My puzzled jeans..

We all have a pair of stupid jeans. Genes that will get us in big trouble.  Genes that can make us do some pretty dumb stuff. I was waste-deep in thought last Monday looking back on all the stupid stuff I did in 2010. As the many memories piled up around me, a couple stood out in my mind. The couple that stood out in my mind was myself and my wife. A fond memory of us carefully riding down the greens at Park City Mountain Resort last April while trying to decide if I should get a CT scan. A scan which had nothing to do with the brain surgery I’d had two weeks prior.

You see, I had accidentally just lit her head on fire because I’d introduced mine to some aspen trees. Some aspens that got in my way. They happened to be below and to the right of a little cliff I had just not-so-accidentally decided to drop off. A small cliff similar to the one above, but without the soft ride-away that 2009 saw.

She was fuming at the stupid genes I had decided to wear that day, and her steam didn’t lessen any even after I changed pants. Maybe because she saw the knees underneath those pants.

Fortunately the treebark in my helmet came off much more easily than the collar to which she promptly attached to my neck. I was lucky that my father-in-law was not only visiting, but also sleeping on the couch, so I didn’t have to.  I avoided public places for a few weeks so as to avoid the embarrassment leashes can do on a fellow (see below).

I could bore you with my other stupid stories of 2010, but I won’t: Signing my wife and myself up for a nudist colony, selling my car for 100 bucks, or trying to cure my GBM with surgery, alkalinity, & Essiac tea alone are really not that interesting of stories.

What is INCREDIBLY interesting (for me at least) is my personal Erin Brockovich story I discovered two weeks ago. It’s a story of contamination, government cover-up, disease-related deaths, genetic defects, and another piece to the cancer puzzle that has consumed my life these last few years.

A coworker of my wife’s used to work for the Department of Energy and discovered that I was conceived/born in Monument Vally, UT in 1985. My parents were missionaries on the reservation for a number of years. She then shared a shocking story of the government’s uranium mining and the subsequent health damage done to the Navajos living there as well as to those born in this small desert community.

The DOE’s website admits to contamination, but claims that the government took all the proper steps to clean it up and help the Navajos. However, an L.A. Times article from 2006, “Blighted Homeland: A peril that dwelt among the Navajos”   tells the truth of the matter. Here are some quotes from the article:

From 1944 to 1986, 3.9 million tons of uranium ore were chiseled and blasted…providing uranium for the Manhattan Project, the top-secret effort to develop an atomic bomb, and for the arms race with the Soviet Union.

When mothers drank polluted water while pregnant, they bore children with Navajo neuropathy. When they were away from the old mines during their pregnancies, they bore healthy children.

The Columbia group found that liver tissue from three Navajo neuropathy patients showed reduced levels of mitochondrial DNA, a condition that can lead to progressive organ damage.

In the September (2006) issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics, the Columbia group announced a breakthrough. An Italian scientist had found a previously unknown mutation in a recessive gene that caused mitochondrial disease of the brain and liver.

This is probably the best explanation for what allowed a benign tumor to begin growing in my head sometime in ’92-94, and it explains why a German biofeedback test said that a Geopathic stress point (which involves radiation from the earth) was the #1 contributor to my continual cancer growth. Number two was my papilloma virus.

Knowing this background information about my jeans is not only a fascinating story, but it also has helped me understand and appreciate some of the weaknesses that are inherently a part of my system.

Knowing that uranium mining gave me genes which cause progressive neurological damage, I think we all can agree it’s not fair for my wife (or anyone) to pick on the choices I make. After all, it’s not really my fault I’m the way I am, it’s my jeans (see below).

A good friend e-mailed me today and said, “this year is a good one to say goodbye to.” It has been tough, so  I totally agree with him. However, I don’t say that on account of the two brain surgeries, four grand-mal seizures, countless doctor appointments, or major financial strain that I owe in part to my damaged Monument Valley genes.

Instead, I would argue that it’s been tough because of worry, stress, the pointless conflicts they create, and discouragement. These, I owe in part to the damaged genes we all received at birth. The damaged gene that tells us we can do it all on our own; that looking out for number one reigns supreme above all else. That self is superior to service. The gene that causes “the heart to be deceitful above all things and beyond cure.” -Jer. 17:9.

I could have done myself and my wife a service had we headed up our worry by understanding that we can’t do it all on our own. Had we understood that “The warfare against self is the greatest battle ever fought” (EGW, STC) and that “apart from me you can do nothing.” –John 15:9.   Overcoming the inherited genes we all share is definitely harder than overcoming my ‘weakness-to-cancer’ genes, and this puzzle can only be solved one way: