November 22, 2011
From what I understand, prostate cancer is different from most other cancers in that the exact location of the tumor(s) is not known. Apparently, x-rays, CT scans and MRIs are unable to identify prostate cancer cells inside the prostate. Biopsies of tissue core samples extracted from the prostate are needed to determine whether cancer is present or not in the samples. Biopsies do not determine the locations and extent of all the tumors in the prostate. As a result, treatments have tended to treat the entire gland by either removing it entirely or radiating the whole thing to make sure they get it all. The only sure way to determine the exact extent of the cancer is to biopsy the whole thing but that requires removing it from the body first. Someday, there may be some alternatives.
At least two teams of scientists, one in Belgium, the other at UCLA, are working on systems that use computer software to combine data from MRI scans and ultrasounds to map the locations of cancer inside the prostate gland.
The UCLA research team fuses data from a real-time 3-dimensional ultrasound with MRI data during a biopsy to reasonably accurately determine the location and size of prostate cancer tumors within the prostate and, thus, identify the best places to take core samples. It is expected that this technique will be especially beneficial for patients of advanced age with small tumors that will not grow fast enough to ever be life threatening. It is also expected to be useful for patients such as myself who have had high PSAs and a previous negative biopsy.
A Belgian company has developed a product called HistoScanning that couples ultrasound with “advanced tissue characterization algorithms to visualize the position and extent of tissue suspected of being malignant in the prostate gland.” According to the manufacturer, “Prostate HistoScanning™ offers the simplicity of ultrasound and results that are comparable to MRI in a format that can be made available to all patients in the physician’s office.”
Of course, it will be some time before either of these options become available for use in the U. S.
Tags: AMD, Belgium, HistoScanning, MRI, UCLA, Ultrasound
Posted in Prostate Cancer | 2 Comments »
November 17, 2011
Carlisle received the opening kick off and moved the ball quickly to Harvard’s end of the field but were unable to push the ball across the goal line. They turned the ball over on downs at the Harvard 2-yard line. On their second possession, the Indians bogged down well into Harvard territory and Jim Thorpe kicked a field goal from the 15-yard line to open scoring for the game. Harvard soon countered when Hollister drop-kicked a field goal of his own to tie the score. There was no further scoring in the first quarter. In the second quarter, Carlisle rushed the ball to Harvard’s 40-yard line but could get no further on this drive. Thorpe then kicked his second field goal of the game from 47 yards out. Unfortunately for the Indians, they would later fumble the ball and a Harvard player, Hollister, recovered it on the 50-yard line. On the next play, Reynolds broke through the Indians’ line and, after the Indians thought he was down, popped to his feet and ran for a Harvard touchdown and 9-6 lead at halftime. Note that touchdowns were worth 5 points and the goal after 1 point while field goals counted 3 points at that time.
After a series of line plunges late in the third quarter, Alex Arcasa pushed the ball over for Carlisle’s only touchdown of the day. Thorpe kicked the point after. Thorpe also kicked another field goal to close out scoring for that quarter. Harvard put in its fresh first team for the fourth quarter and made good yardage at first, but the Indian line eventually held. Thorpe kicked his fourth field goal of the day to complete Carlisle’s scoring. Harvard would get its second touchdown for the day when Storer blocked Thorpe’s punt from the 36-yard line, recovered the ball, and ran it in for a touchdown. Fisher completed the scoring for the day at 18-15 by kicking the point after touchdown. Carlisle almost had a touchdown of their own in a similar fashion but, instead of falling on the ball, several players attempted to pick it up and run with it. A Harvard player eventually fell on the ball behind his goal line for a touchback.
Possum Powell excelled at line plunging throughout the day while Gus Welch, Arcasa and the badly injured Thorpe ran around the ends. The Carlisle line, without Captain Sam Bird for the whole game and Bill Newashe for most of it, outplayed the Crimson line making the backs’ gains possible.
This game has been rated as one of the greatest college football games of all times by experts.
