Was This Timeshare a Scam? No, but the Follow-up Sure Seems Like One.

royal-scam — The Royal Scam, Steely Dan. 1976

Barb and I bought a timeshare at The Beautiful Beach Resort in Mexico two years ago. No, that’s not the scam. Sleazy as the process was, we paid our money, got a contract, and have even returned to the facility for a very nice week with friends. Sure, Mr. Unctious, the salesman, and Mr. Slimy, his boss, made personal promises of special arrangements and deluxe villa availability, but did we really believe Unctious and Slimy would be around a year or two later to give us those perks? No, we did not believe them then, and yes, a quick phone call last week confirmed neither is any longer associated with the resort. But I still don’t consider our purchase a scam–just a mistake on our part.

The scam has just come recently and not from BRR. A few weeks ago I sent an email to the resort booking office, looking to arrange a family gathering next February. A day later I received a phone call on a very bad, echoey, phone line. “Mr. Raff, I am Donald Jones. I represent a developer that is working with the owners of The Beautiful Beach Resort. BBR is in the process of converting from timeshare to condominiums. We would like to purchase your timeshare, and we guarantee you 125% of your purchase price. But this offer is only good for the owners of another 4% of the outstanding timeshare units, so you will need to act fast!”

Now, Barb and I both have buyer’s remorse over the timeshare purchase. We would gladly unload it for what we paid for it, and a 25% bonus sounded too good to be true. And that, of course, is when the alarm bells should always start to go off.

Despite my skepticism, I had already given Mr. Jones my email address. Within minutes I received an email from him. It listed a company name, which proved unverifiable on the Web, along with a request for all the details of our timeshare contract–if he was working with the resort shouldn’t he have known things like my contract number and how much I had paid? A phone call to BBR confirmed that the resort owners had no plans to convert the property Ito condominiums. I trashed the email and forgot about Mr. Jones.

This week, Mr. Jones has reappeared. He has made repeated calls to our home. I decided to call him back and chat him up. Over another creaky phone connection, I told him BBR denied they were converting to condos. He gave a lengthy answer explaining this was all hush-hush so the staff would still give good service. He also provided me with a link to the Arizona State Corporate Registration office. The company he claimed to represent was listed, but of course, that didn’t make them legitimate. It did not even prove he was working with them. He repeated his pitch, and reminded me of the urgency. I said I would “explore.”

So what kind of scam is being run here? Following some Google digging, I presume that if I agree to Mr. Jones’s terms, I will be told I need to send a check, or more likely wire some cash, to pay for “fees” before he mails me my check. And when will I get that check? The year the Cubs and Sox both win the pennant, or President Trump receives a Nobel Peace Prize? I think we will pass on this opportunity of a lifetime. One bad timeshare decision is enough for us!

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Yes, I Watched Jesus Christ Superstar. And Here Is Why.

As I have said before, I’m a big musical theater guy. Lots of “Broadway in Chicago,” lots of Marriott Theatre productions, and lots, but not enough, trips to New York City–Evan Hansen, you are next. But I have skipped the live TV broadcasts of the last few years of “The Sound of Music,” “Grease,” Hairspray,” and the like. They didn’t fit into my interest or my schedule.

So why was I glued to my set last night to watch the live concert version of “Jesus Christ Superstar”? It wasn’t the thrill of seeing John Legend flogged (and worse) or Alice Cooper with more subtle makeup than usual. No, the thing that got me following Saturday night’s Seder with Sunday night’s Superstar was nothing but nostalgia, nostalgia for a time long ago in a neighborhood far away.

I was in my mid-teens when the Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice double album hit the States.A few songs made radio playlists, but it wasn’t until the Easter following its release that one radio station took the bold step of playing the album in its entirety. Ian Gillian, Murray Head, Yvonne Elliman. Names that I didn’t know, but that I would never forget. I was hooked.

I didn’t buy many record albums, but For Superstar, I plunked down the few bucks at the Morse Avenue record store. After a week of non-stop listening on our old mono record player I had memorized the lyrics and got my somewhat belated introduction to the birth of Christianity. Not a very accurate view, but at least it filled a yawning gap in my knowledge base.

