Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Play Football, Part II

And...here's the rest of the story...

In 2006, the NFL appointed a new Commissioner, Roger Goodell, who, over the course of 24 years, had come up through the NFL ranks.  The chairman of the MTBI was replaced by Dr. Ira Casson, who would go on to be called Dr. No, so named because of his repeated "no" answers to ongoing questions regarding the correlation between concussions and brain trauma.

In 2007, an NFL summit was convened to discuss medical findings relating to concussions.  Dr. Omalu, the scientist who first identified CTE, was not invited.  Dr Julian Bailes, a former Steeler's team doctor and new believer in Omalu's research, offered to present Omalu's findings.

By this time there were two more cases of CTE to present: Andre Waters and Justin Strzelczyk. After Bailes' presentation, Casson stated that "anecdotes do not make scientifically valid evidence."

Discouraged, Omalu left Pittsburgh and moved to California.  About the same time, Dr. Ann McKee, a leading Alzheimer's researcher,was asked to join a team to further Omalu's study at Boston University.  And, a new player in the game (of research), Chris Norinski, took on the role of the Brain Chaser.  Having played college football and later as a professional wrestler, Norinski came to believe that repeated blows to his head had given him CTE.  His first clue?  A headache that lasted five years.

With Norinski's help, Boston U began receiving more and more brains of former football players to study.  All showed CTE.

In 2009, journalist Alan Schwarz received - from an NFL source - information about a study the NFL conducted with its players.  It showed that dementia and memory disorders occurred  at a higher rate than the regular community.  When Schwarz published an article about the findings, the NFL denied its own study, saying the design was flawed.

Eventually, Congress got involved, convening a series of hearings to assess the situation.  Roger Goodell, the NFL commissioner, could not (would not) adequately answer questions put to him; one Senator likened the NFL to Big Tobacco. 

Finally, decades after the discovery of CTE, and realizing the potentially catastrophic results of being of being lumped into the pile as the tobacco industry, the NFL took some action.  They revised their policy on head injuries:  a concussion is now a game ending injury.

Not a career ending injury.  You just couldn't go back in the game once your bell had been rung.

They also gave a million dollars to Boston University and designated BU as the preferred brain bank for CTE study.

By now, 20 brains of former NFL players had been analyzed.  Nineteen were positive for CTE.

It only gets worse.

Owen Thomas, a 21-year old college student and football player, committed suicide.  He had never been diagnosed with a concussion.  Dr. McKee began to realize that sub-concussive hits can also lead to CTE.  Even if a player is never diagnosed with a concussion, CTE can develop.

Eighteen year-old Eric Pelly, died ten days after being diagnosed with his fourth concussion. McKee was expecting to find Pelly's brain in a pristine condition, due to his youth.  Instead, she found the beginning signs of CTE.

Because brains in younger people are lighter, when the head is hit, there's more inertia so the brain hits the skull with greater force.  Researchers now say that no one under the age of fourteen should be playing tackle football.

Dr. McKee and her colleagues continued their study.  Of the 46 brains they examined, 45 were CTE positive.  McKee wonders if EVERY SINGLE NFL PLAYER HAS CTE.

In 2012, Junior Seau committed suicide in California.  Omalu asked Seau's son for permission to examine his father's brain.  As Omalu was harvesting the brain, the NFL stepped in to stop him from proceeding.  The NFL had contacted Seau's son and accused Dr. Omalu of 'practicing bad medicine. Seau's son had changed his mind.

The brain went,instead, to the National Institute of Health, not the preferred brain bank at Boston University.  Perhaps the NFL was growing weary of learning that (nearly) every former football player BU examined had CTE.   Perhaps they were hoping for a different result.

 Seau's brain was full of the tau protein that indicates the presence of CTE. A result of his 1,849 career tackles.

As late as 2013, Commissioner Goodell was still deflecting questions that link football head injuries  to CTE.  "It is unclear."

