Varian IMRT. It is a very impressive bit of technology. It has a continuously variable aperture and intensity. The rad tech opened the access panels up for me yesterday and showed me the innards. There is a rather large microwave generator inside with waveguides piping energy … somewhere. She said this TrueBeam system could also do electron beam therapy. The machine has a built-in CT scanner to verify that the sorry sod strapped in is aligned properly.

Last Monday I officially became a ligand for platinum. Got the first dose of cis-platin. Somewhere I have molecules- DNA- that are ligated as Pt complexes. The first dose hasn’t been much of an issue. The anti-nausea meds definitely have side effects though.

Five more weeks and 5 more cis-platin doses to go. Week one was without serious side effects thanks to Dulcolax.

Heap Big Stinkum

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The current movie “The Lone Ranger” is a real stinker. The buffoons who produce pictures like this should not be encouraged with good attendance figures. You can’t build a movie solely on a sight gag consisting of Johnny Depp with a dead crow on his head. In fact, I’d rather not invest anymore heartbeats on the topic. <end>

The Squamous Chronicles, part deux: Into the beam we go.

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My adventure with Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma, HNSCC, soon enters a third phase.  A week from this writing I’ll don my custom prepared plastic mesh mask and they’ll strap me onto an x-ray machine. Oh yes, one other thing. There’ll be a weekly dose of cis-platin coincident with irradiation. Turns out that there is a synergistic effect with radiation and platinum poisoning cis-platin chemotherapy. No doubt it is related to the fact that platinum is a heavy atom with a lot of electron density ripe for scattering. Platinum ligated to DNA during irradiation is a bonus as well I suppose. Your own DNA as a ligand for platinum. A funny thought for someone in the catalyst business.

The first phase was the identification of a swollen lymph node and its subsequent removal from its cozy perch on my right carotid artery. Here I learned first hand why cancer is destructive. Mutant squamous cells from some molecular-genetic train wreck are washed away from their birthplace to lodge in distant locations. In my case, the aloof cells got hung up in a lymph node. There, they invaded the node and proliferated to the point where much of the lymphatic tissue became necrotic, likely from blood starvation. The node was not especially painful. Well, until the biopsy needle went in. Then it became very, very angry. But I digress.

The second phase, post surgery, was the adventure of finding suitable oncologists. This is a little bewildering. It is easy to get overwhelmed by information. I went for a second opinion and soon thereafter chose the Anschutz Cancer Center at the University of Colorado in Aurora. I’ve already had medical students and residents sitting in on consultations and exams.  The medical oncologist is a research professor specializing in head and neck cancer. He sees patients on Fridays too. The radiation oncologist sees a lot of HNSCC and seems knowledgeable and confident.

More to follow.