I was not the only one in my crowd with a Superstar habit. A road trip to Champaign-Urbana turned into a 140-mile long Acappella concert, with 4 male Jewish voices singing every note, every word. One of my travelling companions from that night died way too young, and I always think of him when I hear the opening notes of the JCS overture. Hosanna, Hosanna.

After the album, Superstar evolved into a concert version; minimal staging, just singers walking to a microphone at center stage. I saw it from the back row of the Auditorium Theatre with a high school sweetheart, my enthusiasm mirrored by her boredom. It just wasn’t a show for everyone! Then came the Broadway musical, the movies, the local theater productions. I can’t recall if I saw any of them. As I grew older my infatuation clearly waned or was buried beneath my studies, my family and my career.

But last night my enthusiasm was back. I watched every minute, and sang along with almost every word. Barb was surprised I remembered it all so well, I was more surprised that there were a few lyrics I had forgotten.

When Barb asked if I wanted to see the production coming to the Lyric Opera. I turned down the offer–I’d rather savor a single glass of a fine old Scotch than drown in an entire bottle.
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The Walking Man and His Friend Spring Ahead

It is spring, but the Walking Man barely seems to notice. His tri-colored down jacket is still tightly zipped up to his chin, the North Face watch cap pulled snugly down around his ears. No scarf or gloves, and Nikes instead of boots, but he still shivers as the wind from the north cuts into him. Most of the snow has melted, but in shady areas, a thin layer of permafrost remains.

An “I Voted Today” sticker is pasted onto the Walking Man’s jacket. Although the temperature is still Chicago Bear Weather cold, the calendar says it is mid-March. It is the first day of the coming spring season, and the last day of the bitterly fought, overly-spent, primary season.

The little dog is once trotting at his side. The pup seems keenly aware of the impending spring. He sniffs along the ground than raises his snout to the sky, inhaling all the scents that are just beginning to awake from hibernation. He arrived here in the dull drab winter, but now, despite the cold, the sun is shining and his terrier instincts tell him better times are ahead.

If the dog is more sprightly, he also seems better behaved. He responds to simple commands, sitting at intersections, then resuming at heel. He no longer barks or lunges at the other dogs out for their afternoon jaunts. Perhaps he has been to the neighborhood obedience school, hour-long sessions in a dingy gymnasium, following in line behind retrievers and doodles and Dobermans, as they learn their basic manners, learn how to socialize with other dogs.

The Walking Man and his little companion pause for a moment at the pond, settling on the bench as the Canadian Geese strut and honk around them. He notices that the feeder and nesting dock have been returned to the waterfront. Soon the swans will be delivered to their summer home, doing their limited best to keep the geese from feeling too much at ease. With the swans will come cygnets, and the Walking Man wonders if this year more than one or two baby swans will survive.

Man and pup step inside as the last dawdling dog walkers in the neighborhood yield the streets to the commuters driving home at the end of their workday. It has been a cold walk, but in their bones they know, spring is here.
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Ten Things I Didn’t Do Last Night, and One or Two I Did

I was home alone last night. Barb was at a Homeowner’s Board Meeting, presenting a great new landscape design. So I did something I haven’t done in a long time. I grabbed the book I had been reading for the last two weeks–“Mrs. Fletcher”, a sort of creepy Tom Perrotta novel– headed for the kitchen and plopped down in the stool next to the island.

The lighting in the center of the kitchen is just right. I spread out my opened book on the countertop and I read. No diversions, no distractions. By the time Barb got home, I had sped through 110 pages. A few minutes later my reading was complete.

I don’t remember the last time I sat down and read like that. It is something I used to be able to do with ease. Now, not so much. But there is a cost. All those alternative activities I passed up. A list of things I didn’t do while perusing Perrotta.

THINGS I DIDN’T DO (AND MOSTLY DIDN’T MISS)

Take any turns in my 6 never-ending games of online Scrabble. Legalization of “qi” and “za” have changed the game, but give me a versatile “x” any day.
Watch this season’s final episode of “This is Us,” the most annoyingly introspective TV show since “30 Something.” Barb and I did watch the finale later in the evening. Why was I not surprised by that bizarre wedding toast?
Struggle through “March Madness” bracket. Not in any contests this year and I don’t miss it. But I am pulling for Loyola to win a game or two. I remember 1963. Vaguely.
Write a blog. I had the beginnings of one in the pipeline, but meh, it just wasn’t clicking. I may work on it some more, or more likely, just delete it.
Learn more about the Bear’s free agent signings. March’s excitement will invariably be December’s disappointments.
Send out Happy Birthdays, Likes or other Thumbs Up on Facebook. Dear friends, if I missed anything important, I beg forgiveness, but I escaped Mr. Zuckerberg’s mind trap. For at least one night.
Mourn Rex Tillerson. I also banished Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo, and Gina Haspel from my thoughts. There will be plenty of time for learning about waterboarding when I read this morning’s New York Times.
Take Milo for a walk. It was too cold, too dark. But I did take him out briefly for a call of nature. Between chapters, of course.
Play with my Fitbit. 10,000 steps a day? Child’s play. If I don’t hit 100,000 in 7 days, it has been a lazy week.

It was a joy to just read, read, read. And the one other thing I did? There IS a hazard to reading in the kitchen. Cold pizza, and more. After the munchies, the 10th thing I didn’t want to do last night-

10. Get on the scale.

My suggestion to you for a great night? Turn off all the screens, grab a good book and a glass of wine, and keep turning those pages.

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In Prostate Cancer, 3 + 3 = 1. How Does That Add Up?

Prostate Cancer Gleason 3+3=6, Grade Group 1

You are looking at the headline and thinking, “Boy, this guy has lost it. He doesn’t even know that 3+3=6.” Well, that’s the way it used to be in prostate cancer. But in the last year or so, the assembled multitude of prostate pathologists have gotten a lot smarter, or at least more sensible. The benefit is to the patient, making the choices that have to be made in dealing with prostate cancer a little more straightforward.

You see, whenever we are looking at a slide in a case of cancer, one of the pathologist’s most important jobs is trying to estimate, based on the tumor’s microscopic appearance, how aggressive it might be. Often, we use generalized terms, identifying the cancer as “well-differentiated,” or “poorly-differentiated,” or for those somewhere in between, the highly nebulous term “moderately-differentiated.” Sometimes we use the phrases “low grade” and “high grade.” In breast cancer, we may use numeric scores for various microscopic features, add them all up and come up with a score to pass on to the oncologist and patient.

And then there is prostate cancer, home of the Gleason Grade and Score. The Gleason Grade is named for Donald Gleason, a pathologist whom back in the 1960’s examined tons of prostatectomy (removal of the prostate) specimens at the Minneapolis Veterans Administration Medical Center and recognized various microscopic patterns that he connected to different degrees of aggressiveness. He gave these patterns a numeric value of 1 through 5, creating the Gleason Grade. The Gleason Score was obtained by adding together the 2 most common grades, and thus could range from 2 (least aggressive) to 10 (most aggressive.) And there the matter stood, with minor adjustments by panels of renowned pathologists, for almost 50 years.

So what’s wrong with the Gleason system? The problem is twofold. First, Gleason Grades 1 and 2 were sort of wishy-washy tumors that might not have acted much like cancer at all. Second, Gleason’s studies were all done with the entire prostate available, while now, most patients are diagnosed with skinny needle biopsies that don’t even reach the center portion of the prostate gland where most of Gleason’s Grades 1 and 2’s could be found. Also, these skinny needles biopsies aren’t large enough to show the architectural patterns needed for the diagnosis of those 1’s and 2’s.

What’s the upshot, and why is any of this important? Based on the paragraph above, you can see that the least aggressive prostate cancer that we are going to diagnose on a needle biopsy is a Gleason Grade of 3+3 for a Gleason Score of 6. And we now know that for many men with a Gleason Score of 6, an approach called “active surveillance,” which means careful follow-up without definitive therapy, may now be the treatment of choice. Do you see where the problem is going to be?

Mr. Jones has a prostate biopsy for an elevated PSA and I diagnose prostate cancer Gleason Grade 3+3=6. Dr. Smith tells Mr. Jones “You have cancer, but I think that rather than surgery or radiation, we can try active surveillance.” But Mr. Jones has been doing his Googling and says “But Dr. Smith! My cancer is a 6 out of 10, and I think that is pretty bad! I want treatment.”