Tags: 1911 Carlisle vs Harvard
Posted in Alex Arcasa, Carlisle Indian School, Football, George Vedernack, Gus Welch, Hugh Wheelock, Jim Thorpe, Stancil Powell, William Newashe | 2 Comments »
November 15, 2011
Current events interrupt the scheduled blog for today. The Big Ten Conference announced that they are removing Joe Paterno’s name from the conference championship trophy. I haven’t made my mind up regarding Paterno’s involvement, if any, in Penn State’s cover up of the crimes committed on its premises to young boys, but I do see the folly in bestowing honors on coaches still in the midst of their careers. If the evidence eventually exonerates Paterno, will the Big Ten return his name to the trophy? What will Penn State do about the statue of Joe Paterno that stands in front of Beaver Stadium.? Penn State would not have to make a decision regarding the statue if they had waited to put up a monument dedicated to him.
A few years ago, the National Football Foundation (NFF) interrupted the counting of votes on ballots submitted by voting members of the NFF to determine which coaches would be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame to select two coaches for induction who were not on the ballot because they were not eligible for induction because of the rules in place at that time. The NFF quickly changed the rules in a tortured way to make Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno eligible, disregarded the ballots that had been cast, and selected Bowden and Paterno for the upcoming induction. That might have been Lone Star Dietz’s chance to be inducted but we will never know that because all the votes for him and the other candidates on the ballot were ignored.
Because of their premature action, the NFF now has to decide to strip Paterno of their honor as has the Big Ten Conference or to let him remain in the hall in spite of what happened while he was actively coaching. If the NFF had simply followed their own rules, the NFF would not have a decision to make.
Tags: Amos Alonzo Stagg, Big Ten Conference, Bobby Bowden, College Football Hall of Fame, Joe Paterno, National Football Foundation, nff, Stagg-Paterno Trophy
Posted in Football, Lone Star Dietz | Leave a Comment »
November 12, 2011
100 years ago on November 11, 1911, Carlisle achieved perhaps its greatest victory when the Indians defeated the Harvard Crimson 18-15 at Cambridge. This game is also considered to be Jim Thorpe’s greatest and one of the best games ever played in the annals of football.
Newspaper articles in the days leading up to the game, reported that Harvard Coach Percy Haughton planned to start his second team to wear down the Indians, who were known to make few substitutions, and put his first team in later in the game to finish off the exhausted Indians. So confidant in his strategy was Haughton that he didn’t bother attending the game. Instead, he spent the day in New Haven, CT scouting Yale for the upcoming rivalry game. Warner was confident about his team’s chances even though he said Captain Sampson Bird and tackle Bill Newashe would probably be unable to play because of injuries but he said nothing about Jim Thorpe’s leg and ankle.
Prior to the game, Warner bandaged his star tailback’s leg and swollen right ankle so that he could play, even if he couldn’t run at full speed and cut to escape would-be tacklers. Warner kept Thorpe’s condition a secret as part of his game strategy. Knowing that Harvard would be keying on his All America halfback, Warner used him mostly as a decoy who blocked for the person who was actually carrying the ball. A well-run single-wing offense, with all its fakes, makes it difficult to determine who has the ball. Guessing that Thorpe had it wasn’t a winning strategy for Harvard’s defense that day. Newashe was able to start but couldn’t finish the game as Hugh Wheelock substituted for him later in the game. Thorpe was eventually replaced by Eloy Sousa but not until his damage was done.
<continued>
Tags: 1911 harvard Carlisle game, Eloy Sousa, Percy Haughton
Posted in Carlisle Indian School, Football, Hugh Wheelock, Pop Warner, Sampson Bird, William Newashe | Leave a Comment »
October 29, 2011
This week I succeeded, after considerable struggle, to create ebooks for Prostate Cancer and the Veteran. Now, people who have a Kindle or a Nook or another device, including a PC with ebook software, have this book available to them—and at a lower cost than the print version. I won’t go into the gory details of converting a print book to an ebook but converting to the Kindle was easier than converting to the Nook (ePub format). I won’t bother with other formats unless there is demand for them. Also, I understand that some devices have software that allows them to read books in Kindle or Nook format.
