Consider rest if you are in a position to do so

(Today's column is dedicated to Kathryn Foster Perry, who died on July 28. She was the mother of one of my dearest friends, Lisa Ann. Mrs. Perry was intelligent, kind, gracious, gentle and generous, attributes possessed by her daughter. All who knew her will miss her. We will also rally around Lisa.)

It is said that sporting events are metaphor for life.

But when's the last time a ref granted your request for a time out after you flubbed a presentation or said something off-color to the boss or colleagues? Many of us wish we could stand up in the cubicle and call "Time Out" to devise a winning strategy during a TV commercial break.

Well, you can, formally or informally, force a time out by just walking away from the job. Of course, you should let your boss know what you're doing. Just don't walk away...

If you need time to recover from serious illness or injury you should take it. It is easier said than done. It takes planning and determination - it is hard to sit idle while your contemporaries are continuing with careers - but it might be necessary.

A doctor at Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation in Chicago said to me that it "would be a good idea" for me to take off the rest of the summer in light of my bout with lung and heart sarcoidosis. We are trying to see if a course of drugs - prednisone, methotrexate, other stuff - will stem the tide of the disease. We keep checking the heart, which shows evidence of weakness, to see whether it can recover/rebound from the illness. There is improvement. If it does not get stronger, docs want to install an implantable cardioverter defibrillator in my chest to guard against sudden cardiac arrest. But as I just wrote, the heart is improving, so I want to give the drugs and exercise a little more time to work.

When it comes to rest, I'm taking the doctor's advice. I am interesting in getting well for the long term, not pleasing a boss in the short term. I have learned first hand that no matter how important you are to an organization and hire ups, you are replaceable. Heck, they just might fold your job to save money.

Your first loyalty is to yourself and your loved ones - family and friends. They are going to miss you when you are gone. And we don't want to leave sooner than later. So, if you need time to heal, consider a strategy that allows you to rest so you can be here as long as possible:

• Get financial affairs and health care in order - and adjust your budget to live on less

• Develop or find a support network. It might be family and friends. It might be a support group at a hospital or place of worship. Do not just sit alone or with people who do not understand or are unsympathetic to your situation.

• Really rest. Get to know your body, when it needs sleep, when it needs fuel. Limit alcohol consumption, quit smoking (I did. Finally took the Chantix. Cold turkey is too much, especially with so much going on right now). Exercise, but check with your doctor before you begin a regiment.

• Help others. Volunteering at a pet shelter, soup kitchen, tutor children; find an activity in which to participate so you stay active - remaining connected to community is important. Avoid becoming a recluse. Such a state is difficult from which to return

• Learn a new skill will recouperating, if health and strength and allows. When you re-enter the workforce, you can show potential employers you were not idle.

I thought long and hard about the pros and cons of taking a time out for health after reading that Scottish golfer Stephen Gallacher is seeking an exemption from the prefessional golfers' European Tour so he can rest and heal from a serious flare up of sarcoidosis.

Good luck, Stephen, and all the others brave and fortunate enough to take a time out to better their lives...

Taking advantage of the home field

By the time you read this, I will have kissed the New Jersey Parkway. I will have walked a beach and stared across the Atlantic to the horizon. I will have eaten a handful of the best cranberries in the world.

I am home. New Jersey. The Garden State. ‘Jersey.

For the record, no one I know from here says the line made famous by "comedian" Joe Piscopo: “I’m from ‘Joisey. Are you from Joisey?" There’s more to the state than The Sopranos, the oil tanks and chemical refineries along the northern corridor of the Turnpike, the crook politicians (Illinois, you've got nothing on the Garden State in that department)...

If you’re an out-of-stater, believe what you will. New Jersey has enough people anyway. Stay wherever you are. The mob or the smell might get ya!

I’ve always loved New Jersey, but I have not lived here since the mid-1980s. However, in my fight against sarcoidosis, I have made a tactical decision. I need and want the home field advantage. In sports, the homies have followed their team for years and the crowd is always loyal. Even when they are booing you for doing bad they are waiting for you to do well – and then they cheer loud and hard.

The hometown crowd’s support can spur a team to victory. It can inspire a battered boxer to get off the ropes and dig deep into his reserves to knock out his opponent.