Thus the dilemma, a cancer that sounds much more aggressive than it may truly be. To resolve this discrepancy, we have a new approach. We still determine a Gleason Score, but we now additionally place the tumors in Groups 1 through 5. The higher the Gleason Score the higher the Group. Our old lackadaisical but scary Gleason Score 3+3=6 is all alone in Group 1. Gleason Score 3+4=7 earns a Group 2, 4+3=7 occupies Group 3, and the various higher Gleason Scores comprise Groups 4 and 5.

Now Dr. Smith can say, “Mr. Jones, you have prostate cancer Group 1 and I think we can hold off on any treatment for now.” And it is a whole lot easier for Mr. Smith to respond, “I think that is a fine idea.”

All it took was some modern math.

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The opinions above are those of the author and not of UroPartners LLC.

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We Are An Item Now. 10 Things We Can Do About It.

“I didn’t know the two of you were an item!”

It was an off-the-cuff remark by Terri, a new member of our Sunday morning tennis drill group. She had been playing with us for a few weeks, but apparantly the rumor mill was a little slow.

“We are an item? Well, we’ve been married for 38 years, ” I said.

“39,” Barb quickly corrected.

Deep inside, I was thrilled.

I have never been half of an “item” before. I thought only the super-cool kids earned that designation. Homecoming Kings and Queens, Big Men and Women on Campus, Oscar Award Winning Actors and Actresses. Never me.

But now that we have achieved that status, at least according to Terri, I have a list of 10 things that I think Barb and I need to accomplish. Consider it our “Itemized” Bucket List.

Top Ten List of Things to Do as an Item

Simultaneously be the cover models for Glamour, Cosmo, and Sports Illustrated — Swim Suit Issue, anyone?
Dance with Ellen and play games with Jimmy. Or play games with Ellen and dance with Jimmy.
Spend our 40th Anniversary renewing our vows on in an ancient Tibetian monastery with paparazzi helicopters circling overhead.
Be interviewed on a podcast and give advice on things we know nothing about.
Do the halftime show at Super Bowl LIII in Atlanta. Avoid wardrobe malfunction.
Tell our Harvey Weinstein story. (Doesn’t everyone have one??)
Have our lives immortalized on a 10 part series on Hulu, Amazon, Netflix, or some other hipper streaming service. Cast Uma Thurman and Bradley Cooper as Barb and Les.
Rent an island in the Indian Ocean for month-long retreat with family. Bring along a dog whisperer to take care of Milo.
Buy 500,000 new Twitter followers and tweet every opinion and thought that comes to mind. Be encouraged to run for President.
Win a Peoples Choice Award as “Hottest Couple” and get to thank each other on national television.

“Cause that’s what “items” do, right?

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Should I Have Been More Charitable With My Fitbit?

fitbit-question — Should my Fitbit have gone to Prostate Cancer Awareness?

I’ve been working out quite a bit lately. Lots of cardio time on the treadmill and elliptical. Been getting back to my old Saturday morning boot camp as well. My new Fitbit helps me track just how fast my heart is ticking. I enjoy having it, but every time I look at it I have a twinge of guilt. Should this Fitbit really be mine?

No, I didn’t steal it. I didn’t sneak it off of someone’s desk and register it under my name. I didn’t find it on the floor and appropriate it as my own. But I didn’t pay for it either, at least not in a conventional way.

So how did I get it? And why does it make me feel any angst? I’m not sure whether to call it a prize, or an award, or a gift. Regular readers know that I am a supporter of prostate cancer awareness, and participate every year in a 5K fundraising run promoting the cause. And I work hard to raise donations. I send out a lot of emails, I push myself to complete the race, and last year I even took a pie in the face (lemon meringue, I believe) from one of my lab associates, the winner of a fundraising raffle. I also support the causes of a lot of friends, who in turn help me out with mine–let’s face it, there is plenty of quid pro quo.

With all this activity, last year I blew past my personal goal and was the top Chicagoland fundraiser for the annual event. The Fitbit was my prize, my award, my gift. I received an email from the run coordinator asking me if I wanted to accept it. And ever eager to try new gadgets, I said “sure, send it to me.”

But every time I look at it I ask myself the question, “Shouldn’t the funds that went to purchase this been used for the cause instead?”