Writing this short book and creating print and ebook versions along with receiving requests for information on various Carlisle players has caused me to think about making little books on individual players or families of brothers who played. Each book would contain the three introductory chapters that provide background on the Carlisle program, the team and Pop Warner. That would be followed by a chapter or chapters on the player or players being covered in the book. Ebooks could also be created when requested.
I don’t plan on charging off on a project to create any individual player books but will seriously consider it if enough people request them. So, if you’re interested in a single player or family of players, let me know. Otherwise, I won’t know that there is anyone out there interested in a book on a specific player. I could also create books based on a specific relationship. Two that come to mind are Carlisle Indians in the NFL and the Carlisle Indian School – Washington State College Connection.
As I said before, if there are no requests, I must assume that there is no interest.
Tags: eBook, Kindle, Nook
Posted in Carlisle Indian School, Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs, Football, Pop Warner, Publishing | Leave a Comment »
October 25, 2011
My proton therapy treatment for prostate cancer was completed two months ago today. So far, so good. Last Thursday, I spoke at the annual training meeting of the New Jersey Association of Veteran Service officers in Atlantic City. It was a great meeting. I was received well by the VSOs in attendance and learned much from other speakers. I was pleasantly surprised by the interest the VSOs showed in helping the vets they serve. VSOs are generally government workers who are employees of the counties in which their offices are located. Government workers can sometimes be less than interested in helping the public. Not so with the VSOs I met. Most of the men and women I met at the meeting were veterans. That surely influences how they relate to vets seeking assistance. Some of the VSOs were also disabled. If memory serves, three of them used motorized chairs to get around and another one used a manual wheelchair.
My talk was fit in at the end of a packed schedule. Even though they were attending a banquet a little later that day, most stayed for my talk and listened attentively. Some asked good questions and afterwards some informed me of benefits that aren’t widely known. For example, a 100% rating is not always the maximum. Under certain conditions, disabled vets can be awarded considerably more than 100%. I doubt if I am eligible for Special Monthly Compensation (SMC), but the old sergeant I served with may be because he has a number of serious medical conditions, more than one of which is an Agent Orange disease.
Several people took copies of Prostate Cancer and the Veteran home with them because it contains some information that is new to them. Of course, they already knew all about dealing with the VA.
Tags: Proton Therapy, Veteran Service Officer
Posted in Prostate Cancer | Leave a Comment »
October 16, 2011
Several details regarding Carlisle’s dominance over the Big Ten teams they played need to be addressed. First off is when the games were played. The first of these games was played in 1896 and the last in 1909. 1908 is the last year for a post-season road trip as the Penn State games were regular season games played against an in-state team that wasn’t their equal. 1907 was the only one of the seasons in which these games were played that Carlisle had a one-loss season. None were played in Carlisle’s 1911-13 glory days. Warner complained that the bigger teams stopped scheduling games with Carlisle after they became strong. It appears that he was accurate in the case of Big Ten teams.
Eight of these games, a slight minority, were played when Warner wasn’t coaching Carlisle. He did coach the Indians against Chicago in 1907, Minnesota in 1907 and 1908, Northwestern in 1903, Nebraska in 1908 and Penn State in 1907-1909. Penn State was improving at the time but hadn’t reached the level of Carlisle’s major opponents. Pop Warner considered the victory over Amos Alonzo Stagg’s 1907 Chicago team to be one of his greatest because Stagg thought he had his strongest team to date that year. 1907 was the first year in which Carlisle was defeated but one time. It was also the first year the Indians defeated Harvard, one of the Big Three. The only loss was to another of the Big Three, Princeton. It was also the first year that Carlisle beat two of the Big Four, Penn and Harvard.
1908 marked the end of Carlisle’s post-season trips to play Big Ten teams. That year the Indians defeated Nebraska in the teams’ only meeting 37-6 and they lost to Minnesota 11-6, in their last meeting with the Gophers. Newspaper accounts alluded to something happening in the game to sour the two schools against playing each other, but I haven’t uncovered the details yet.