Right now, I need my biggest cheerleaders, my mom and dad. They were eager to have me close so they can monitor my progress and help me in anyway possible. I am grateful – no, I thank God – for my parents. Not everyone has a rewarding relationship with his or her parents. Some folks have no one at all.

I began thinking about this in March after a 10-day hospital stay to deal with flaring pulmonary and cardiac sarcoidosis. I flew home so my folks could see that I was OK.

Everything about my ‘Jersey stay felt right. More than right. It was invigorating, rejuvenating. For the first time in more than 20 years, home was more appealing to me than the open road and new places to live in and see.

I'm tough and have always been able to handle life's challenges. Isolation, illness, pondering career options. Handling each problem on its own? No sweat. Bundle any two together, Bring ‘em on.

The three together? No thanks. Too much. It took me a while to realize it, but there's no shame in needing help and letting folks know it. Especially when you have people who are waiting for you to say the word so they can get involved. Word!

Now, I am no more than an hour or two from my loved ones in the Tri-State area. I’m looking forward to reconnecting with everyone. New York City and Philadelphia are an hour north and south of me, respectively. Greater New Haven, a 2-1/2 drive along tree-lined highways (Take the Garden State Parkway, go across the Tappan Zee Bridge and grab the Hutch north. Don't take the New Jersey Turnpike-Interstate 95 if you can avoid it. Ugly).

I lived in Chicago for the past year. My friends there, especially Megan Cottrell, Felicia Yonter, Steve Barrett, Tyler Via, Tim Yager, Fernando Diaz, Adrian Uribarri, Peter Sachs, Alex Parker, Kim Barrett, Matt Schad, Patrick Boylan (there are others but I hate Academy-award style thanks-yous, so thanks to everyone!) helped me during the most challenging time of my life. I was terrified, confused and alone in March when my sarc went berserk. My friends in Chicago checked on me daily and kept buoyant my spirit. Some drove me around when I could not drive myself. Some made me laugh.

They encouraged me to walk when I wanted to sit and sulk. Especially Megan and Felicia. They made me walk my ass off. I am definitely better off because of that.

They inspired me to recommit to my fiction and this write this blog (but my mom had the idea first, I must say).

My Chicago peeps, I am forever indebted to you and I will be back to visit as often as I can. I want you to visit me, too. The door is always open. You'll always have a place to crash.

But I am excited to be home. I liked kissing the New Jersey Parkway. I like hearing, seeing my mother and father at ease.

I love being home. I feel 10 years younger.

Will the King of Pop ever get to rest in peace?

(Greetings. I did say I might sometimes write about whatever moved me. I am a journalist and observer of pop culture. When moved by pop culture, I will write. The unrelenting Michael Jackson news media feeding frenzy moved me. Bear with me. We are back to sarcoidosis and health on Monday)

It is time to ratchet down the coverage of Michael Jackson.

Do not get me wrong: I am all for following and breaking legitimate news about The King of Pop.

The demand for all things and news Jackson remains insatiable two weeks after his death attributed to sudden cardiac arrest. According to a Reuters report this week, his music tops the pop charts.

Undoubtedly, there will be legitimate news when toxicology reporters are released; cops go after doctors, the on-going saga of settling the estate, the fight for custody of his children, his unreleased music, etc.

All legitimate news. But….

• Photos of his sheet-covered body on a gurney from truck to morgue

• Pics of him with the oxygen mask

• The “new” video of him on fire – old video people, different angle

• The rehashing of old news “Why Michael didn’t want to do the Pepsi ad (in the freaking ’80!)

Come on….Ghoulish.

Watching the news media descend on a big story is often like watching hyenas ripping up a corpse.

The quality of what is passing as stories – especially on cable news networks and these “entertainment-infomercial” shows, including Entertainment Tonight - is abysmal.

No wonder audiences are chucking their newspapers and turning off their TV news programs. There is too much fluff coverage anyway, and now this crap. It almost makes me embarrassed to be a journalist. I can only hope our good work is elevated over much of what is passing as Jackson reportage.

I am also embarrassed for many consumers. The demand for anything Jackson fuels the media feeding frenzy. I just wish we journalists used more discretion going after “stories.”

