Who Knew That Men Could Get Breast Cancer?

Who knew that men can get breast cancer? Actually, I probably have sometime in the foggy past read or heard about men getting breast cancer. But I’ve never knew of any man who had actually been diagnosed with breast cancer, or even suspected they might have breast cancer. Until now.

I might have breast cancer. I first noticed a tenderness in my right breast (I didn’t even know I had a breast) about a month ago, but I didn’t think much about it, maybe I just bumped into the door on my way to one of my many middle-of-the-night pee trips from the bed through the dark to the commode. But last week I not only felt a tenderness in the breast but also a lump under the nipple. Being old, but not too old to be plugged into the Internet, I Googled “Can men get breast cancer?” and found out quite quickly that shit yes we can. And as I read the symptoms – the lump and tenderness, swelling and discoloration of the nipple – I might well have it. So I called my doctor.

I was in my doctor’s office probably twenty minutes today, twelve flipping through old copies of People magazine, two with the doctor, and six with his nurse in several shifts from one to two minutes. But the upshot was straightforward – mammogram day after tomorrow, and appointment with a surgeon next Monday. There’s always the chance of course that whatever tumor might be there is benign, and I would be glad if that’s the case. (Though it would probably have to be cut out nonetheless. Please stick me with a local before carving, thank you.) Fatality will probably not be the result of whatever might be this present problem, cancerous or not. But whatever, it’s still nature’s slight reminder that someday it will be.

Spring

It’s in Spring when the ground thaws and smells sweet with the rot of Fall’s decay, when Winter’s snow’s grime fades, when grass emerges slowly green through rusted preserve, when daffodils and crocus and hyacinth bloom early with promise, when clouds laze across the sky, when cold rain soaks flushed worms squirming onto sidewalks, when male sparrows spar in the early morning for nesting space to entice their hoped-for mates, when squirrels roam in search of their store of seeds and nuts, when rabbits and chip monks browse the as-yet-planted garden to stake out their places at the green buffet, when cats sit on porches and try to recall what they’re supposed to do, when dogs have more to bark at than they have for months, when the sun fools the 50-degree temperature into feeling like 70, when sweatpants and sweatshirts give way to shorts and tee-shirts for the morning walk, when the doors and windows are freed open and the breeze billows the curtains in the bathroom, when gin and tonic replaces rum and coke, when Sauvignon Blanc replaces Zinfandel, when Harley engines growl the morning awake, when the warmth of hope and all-things-possible takes over from the chill of will-this-ever-end, when illusion thankfully replaces reality.

Purple Martin Landlord

Yesterday evening I visited the purple martin colony I’ve volunteered to serve as “landlord” for this summer. I’d originally called to volunteer to tend blue bird boxes, but those jobs were filled, so I signed on to the purple martin landlord job. I really don’t know much about purple martins, but just in the hour of introduction last night, I learned a lot. Martins winter in Brazil and return here in early- to mid-April. There were at least seven males who were flying around us as we checked the nests last night, the males returning a week or two before the females. Apparently martins – or at least eastern purple martins, what we have here – don’t nest in the wild. For hundreds, probably thousands of years, they have relied on humans to provide and maintain their nests, first the Native Americans who grew gourds for food, and hung the dried gourds on poles that the martins found convenient and safe nests, then the European settlers saw the symbiotic relationship between the natives and the martins and continued it. And we’re continuing it still. They like their nests to be on tall (15’-20’) poles, not near trees or buildings (distance from owls and hawks), and over a cleared ground (to spot snakes and raccoons). Curiously they prefer the modern activity of humans – my colony is in front of a motel on a four-lane strip, lined with businesses and a constant stream of traffic – because it further keeps predators away. It’s a convenient liaison between urban humans and migrating fowl.

The birds have no problem with their human hosts. They seem to enjoy it. Interacting is part of what I’m supposed to do as landlord, “talk to them.” For the next couple of weeks, before the females arrive, my main job will be to check into the nests (I have 24 to care for) every several days to clear out the grass and twigs from any sparrow or starling nests that have been started. (There is already a bedding of straw in the plastic gourd nests, placed by the area manager of the colonies.) As birds arrive, I’ll count the adult males and females, and the juvenile males and females. Then I’ll count the eggs as they’re laid – usually four or five a nest. And then monitor the hatching and growing (they hatch a couple of weeks after being laid and grow rapidly, becoming fledglings in about a month). I’ll also have to repair or delouse any damaged or contaminated nests. Sometimes that requires moving chicks to a new nest, but apparently the martins don’t have any problems with humans messing with the nests or chicks – they know that we’re caretakers of the colony. It’s an evolutionary relationship that’s fascinating, and one I’m looking forward to joining.