That same year, 4.500 retired football players filed a lawsuit, stating that the NFL had fraudulently concealed the risks associated with playing football.  In the lawsuit the players asked for two billion dollars.  The NFL and the players settled out of court for $765 million; the NFL admitted no liability or weakness.

Which allows them to keep denying and hiding the truth.

The NFL has made its name by marketing the violence of the sport.  There is more violence per square foot on a football field than any other sport.  The biggest cheers are, of course, for touchdowns.  The second biggest cheers are for the most brutal hits.  It has a certain Roman empire/gladiator/kill for sport ring to it.

"Everyone now has a better sense of what damage you can get from playing football.  And I think the NFL has given everybody 765 million reasons why you don't want to play football."
            - Harry Carson, New York Giants linebacker, 1976-1988

Barbaric.  Dangerous.  Deathly.

Is it worth it?

P.S.  Will Smith's new movie "Concussion" is about Dr. Bennet's fight to expose CTE.

Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Play Football

As I write, the city is abuzz with all things red and gold.  Everyone's hoping for another Big Game win and a chance to converge on downtown to support their Chiefs.

Me?  Not so much.  Every time I see a promo for a football game I get a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach?  Why?  I'm glad you asked.

Last week I watched a PBS Frontline documentary, "League of Denial: The NFL's Concussion Crisis."  It was full of helmet crunching footage, sad, sad stories of retired football players, decades of denials from the NFL and a grim prognosis for all football players and the sport itself.

In 2002, Pittsburgh Steeler player Mike Webster died, eleven years after he left professional football. He was fifty years old.  Dr. Bennet Omalu, the neuropathologist who performed the autopsy, said that if he hadn't know how old Mike was, he would have guessed he was in his seventies.

Pictures of his legs during the autopsy were horrifying.  For lack of a better description, they looked like Cabbage Patch doll legs...puffy, bloated and certainly not normal.  Mike's forehead was permanently affixed to his skull, the result of scar tissue built up due to the numerous concussions he sustained during his 17 years in the pros.  Towards the end of his life, Mike was unable to focus, had trouble finding the right words, experienced fits of rage and exhibited other signs of dementia.  Eventually, he ended up living in his car.

In 1997, believing his deteriorating condition was a result of his years in the NFL, Webster filed a lawsuit against the League's retirement players board.  His lawyer sent Webster's medical records to four different doctors for review.  They all concluded that Webster had sustained traumatic brain damage as a result of his 17 years in the NFL.  The NFL had his medical records evaluated by another doctor, Dr. Ed Westbrook, who concurred with the other findings.

The NFL had no choice but to acknowledge that Webster's condition was a result of the beatings he took during his professional career and agreed to pay him a monthly disability stipend.

The NFL did not make the information public.  For decades.

In the mid-90's, the NFL established the Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee (MTBI), headed by a rheumatologist(!).  Half of the doctors on the board are NFL team doctors.  Over the next fifteen years, the Committee would conduct "research" that would state that there was no relation between hitting your head and later health problems.

After Webster's death in 2002, a close examination of his brain led to a dark discovery.  Dr. Omalu, after sectioning and staining tissue from Mike's brain, discovered the presence of tau protein in areas of the brain not generally associated with dementia or Alzheimer's.  The presence of tau protein destroys the integrity of surrounding brain cells.

Omalu classified the condition as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).  He published his findings in the journal Neurosurgery. The MTBI attacked Omalu's article, claiming that there was no evidence that Webster's brain was abnormal.

In 2005, another Steeler's player, Terry Long, died after drinking anti-freeze.  Omalu examined Long's brain and found the same tau proteins.  The MTBI again refused to acknowledge Omalu's findings, accusing him of "practicing voodoo."

Omalu was summoned to speak with an NFL doctor.  During the course of their discussion, Omalu was asked several times, "Do you know the implications of what you're doing?" several times.  Finally, Omalu says, "Why don't you just tell me."

"If ten percent of mothers in this country would begin to perceive that football was a dangerous sport, that is the end of football."

