To (expletive here) or not to (expletive here)...

The headline is a play on one of the most famous lines in world literature, “To be or not to be, that is the question…” The headline also teases and invites the reader to fill in the blanks.

The question I ask myself is a simple one: To use profanity or not? I must admit that I like using profanity. I am good at it, too. I had good teachers, including my childhood friend from Elizabeth, Plainfield, Fanwood and Scotch Plains, N.J., and many of the journalists in every newsroom in which I worked or visited. A lot of journalists can let the blue language flow with aplomb.

However, I am trying to curb my profanity because….because my mom reads this column, also her friends. Also, I am tempered by my training and 20+ years of experience. If this column ran in a traditional “family” newspaper, it would have to be expletive free. Children rarely read newspapers, but they still reach a broad audience that includes folks who find blue language upsetting and offensive. Can’t lose any more readers! I would have to use the word “expletive” in place of the actual expletive.

Some folks do not curse at all. I admire that. Someone once told me that smart people don’t curse. They can find other words to express themselves. That is bullshit. If I smash your thumb with a hammer or I stomp your foot, what are you going to say? “Oh, David, why would you do such a cruel and dastardly thing?! Hell no! You’re gonna rip some nasty words and you're gonna try to kick my ass.

After being diagnosed in March with lung and heart sarcoidosis, I briefly went through a time when I stopped using profanity. It was all part of the new me…

I was in a hospital bed and said to myself, If I get some more chance I will never, ever…fill in the blank. I was released after 10 days of treatment and it became, If I get one more chance, I will try to never, ever... A month into taking the drugs that fight and suppress sarcoidosis symptoms, it was, Where the ---- are my keys?! (some of these ‘scripts make me forgetful, and, What the ---- happened to my face?! (Prednisone causes moon face and I really hate that shit…No waxing eloquently there. And no fucking pun intended).

See, that’s what I like about the power of profanity. When used right, it drives home the point. After all these years, George Carlin's seven words you cannot use on television still works. Tell a Richard Pryor joke - poignant stories all - without blue language. Pryor describing the time he set himself on fire while freebasing or the reason he stopped using the N-word after visiting Africa...drop the controversial, provocative and saucey language and the power is lost.

Of course times have changed. Many of today’s comedians think they are funny just because they can string nasty words together.

I am keeping basic promise I made to my family, friends and myself when I first started writing this blog: I will do all I can to get well. I have quit smoking. I exercise every day. I take my meds with the goal that they will do their job, I will do mine and one day - on one glorious day - I will not need these meds.

But give up the use of profanity? I can’t. I am writing fiction and some of the scenes and characters don’t work with an occasional f-bomb, or worse….combinations of words including the F-bomb! I do plan to mind my manners. I won’t swear around, (most) women, senior citizens, in houses of worship... I know some folks feel that philosophy is antiquated, but manners do not go out of style.

So, I’ll watch my mouth and my writing most of the time. But occasionally I am gonna let the you-know-what fly because it feels right or drives home the point.

'Suffering' to wellness

(''Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it’. – Ferris Bueller in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

John Hughes was one of my favorite storytellers. My favorite Hugh’s film is Ferris Buerller’s Day Off. Hughes dies of sudden cardiac arrest last week while out on his daily walk. He was 59. Hughes probably never saw it coming. The problem with sudden cardiac death is that half of the time the first symptom is a heart attack. Stay on top of your health. See your doc and ask about risk factors and tests to determine whether you are risk. And rest in peace, John.)

This one goes out to one that I love, my uncle Art. I am writing this on Saturday morning after learning he is back the hospital. He has been intubated. He cannot breathe on his own.

Long story short, Art has COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Things are not looking good for him. He is on more than a dozen medications, has oxygen tanks and inhalers all over the house.

And he still smokes.

The nicotine in cigarettes is as addictive as heroin or cocaine. And in some people, the river of addiction runs deep.

My river flows deep. I smoked for 20 years knowing that cigarettes kill. I belong to the first generation to learn about the dangers of smoking in grade school. When my brother Todd and I attended Nicholas Murray Butler High School in Elizabeth, N.J., we attended an assembly at which a guest speaker told us about the dangers of smoking and nicotine and the horrors of living with respiratory disease.

We stared in horror at a pickled cancerous lung in a jar (That was disgusting and too much for kids. And whose lung was that anyway?).

When school let out, we ran home, cut up our mom’s cigarettes and flush them down the toilet. I imagine that she wanted to beat the hell out of us for doing that, and who could blame her? Those freaking cigarettes did not grown on trees. And this was in the 70s, the era before people thought anything and everything was child abuse, so there were no calls to the Department of Child of Family Services. In the ‘70s, if my brother and I had called DCFS, a Paul Mall-addicted social worker would have showed up at the door and would have said, “Those damn kids did what? I’ll help ya bury them!”

