Stacy Horn

I’m still in freak-out mode apparently. I don’t know that it’s entirely my fault really. Jon Stewart keeps saying what I would say and thank God he does, I’m so grateful for him. I love the most recent show, where he talks about our reaction to one case of Ebola and what we say we must do about it, vs all the deaths from guns, heart disease, etc. and how little we’re prepared to do about these genuinely life-threatening problems.

I just read this article about the garbage in our oceans. Every day I read about some horrible thing we’re not doing anything about (save the few people who are desperately trying to change that). Please read this article. Be informed at the very least. It’s well written and fascinating. You won’t be bored. It won’t feel like homework. (Actually a couple of sentences perplexed me and I had to just move on and forget them.)

Here, appropriately enough, is a detail from a picture of a grave in the Trinity Church cemetery. I liked the crude skull. I swear my next post will be about something upbeat!

I seem to be on a death-roll! My previous two posts are death-related. I’m not feeling particularly morbid however, I’m feeling brimming with health as a matter of fact. But the Empire State Building was lit in pink last night for breast cancer awareness and it got me thinking. Heart attacks, lung and pancreatic cancer worry me more.

Here are the leading causes of death in women according to the latest CDC data (2010). They lump all the different cancers into one statistic, but on another page they note that more women get breast cancer vs lung cancer, but more women die from lung cancer vs breast cancer. Colorectal cancer comes in third, and pancreatic cancer is not mentioned.

From Cancer.net, “Pancreatic cancer is the ninth most common cancer in women and the fourth leading cause of cancer death in men and women.”

1) Heart disease 23.5%
2) Cancer 22.1%
3) Stroke 6.2%
4) Chronic lower respiratory diseases 5.9%
5) Alzheimer’s disease 4.7%
6) Unintentional injuries 3.6%
7) Diabetes 2.7%
8) Influenza and pneumonia 2.1%
9) Kidney disease 2.1%
10) Septicemia 1.5%

Here are the stats for England and Wales (from the Office for National Statistics, 2012). I wonder if the larger percentage of deaths due to dementia and Alzheimer’s is because their data is more current?

1) Dementia and Alzheimer’s 11.50%
2) Heart disease 10.30%
3) Stroke 8.40%
4) Flu/pneumonia 5.80%
5) Emphysema/bronchitis 5.50%
6) Lung cancer 5.20%
7) Breast cancer 4%
8) Bowel cancer 2.50%
9) Urinary disease 2.10%
10) Heart failure 2%

Here is the beautiful pink Empire State Building. Not much of a consolation after that dreary post, but it was spectacular.

That is the title of this Times piece about the difference between the male and the female heart attack. Most of us have known for a while that the symptoms are different, but in every article I’ve read the symptoms listed for a woman’s heart attack are so broad they make it sound like you could be having a heart attack almost daily.

With a few choice sentences here and there this piece manages to communicate the times when you need to react. If you’re female, I highly recommend reading it.

A detail from a wall of graffiti I liked in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

I’m participating in a clinical trial at NYU. Their purpose is to identify biomarkers for the early detection of lung cancer. My purpose: the low dose ct scan you get on the 1st visit. Low dose ct scans are recommended for people with a long history of smoking, except they now say if you quit 15 years ago or more you don’t need to get it. I was this close to withdrawing from the study because I quit 25 years ago. But I talked to my doctor, and I was a heavy, heavy, heavy smoker. I’ve decided the radiation exposure is worth the risk. My appointment is this afternoon!

The picture below is of the ceiling inside Grand Central Station. I recently read Mark Helprin’s Winter’s Tale and the main character has a hide out there. Every time I pass through Grand Central Station I look up and search for a possible opening. Much of the history in Winter’s Tale is based in fact and so I’m sure there’s an entrance to that ceiling. (It must be from the catwalk, of course, but I suspect there is an opening in the ceiling.)

A must watch. You will thank me. I now want to re-do my last book proposal after watching this. I love these guys.

[Video removed because the link no longer works.]