As a mother, I am incensed to think that an organization as large as the NFL would dare to put their billions of dollars in assets and profits before the health and well-being of a child.  Their lack of response and blatant denial of concussion repercussions is heinous.

Part ll to follow...

Beware the Nit Pickers

This is the email I just sent to Apria Healthcare... 

I just spent an hour and a half on the phone with five different representatives trying to get to the bottom of a billing issue, which even now I'm not sure has been properly resolved. 

It started with a phone call from a collection agency for a bill of $14.94.  "Wait a minute," I thought. "I paid that."

So I called the fine folks at the Apria "help" center. 

This was the fourth or fifth attempt my husband and I have tried to get this straightened out over the last five months.  I can't begin to calculate the number of hours we have spent trying to resolve an issue that's less than $15.  We have been Apria clients for well over ten years.  While the products we've purchased and used have been great, the customer service is, without doubt, the worst we have ever encountered.

At the end of the last conversation I had with an Apria representative (probably in November), I asked them to send me a bill for $14.94 and I would gladly pay it.  Which they did and I did.  I thought the matter was over.  After all, I hadn't received another bill from them.  How was I to know it would end up in the Nit Pick Department? (More on that later).  

Today I spoke to five representatives.  Each one told me a different story.

The first person told me I had an account overage of $14.94. 

The second one (Janet) said my money was tied up in the Nit Pick Department.  The what department?  THE most unprofessional term I've heard in a long time.  She couldn't tell me why it was in the Nit Pick Department, but said she couldn't do a thing until it was finished in the Nit Pick Department.  When I told her I was looking at the cancelled check (on my computer screen) I'd sent last month she wanted me to send me a copy of it to her.  Clearly, Apria had received it because, again, I was looking at the cancelled check. In my opinion, it's not my fault that the check was lost (or tied up in limbo in the Nit Pick Department - again, really?); therefore, I should not have to prove that the invoice was paid.  Also, if my money is in the Nit Pick Department being haggled over, or whatever it is they do in the Nit Pick Department, why was it turned over to collection?  It's there, in the Nit Pick Department.  Quit nit picking and use the money to settle my account.

The third person (a supervisor named Taylor) bore the brunt of my frustration.  She tried to back peddle the whole Nit Pick Department thing.  In my mind I was thinking, "I could bring down the whole company by letting the world know there's such a thing as a Nit Pick Department at Apria."  But then I decided I'd wasted enough time on you guys. (OK, I lied.)

Taylor finally - after at least a half hour of not being able to answer my concerns in a satisfying manner - offered to write off the balance.  She also told me that our insurance company hadn't paid our last claim at 100%, which I told her was strange, given the fact that they had been doing since April, when we met our out-of-pocket deductible.  

I told her I'd check on our insurance website.  Sure enough, the information on the website indicates that they paid the claim in full.

So...I guess I'm a glutton for punishment.  I called Apria back and - silly me - asked to speak to Taylor.  Oh, that's not possible, I was told.  I'm guessing Taylor wasn't even in the same building/state/country.  I told the representative that our insurance is on record for paying the claim in full.  She said they only received a portion of it.  Dear God in heaven!  Did it end up in the Nit Pick Department again?

As I was navigating through the insurance website I noticed that for three months in a row (probably longer) our insurance had been billed for fairly large amounts.  I asked the representative what those charges were for and she couldn't tell me.  That was the fourth person.

The last person I talked to was able to answer my questions and said she saw the check for $14.94 and that she'd credit my account and everything would be at zero.  I didn't have the strength to tell her that Taylor had already credited our account.  We'll just leave that up to the Nit Pickers.

The one good thing that came out of this is that I learned that we officially own my husband's CPAP machine, so we will NEVER EVER have to use the services of Apria Health Care again.

And, if it ends up that we actually have a credit...give it to the Nit Pick Department.

Myrtle Mae

I can't quite put my finger on the exact year I first met Marilyn.  My dad was serving as pastor for the Christian Church in Bosworth, MO and Marilyn's parents lived right across the street from the church.  And they had an indoor bathroom; the church still had an outhouse.  I was probably six or seven when our family first met Marilyn and her kids, Lisa and Bryan.  They lived in Jefferson City, but visited Grammy and Papa often, so we'd see them at church and we became good friends.