There are other stories out there. Important stories being ignored because the notebook- and video-camera-totting throng is dwelling in a perpetual state of Neverland.

News media, go find those stories. Audience, give a damn.

Rest in peace, Michael, although it would seem no one wants you to do so.

Inspiration from a memory about a cemetery

When I was a child, my dad took the family to Virginia to meet his peeps and to see the land from where his family hails. My brother Todd and I were probably 11 and 13 at the time.

Dad took us to a slave cemetery outside of Bracey, Virginia, where his aunt and uncle owned a farm. I knew little about American slavery back then but I knew it was exploitation and that the conditions under which slaves labored were brutal.

So I was surprised to see tombstones with ages 75 and older.

My father told me that the slave community considered a fellow slave “blessed” when they hit age 75 and deserving of honors, including a proper burial with head stone.

Slaves did not retire. They worked until they died. Some had chronic diseases, including diseases like sarcoidosis... Some of those slaves lived until their 90s, according to their head stones.

Today, Americans on average live 77.6 years, according to figures from National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The life expectancy of American white males is 76 years compared to 70 years for African-American males.

The life expectancy of American white women is 81 years compared to 76.9 years for American black women.

Humans have lived rich full lives in the face of chronic disease since the dawn of time. I simply intend to be one of them. It is hard work, but working to live is better than doing nothing and waiting to go.

Recovery-wise, my docs and I talk about six months to a year. There is a chance that I might have to continue a maintenance dosage of prednisone, around 10 mgs daily, but I am focused on tapering off to nothing and seeing what it is like.

I was first diagnosed with sarcoidosis in 2005. It was discovered after an x-ray for different problem. There was evidence of sarc in my lungs, but it was dormant back then. Now it rages in my lungs and might affect my heart, too. The treatments, however, are working. I am feeling good, although there are some interesting side effects.

I am hoping to control it again through healthy diet, exercise and supplements. My mom found a homeopathic pharmacist I am going to work with, too. I'm going to look at everything under the sun to lick this thing.

I have read stories about people living with and managing sarcoidosis and other chronic diseases for 25, 30 years, flare-up free. I imagine myself being one of those people. I am trying to live a lifestyle that will help me achieve that goal.

Disease has been around forever and people have lived rich, full lives while dealing with it.

(Note: Thanks, mom, for pointing out the missing pronoun. Even editors need editors...;)

Avoiding the smokes, eating the good grub

Why is it the better I feel the more I want to smoke?

I have been dying for a cigarette for days. It must just be the stress of dealing with this sarcoidosis diagnosis, plus other things I'll get into down the road.

Anyway, I have been dealing with the smoke craving through exercising and creative writing. Hard to smoke when you're power walking two miles a day. Not that goofy-stride walk one sees so many doing, but trudging through mud and sand and up hills to maximize the workout. Hell of a lung workout even for the healthy. And I am not 100 percent. I can feel that. But it feels good to breathe heavy and break a sweat.

I feel alive. And fortunate. Every time I go to get checked out at Northwestern Medical Center, I get low because of my condition and circumstances. But then I run into someone who is in a wheelchair and sucking on oxygen, or someone who weighs 100 pounds more than me and is, desperately trying to lose weight.

I thank God that my condition is what it is. I can bear it and get better. I see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Besides smoking, the next hardest thing to do is control my desire for food. Prednisone has made me ravenous, 24-7. And I want the worst foods possibly: Salty, fatty and sugary foods. And I wanted them all the time, which is why I went from 290 to 321. But I am finally under control, I think and should be just under 300 on Friday! I will weigh myself and let you know.

Passed a major food test last night. My friends piled into a car and went to Popeye's Fried Chicken. Came back with boxes of fried chicken, fries, big-assed colas. I stayed home and made stir-fry chicken and broccoli, light on the oil. No salt. A dab of oil and pepper, garlic power and Mrs. Dash for flavor. The meal was delicious and satisfying. And will not add to the stomach, ass and thigh fat I am trying to lose.

I am good during the week now, diet-wise. I will reward myself with something fatty this weekend, but I'll be mindful of the calories. But I will be eating someone's fried chicken or a Chicago-style hot dog. Tasty and even decedent is part of living, too.