Tags: Chicago, Harvard, Minnesota, Nebraska, Princeton, Stagg
Posted in Carlisle Indian School, Football, Pop Warner | 2 Comments »
October 12, 2011
This year Nebraska joins the Big Ten bringing the number of schools in the Big Ten up to twelve and leaving the Big 12 with only 10. It came to mind that the Carlisle Indians once played Nebraska in 1908 because a history professor at Nebraska is using “Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs” as a textbook. Other than Penn State, these games were usually post-season road trips played against the Champions of the West or strong contenders for that title. That the Indians went 13-3-1 in road games against these much larger schools. This is more evidence that shows Carlisle’s record needs no embellishment.
| School |
Times
Played |
Wins |
Losses |
Ties |
Years |
| Chicago |
1 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1907* |
| Illinois |
2 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
1897, 1898 |
| Michigan |
1 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1901*+ |
| Minnesota |
3 |
2 |
1 |
0 |
1906*, 1907, 1908 |
| Nebraska |
1 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1908 |
| Northwestern |
1 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1903* |
| Ohio State |
1 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1904 |
| Penn State |
6 |
4 |
1 |
1 |
1896, 1905-1909 |
| Wisconsin |
1 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1896* |
| Total |
17 |
13 |
3 |
1 |
|
Notes.
1. * denotes Big Ten champions or co-champions.
2. + denotes national champions.
Tags: Big 12, Big Ten, Chicago, Nebraska, Penn State
Posted in Carlisle Indian School, Football | Leave a Comment »
October 7, 2011
Early in the summer, I announced that posts to this blog would be irregular for a time without stating a reason for the disruption. The reason for my absence was that I was spending the summer in Bloomington, Indiana receiving treatments for prostate cancer at the Indiana University Health Proton Center. Choosing a treatment modality, proton therapy, that is not widely known was the result of extensive research. The research uncovered some things that were completely unexpected. The one that had the greatest impact was that I was probably exposed to Agent Orange while serving in Vietnam in 1967. Those who served in Vietnam during the time that Agent Orange was sprayed are eligible for disabilities and treatment from the Veterans Administration. Unfortunately, the government does not put the same emphasis on informing veterans who were harmed while serving their country that it does soliciting “clients” for its welfare programs.
Knowing that I was far from being an isolated case, I decided to write a small book that veterans can use to help them navigate the VA and healthcare systems. My treatment for prostate cancer is complete and, after only seven months since first applying, my VA disability was approved. Prostate Cancer and the Veteran should make their process a bit easier than mine was.
This blog won’t be back to its old regularity just yet because, the day before my last treatment, I had a bicycle accident that fractured a vertebra. I’m far from being 100% yet and it appears it will take some time for that to happen. I do have a blog article underway. Carlisle Indians vs the Big Ten may surprise some people.
Tags: Prostate Cancer, Proton Therapy
Posted in Prostate Cancer, Publishing | Leave a Comment »
August 22, 2011
It is always gratifying when descendants and relatives of Carlisle Indian School football players comment on this blog. Even more gratifying is when they provide information not known and is not easily found. Most gratifying of all is when relatives use this blog as a way to get in touch with each other. All of these things happened last week.
Henry Roberts, left end on the great 1911 team, was the son of Rush Roberts, a legendary figure in Pawnee history. I blogged about Rush Roberts a couple of times in March and April 2010 after discovering things about him I didn’t previously know. Since that time, descendants of Rush have posted comments regarding family genealogy on those blogs, with last week having the greatest concentration of new information.
Unfortunately, comments on older posts don’t show up on the first page of the blog. Readers must search to find them. The easiest way is to search for Rush Roberts and open the comments on the posts relating to him. You should find these to be interesting reading.
Tags: Fancy Eagle, Pawnee, Roaming Princess, Rush Roberts, Sitting Eagle
Posted in Carlisle Indian School, Henry Roberts | Leave a Comment »
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