During the summer, I'd spend a week or so in Bosworth with Lisa, Bryan, Marilyn, Grammy and PaPa.  Grammy would fix us pancakes and let us drink Pepsi-Cola for breakfast.  Then Lisa and I would saunter on up to the pool hall to drink some more Pepsi-Cola and watch the old men play pool.  It was not unlike "To Kill A Mockingbird" except that there was no Boo Radley.

One of my most vivid memories is of Lisa and I and another girl (whose name I obviously can't recall) happily washing off the day's dirt in the bathtub (remember, we were itty bitty then and could fit three in a tub).  All of the sudden, there was pounding on the bathroom window...lots of it.  Never have you seen three little naked girls hop out of the tub and run through the house, dripping wet.  Marilyn, of course, was the culprit.  She found it hilariously funny.  So do I, fifty years later.

We moved from Marshall to Jeff City in the early 70's and our friendship grew even stronger.  We went to the same church and, oftentimes, our families seamlessly melded into one big, loud bunch.  During my dad's career in politics, Marilyn was a driving force, running us kids to various campaign events, making sure we had our red, white, and blue shirts and foam boater hats in place.  She was tireless.  She later worked for dad in the treasurer's office and I spent many a weekend at the Parrish home on Indian Meadow Drive, when mom and dad were away for a political event.

Everyone called Marilyn by her first name...kids, too.  However, my parents were old school.  It wasn't cool to call an elder by their first name.  So we came up with Myrtle (or Myrtle Mae).  Eventually I got old enough to call her Marilyn, but occasionally I'd slip up and call her Myrtle.

The Parrish house was THE house to congregate.  Every kid on the block seemed to gravitate to Marilyn.  She was funny, energetic and always up for anything.  She was the Cool Mom.  On more than one occasion she allowed me, Lisa, Bryan and my brother to skip church so we could watch an old black and white Marx Brothers or Abbott and Costello movie on Saturday night or Sunday morning.  It was important to laugh, she'd say.

I have so many wonderful memories of Marilyn.  One of the best (and, now, funniest) is the day all of us kids were loaded into her car and she's driving us in downtown JC.  All of the sudden she slammed on the brakes and yelled, "There's Squeaky!  Look!"  And right then I got my first (and, I think, only) look at a "lady of the evening."  How many other moms do you know that would do that?

That's what was so great about Marilyn.  There was no class structure in her world.  Everyone was equal and everyone had a story to tell.  Maybe it was because she lost her husband so early (1967) that she determined to get the most out of life.  She had plenty of obstacles, but chose to see the good side of humanity and used those challenges to grow as a person.

And, she was about as loyal a person as I've ever seen.  She was the first person I'd ever heard describe themself as "a yellow dog Democrat" - meaning she'd vote for a yellow dog before she'd vote for a Republican.  She spent the majority of her adult career working in the Missouri capitol.  She knew EVERYONE.  And everyone knew her.  She had a smile that lit up the room and a laugh to match it.  Anyone who's heard that laugh is smiling right now.

When I heard Ron answer the phone on Saturday and say, "Hey, Lisa" followed by, "No, no," I knew that Marilyn was gone.  It's still hard for me to believe that she's not still here.  We just got a Christmas card from her and my folks just talked to her a week ago.

Marilyn lived her life on her terms.  She was fiercely independent and, some might say, stubborn as a mule.  Does that surprise you?  All Democrats are mules.

Marilyn - my second mom - I love you.  I miss you.  I remember you.

With love...

Nutso Techno

There are times when I am absolutely fascinated by technology.  And there are times when I'm terrified of it.  Let me give you some examples.

There's this little cider mill a couple of miles from my parents' home.  Open only for a few months during the fall, this quaint operation has been dishing out hot, cinnamon-y donuts for quite a few years.  They sell other stuff, but let's face it...it's the donuts that people stand in line for.  While you're waiting - if you're lucky enough to be with another person to hold your place in line - you can wander over to this little window and watch the donuts being made.

Some nice, older woman spoons the batter into a hopper and - through an amazing feat of technology - two perfect donuts are plopped into super hot grease about every two seconds.  They float along for maybe fifteen seconds and then - another amazing feat of technology - they get flipped over and drift happily for another fifteen seconds.  The result?  A perfectly golden sphere of deliciousness.

I could watch it for hours and hours.  Not kidding.  After a few hours I'd be Zen perfect.

Not long ago I watched an intriguing show about the "real" King Tut.  How can they call it the "real" King Tut.  Why, because of technology, of course.

They used super elaborate methods and equipment to test the death mask (the famous one with all that gold) and determined that the front piece and back piece were not one solid piece, but two, joined together by ancient duct tape.  Not really. I think they used rivets.  Whatever.

I have a degree in history (I might have mentioned that before).  I should be interested in this kind of stuff.  And I am, up to a point.  But when they're spending lots and lots of money and high falutin' microscopes and other equipment I can't remember, I have to ask myself:

Shouldn't this time and money be spent on something else?  Like curing cancer?  I know too many people battling all types of cancer.  Bad, nasty, life-ending stuff.  King Tut is dead.  And has been for a really long time.  These people need answers.  Yesterday.  We know enough about King Tut.  (I beg forgiveness for any Egypytologists reading this).

So...I was excited to see advertisements for the new series, "Breakthrough."  Six well-known directors taking aim at some of our world's leading breakthroughs in science. I was intrigued.

The first one scared the crap out of me.  It was about Ebola and the awful, painful death that is almost always inevitable.  And how catastrophic it has been - and can be - in a pandemic situation.  In a matter of weeks.

All I can say, after watching that first episode, is that there are a lot of SUPER brilliant minds out there and we should be thanking God that they are alive and using their brains to help develop a cost-effective treatment and strategy for eradicating this scary disease.

Then... Paris happened.  And San Bernardino.  And you realize that it doesn't take a disease to claim lives.  It takes a mind that has ceased to be rational.

And technology.

I often wonder what we'd do without the World Wide Web.

I really think we'd be safer.  And more ignorant.

Which is worse?

Let's Get Real

I think we're losing our grip on reality.  Reality TV, that is.

I remember when the trend started moving towards this genre of entertainment (if you can call it that).  Some network executive realized that paying TV stars a million bucks an episode wasn't cost effective and opted instead for an option that was heavy on drama/shock and light on talent.

Enter "The Real World," "The Osbornes," "Survivor" and on and on and on.

I liked "The Real World."  I liked "The Osbornes."  And even to this day I watch "Survivor" and "Amazing Race" and a handful of other reality shows.

Here's the deal.  Some of them have become more surreal than real.  They've been scripted and edited to death.  Loved the first season of "Duck Dynasty."  Uncle Si was too good to be true.  You can't script that kind of humor.  But slowly and surely, the themes seemed to be contrived, even rehearsed.  Sad, really, because they are an interesting bunch of people.  They don't need outside intervention to make them appealing.

One of our favorites is "Alaska, The Last Frontier."  It's about the homesteading Kilcher family.  Four generations have worked the land, raised cattle, planted vegetables, bred chickens, kept bees and borne kids.  While I sense a bit of scripting, for the most part it's just a peek into what it takes to live off the land in one of the most beautiful places on earth.

Another one we watch is "Life Below Thirty," another series set in Alaska.  Incidentally, there are quite a few shows about Alaska...it's like it was just discovered or something.  People.  It's as old as I am.  Well, maybe a little longer.  Been around for awhile.

Anyway, back to the tundra.  These folks live in frigidly cold places and are forever talking about the pickles they'd be in if they fell through the ice or couldn't make a fire.  I'm like, "Yeah, but there's a camera crew right next to you."  Pretty sure if someone fell through the ice, there'd be at least one or two hands to haul them out.  Or hand them a lighter or one of those fire starter logs.