Decorah Eagle Cam

Since last weekend, I’ve been regularly checking into the “Decorah Eagle Cam,” a live-streaming camera in a bald eagle’s nest near Decorah, Iowa, where three eggs were laid a few weeks ago; one of them hatched last Friday, a second on Saturday, and the third is still hesitating. The site has gone viral, making newscasts and newspapers around the country and viewed online by around 150,000 at any one time. It’s incredibly fascinating, hypnotizing. The parent birds are vigilant, protective, keeping the nest neat and warm, covering the fur-ball chicks in the wind and cold, feeding them, protecting them. The other day, one of the chicks was out from under the mother, who was sitting on the second chick and egg, and the mother was ordering the nest, moving twigs into position, and the chick picked up a piece of brush in its beak, mimicking its mother, looking to her, not sure at the age of four days what to do with it.

But one of the most interesting aspects of the “Decorah Eagle Cam” is the carrion that has become a buffet at the edge of the nest. I first saw a crow and trout. Then a rabbit. Then a muskrat. Today a sucker. The kids have to eat.

Benjamin Franklin objected to the bald eagle being the symbol for the United States on the Great Seal. He preferred the turkey, which he thought was more what the eagle looked like on the seal anyway:

I am on this account not displeased that the Figure is not known as a Bald Eagle, but looks more like a Turkey. For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America . . .

The bald eagle, for Franklin, was a scavenger, a thief, more akin to the vulture than the hawk:

For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him.

Franklin’s concern about the bald eagle as America’s symbol strikes me as particularly prescient in our time, as the United States has for the past at least 60 years – my lifetime – stretched itself out over the globe, pursuing and taking from others, particularly now, as we engage in three wars and have our military deployed in more than 150 countries around the world. We work to order our nest, nurture our young, feeding them, not with trout or muskrat, but with oil, the carrion taken from others with missiles and airstrikes. While the turkey feed contentedly in the stubble of cornfields.

Why I'm Not on Twitter

This is what I would tweet if I tweeted:

NYTimes.com has gone subscription, but still reading everything w/out problem. Maybe cause I’m long-timer?

Pain recently in “good” knee on morning walk. Osteoarthritus. Being (used to be “getting”) old sucks.

To Hy-Vee. Cod, soy sauce, rice vineg, ginger, scallions, cilantro, cuc. Poached cod, rice, cuc salad for dinner.

Finished lunch of cheese and crackers. Crumbs on chair and floor again.

Need to clean garden of last year’s detritus. But it can wait till tomorrow. Or Mon. Advantage, retirement.

I’m reading three books simultaneously, all nonfiction. But I find fiction . . . contrived? by definition?

Broke fingernail opening beer can. Super Glued it.

Cubs win! False hope once more. Season’s young. Plenty of room for disappointment.

Finally doing two weeks of neglected laundry. Three loads. Folding something to do while watching 5:30 news.

Forgot this afternoon’s blood pressure meds again. No auto reminder like coffee for am meds.

9pm and tired, trying to hold out until 10 so I don’t wake up in the middle of night again. Nothing on TV.

9:30pm – guess I’ll go to bed.

Opening Day

For the past I don’t know how many years, I’ve observed the start of the baseball season by watching the first televised game (which traditionally was the Cincinnati Reds game, but since ESPN has taken over the broadcast, it’s that network’s team of preference, the damn Yankees) while eating a bag of salted-in-the-shell peanuts and drinking a beer (or two or three or . . .). I’ve never been an avid baseball fan, rather a casual fan. And “casual” is the perfect word to describe why I like the game – why so many others apparently don’t like the game – the relaxed pace, determined by play and not the threat of the clock, punctuated by occasional excitement, sometimes exhilarating, sometimes exasperating. You can decide how to watch a baseball game, either following intently the decisions and outcomes of each pitch or allowing the game to run as background to conversation, reading, cleaning, or driving (while listening on the radio, perhaps my favorite way of experiencing the sport). When traveling, I try to find a bar to watch whatever local team is playing, getting as near as one probably can to sampling the native culture.

So opening day 2011 is finally here. The peanut shells are on the floor. The empty beer cans are scattered about. All’s well with the world. (Though the Yankees win – damn!)