Anyway…addiction…I want a smoke right now and I am fighting lung and heart sarcoidosis (unfortunately, I cannot go to the hospital to visit Art because the key drugs treating my sarcoid, prednisone and methotrexate, also suppress my immune system leaving me especially vulnerable to all the nastiness lurking invisible in the air of medical units). Breathing can be a chore. I cannot remember the days when I did not think about breathing. I think I have to go back to spring 2006.

And still, I want a cigarette.

The last time I saw Uncle Art, he was smoking. He sneaks out of the house buys a pack of cigs and smokes in his car or on his terrace. My Aunt Lorraine knows, but what can she do? Addiction is overwhelming and the addicted are impossible to help unless they want to help themselves. Success rates for intervention – I do not give a damn how easy things wrap up on TV talk shows – are bad.

The only way to overcome addiction is suffering through it and knowing that the craving, sometimes very strong, will be with you for the rest of your life. I am taking Chantix to take the edge off my craving, but I still think about smoking every day. Sometimes it is overwhelming. For example, the more I write on this subject the more I want a Malboro(my brand, but I'll smoke anything).

However, I know that one more smoke is one more nail in my coffin and I refuse to go out that way. I am not carrying around a damned oxygen tank in the future I visualize for myself. I am lighter, stronger and kick boxing in the future I visualize for myself. So I suffer through the craving, the feeling of a little, hairy, foul-smelling personal demon impatiently tapping me on the shoulder, demanding I give in.

And I am praying and rooting for my Uncle Art and Aunt Lorraine.

'Quest for a lid' update

I now realize that my major malfunction was my inability or unwillingness to try on clothes. I hate shopping for clothes. I do not necessarily hate hats. I hated hats because I could not find one that fits. I could not find one that fits because I was in too much of a rush to try them on. I am changing my MO. I’ll take a moment to see if the stuff fits, which means I won’t be frustrated later when I get it home.

Now I have four new hats. All of them fit. If I do not lose them, I will be ready for next spring and summer.

After Jackson's death, spotlight remains on sudden cardiac arrest

Image via Wikipedia

The deaths of Michael Jackson and ad pitchman Billy Mays pushed heart disease to center stage these past two weeks.

Some 300,000 Americans die each year of sudden cardiac arrest, according to figures from the American Heart Association. The survival rate is low. Folks do survive, though, especially if they receive medical help within the first 10 minutes of an attack.

With that in mind, I interviewed Dr. Ajoy Kapoor is a cardiologist and sarcoidosis specialist based in New Haven, Hamden and Branford, Conn.

He explains sudden cardiac arrest; what people can do to prevent and treat it.

I want to be transparent: Dr. Kapoor was among the doctors who tested me in 2005, when I was first diagnosed with sarcoidosis. It was inactive back then, slight evidence of scarring of lung tissue. I have always been good about going to the doctor for regular check-ups, but I asked for exams checking specifically for signs of flare-ups. That may have helped me avoid the situation in which I find myself.

Here's what Dr. Kapoor had to say:

Q: What is sudden cardiac arrest?

A: Basically, it is the abrupt lose of heart function. In generic terms, in laymen’s terms, the abruptness of the loss of function is key.

Q: How is sudden cardiac arrest different from a heart attack?

A: Heart attacks are a broad category. Not all heart attacks result in sudden cardiac arrest. Not all heart attacks or myocardial infarctions cause sudden cardiac arrest.

Q: What causes sudden cardiac arrest?

A: Lose of blood flow. Blockage of an artery. An arrhythmia, an irregular heartbeat or the actual heart muscle of valve might physically be disrupted. You can disrupt it in a way to create a whole in the heart or valve. Seventy percent of cases have atherosclerosis, coronary heart disease (at its roots); another 30 percent is caused by a variety of arrhythmias (cardiomapolies; dilated heart; congenital heart abnormalities; valvular abnormalities).

Q: Who is at risk for sudden cardiac arrest?

A: If they are young, it could be due to congenital abnormalities, cardiomypothy; heart attack.

Other contributing facts are

- Smoking

- High blood pressure

- High cholesterol

- Diabetes

- Smoking

- Lack of exercise

Then there are many things we still don’t know. One can have good cholesterol, be a non-smoker and still die of sudden cardiac arrest. So, we also follow markers of inflammation. But none of these gives us a complete picture.

Q: What tests can I take to find out if I am at risk for sudden cardiac arrest?

A: Give your doctor your history physical; submit to an EKG (electrocardiogram); blood work. Then decisions can me made on that information and those results. Some people may need extra testing and some people may not need extra testing.

Q: Are there definitive treatments for sudden cardiac arrest?

I stress prevention. It is important to modify life style. Smoking cessation, exercising, lowering cholesterol, (controlling) diabetes. People need to take care of themselves. Prevention is key.

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Folks do survive sudden cardiac arrest. Their stories at the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Association Website are uplifting. Check them out and have a great, safe Independence Day weekend.