Here's my biggest astonishment...Drugs, Inc. I'm not sure this technically qualifies as a reality show, but it's real.  Or is it?  Ron likes to watch this on occasion so I acquiesce because he watches a lot of Food Network with me.  What I do not understand is this.  They are showing people making meth, cutting cocaine, making heroine balls...all highly illegal things.  Are the producers not responsible for alerting the authorities to this stuff?

They film cops and DEA agents conducting raids - usually resulting in nothing.  Shouldn't those cameramen be saying, "Hey, I think I might know where you could find some real thugs and massive amounts of drugs.  Follow me."

Same thing with Moonshiners.  The drug folks cover up their faces with all manner of scary masks.  The moonshiners?  They don't give a rip.  They're mighty proud of their stills and hiding places and they don't mind showing their faces on TV.  The law enforcement guys have a heckuva time finding stills hidden deep in the woods.  Again...cameramen, producers?  Do you not have a moral responsibility to help apprehend these criminals?

I don't get it.

Maybe it's just me.  But I'm thinking the REAL in reality TV has gone 'round the bend, never to be seen again.

Oh well.  Move on.  Surely there's something in the works that will prove to be even more fantastic than anything we could ever dream of!

Can't wait.

Don't Change the Chanel

My favorite new show this fall is "Scream Queens."  I am, strictly speaking, not a fan of horror movies.  Unless it involves the hi jinks of Abbott & Costello.  Or the Bowery Boys.  (I am seriously dating myself here...I feel compelled to clarify that I saw those movies on TV, not when they originally premiered on the big screen.)

I was only able to watch one season of "American Horror Story" and a couple of seasons of "True Blood."  Too much mayhem and blood and creepy stuff for me.  So when Kate and Tyler told me that I HAD to watch "Scream Queens," I acquiesced (caved) and said I'd watch one episode, just to get them off my back.

Oh.my.gosh.  It is so inappropriately funny I can't stand it.  I cannot believe some of the phrases that are allowed to be uttered on prime time television.  It's "Mean Girls" + "Clueless" + "Glee" + "American Horror" + "Porky's" + "Animal House."  It all adds up to a highly campy, over-the-top murder mystery, with never-ending plot twists and turns and extremely clever/cutting dialogue.

Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, who are the geniuses behind "Glee," "American Horror," and "Nip Tuck," have taken elements of their past triumphs and blended them into a crazy hour of smack downs, faux fur fashion shows, oddball and stereotyped characters/  It's magic in HD.  Another show (a la "Glee") during which no societal group is spared, lampooning left, right and center.

And can we talk about cultural relevance?  Quite regularly, the writers reference on-trend topics that are HILARIOUS.  On the episode, "Chaneloween," I immediately knew what they were parodying; my kids didn't.  How hip am I?  I will be reminding them of that moment for years to come.  Or until I forget that it happened.

I think one of the reasons I find it so funny is because it is SO over the top.  Dialed down a notch or two it would be tasteless and one or two toes over the line as offensive.  There are quite a few sexual innuendos, but they're done in such an unabashed, unapologetic way that's you can't help but laugh.

It doesn't hurt that Jamie Lee Curtis is one of the leads in the show.  She's a "Scream Queen" in her own right and she's great.  Emma Roberts is perfect as Chanel, and her minions, Chanel #s One, Two, Three, Four, Five and Six include Abigail Breslin and Lea Michele and Ariana Grande.  Add in an always funny Niecy Nash and Nick Jonas and it's a surprisingly well blended cast.

My favorite character, however, is Chad Radwell (Glen Powell).  He's a member of the Dickie Dollar Scholars fraternity and he is a swell compilation of several fraternity boys I knew in college.  Prepped out to the max, fabulously rich and completely ego-centric.  I can't wait to hear what's going to come out of his mouth, once he's removed his permanently placed silver spoon.

Yes.  It's mindless TV.  But I don't care.  Plus, how am I ever going to find out who the Red Devil Killer is if I don't keep watching?