Even if the Fitbit was donated, couldn’t it have been auctioned or raffled off to raise more money? What was the proper etiquette? Should I have accepted the gizmo or not?

I had a similar dilemma once before. But the answer the previous time was simple. It was back in my days as a hospital pathologist at Holy Family Medical Center. Barb had the privilege of being President of the Women’s Board, responsible for planning the annual fundraising gala.

One year, I somehow found myself as MC of the event. We made a pretty spiffy couple in our evening gown (her) and tuxedo (me.) And we were even spiffier when hospital CEO Sister Patricia Ann picked a ticket with my name on it out of a big steel drum. I had just won the $5000 cash raffle!

But, being a long time practitioner of Catholic hospital politics, I realized in an instant that the cash wasn’t going to pay for a fun family vacation. No, by the end of the evening the Raff family had donated the money right back into the Hoy Family General Fund.

I suspect divine intervention was involved in my win that night, although I am not sure if it was from Sister Patricia Ann, or from a much higher being. Now I need a higher power to absolve me from my Fitbit guilt. So tell me Barb, is it ok?
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Build a Bridge; Save a Life. Let’s Prevent More Mass Killings

I was going to write about tennis. The blog was all written in my head, and I had most of it down on the page. But I kept thinking to myself, “Is this really what I want to be writing about?” While lots of good things have been happening in my family, other families are suffering the after-effects of another hideous mass killing. Once again the scene was a school, the victims mostly children.

All of us know someone in a school system somewhere. I have a daughter who teaches. I have grandchildren who are nearing primary school age. None of them can feel fully safe in their school. This is a national disgrace.

But my intention in writing this post is not to list, or even to mention, the things that I think we should we do to prevent more incidents. My intention in writing this post is not for me to scream and yell about how awful and intransigent the other side is on this issue. My intention in writing this post is not to try to out-tweet the tweeters. My intention in writing this post is to do something different altogether. My intention in writing this post is to start you building a bridge.

No matter which side of the aisle any of you are on, you probably know someone from the other side. It may be a friend, a relative, the guy on the treadmill next to you at the gym, or the new woman IT consultant in the office. Sit down with them for five minutes and see if you can come up with one suggestion that you both agree on, that could reduce or eliminate the number of mass killings in this country. The suggestion probably won’t eliminate these incidents overnight, but maybe enough good, bi-partisan, suggestions, could be a start.

Leave your suggestions as Comments here on the ChicagoNow site, or as Comments on Facebook. Alternatively, you can send the idea that you and your new partner agree on to me at les.raff@post.com. I will do my best to collate the list. I’ll pass it on to my Senators and to my Congressman. I’ll publish the list so readers in other locales can do the same. And please feel free to share this post. The more ideas, the better.

Maybe after that, I can get back to writing about tennis.

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From the Autopsy Files – The Triangle of Death

young-pathologist — The author as a young pathologist reviews autopsy slides.

A recent article in the New York Times had me thinking about surprise diagnoses I had made in my career. Most were made via an unexpected finding on a biopsy examination, but the first was undoubtedly during my Pathology residency, spending manyy hours in the morgue on the hospital autopsy rotation.

Mr. Jones was an older gentleman, in his 80’s but still spry! Why, according to my review of his hospital chart (paper, not electronic back in in 1979), he had been active enough to be running for a bus a month or two earlier. He had taken a tumble and missed the bus, but he was certainly an active fellow.

Further reading of the chart revealed that about a month before his death he began experiencing bleeding from his mouth. Various studies were done, and it was determined that the bleeding was arising in his esophagus. X-ray studies showed a mass about midway between his mouth and his stomach, and a tentative diagnosis of esophageal cancer was made. A specialist performed an esophagoscopy, passing a viewing tube into Mr. Jones’s esophagus, and performed a biopsy of the growth he saw.

The biopsy result from that procedure was inconclusive. Degenerating cells were seen, but no clearly malignant cells were identified. The pros and cons of performing extensive surgery on a man of Mr. Jones’s age, especially without a definite diagnosis, were discussed by his medical team. Unfortunately, Mr. Jones’s condition was not waiting around for a decision. He experienced severe chest pain, began bleeding heavily from his mouth, and was transferred to our hospital, where he succumbed that evening. The family, at the behest of the Doctor Will, who had been the last doc to see him before he died, consented to an autopsy.

Mr. Jones was my first autopsy of the morning, during a three month period in which I performed about 100 post-mortem exams. There are two philosophies about the best way to go about doing an autopsy. Some pathologists will read the chart, decide where the main findings will be, and make that the first thing they examine. Others take a more methodical approach, following the same dissection order with every case. I have always followed the latter, going organ system to organ system in a prescribed plan. The gastrointestinal tract, the probable site of Mr. Jones’s pathology, had to wait until I was done with cardiovascular, renal, and respiratory systems. I could feel Doctor Will’s impatient foot taps as he waited for me to “show him the money.”

Finally, I grabbed a pair of scissors and openned the esophagus and stomach. Surprise number one, although the esophagus revealed three long gashes through its internal lining, there was no tumor! Surprise number two was a triangular piece of firm pink plastic laying within the stomach. The points of the triangle precisely matched the esophageal damage. We speculated that the triangle had lain in the esophagus for weeks, causing bleeding and appearing to be a mass on the x-ray studies. On his final day, the plastic had moved from the esophagus to the stomach, causing pain and the massive, fatal, bleeding. Doctor Will was satisfied, we had our cause of death.

But what was that piece of plastic? Remember that run for the bus a few months back? It turns out Mr. Jones had done a bit of a face plant while falling and broken his upper dentures. He had grabbed the fragments, but no one had ever tried to reconstruct the dental plate. If only they had!

We recovered the fragments from his family, and sure enough, the deadly triangle had once been part of that upper plate. We published our findings in the Southern Medical Journal. Perhaps the first recorded case of death by denture.

I don’t do autopsies anymore. In fact not that many are done, in part because of the belief that with all of our advanced technology, not much can be learned from them. But you never know when there is going to be a surprise!

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On a separate medical note, my acquaintance Howard Wolinsky writes for the online journal MedWebPage Today. Here’s a link to his article about our discussion about the pathologists role in prostate cancer. Give it a read!

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My Evolution: Three Dogs at Night

milo-2 — Milo and I have evolved together.

Evolution. Darwin promoted it, science supports it, and even some politicians believe in it. And as the world around has evolved, so has my relationship to the height of evolution, the canine. Slowly, over time, I have learned to…accept.

I was raised in a dogless apartment; Mousy, a first generation house cat, was the ruler of the roost. My encounters with pups were limited and not always pleasant, with a nippy German Shepard living next door. No dogs for me, and I was content.

Of course, I met Barb, a dog lady through and through. Her family pet, a toy schnauzer named Nappy, hated me. The feelings were mutual. He was near the end of life when I met him, and through sheer willpower I outlasted him.

Barb and I spent about the first 10 years of our marriage without a dog. We had cats, we had kids. Once more I was content. But I evolved to the point where I could live with a dog. We adopted Murphy, a medium sized mixed breed, named after the popular TV character Murphy Bown (I know, she’s back!)

We did it right. As 10 pm approached, we would tell her “Bedtime, Murphy” and she would trot off to her bed in the first-floor office. An electric fence kept her downstairs while we slept upstairs. Yes, I was content.

Murphy was eventually followed by Max, the big, loveable Irish Wolfhound impersonator. No electric fence was going to stop the big fella, and when we said “time to go up, Max” he bounded up the stairs with us. I gave him a scratch under the chin, the cat took a swipe at his ears, he gave a mighty groan and settled down on his doggie bed. I had reached evolution point two.

Now there is Milo, the latest bundle of energy. For the first few months, we crated him in the kitchen at night. In the beginning, it appeared to be acceptable to him. After all, anything was better than living in a shelter. But lately, he became edgy at “lights out.” He would whine, he would whimper. Classical music calmed him down for awhile, but that didn’t last. Soon his crate migrated to our bedroom. Days later, the crate disappeared and Milo settled in on his bed on our bedroom floor.

Finally last night, the moment I had sworn to myself would never occur, occurred. Milo planted himself on the bed by Barb’s side and he was not going to budge. He was our bed partner. I waved the white flag and went to sleep. And when I woke up this morning, I was content. My evolution is complete.
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