Mac Thomason (1971-2012)

Mac Thomason was an excellent writer and blogger, and I first became acquainted with his work a couple of years ago.  I love his site dedicated to the Atlanta Braves, but he wrote about more than that.  He died Saturday after a three-and-a-half year battle with testicular cancer. He was in his early 40s, and I think we would all agree that is much too young to die.  Rest in peace.

Click here to learn more:  http://www.bravesjournal.com/?p=8449

Never start smoking

Like most people my age, I have made my share of mistakes. However, one mistake I'm glad I never made was to start smoking.

We all have things we dislike, and cigarettes rank near the top of what I dislike.

I've never understood the appeal of them. They smell bad, and walking into a smoke-filled room is about as much fun as having 10-inch needles stabbed into your eyes.

When I was younger, I admit that I tried them a couple of times, but the bad taste they produced caused me not to try them any more. Not only do they taste bad, but they also impact how food tastes when we eat.

The most frustrating aspect of smoking is how addictive it is. Talk to a person who has smoked for a while, and they can provide stories of the times they've tried to quit only to give up.

I know several people who are smart and appear to have as much will power as the next person, but they can't kick this habit.

As I've gotten older I've developed a lot more compassion for people in this situation than I used to have. When I was younger, I just couldn’t understand why a person would smoke when knowing all the harm that they cause.

While I still feel that way to a certain extent, I'm not as hard hearted as I used to be. Lately, I've been around people who have tried to quit and seen the frustration they experienced when they failed.

A very common New Year's resolution for smokers is to kick the habit. I have one friend and co-worker who is currently trying that, and he is doing it cold turkey. He smoked his last cigarette on New Year's Eve, and as of this writing, he has not smoked another one.

However, it hasn't been easy. He missed a couple of days of work because he felt flat-out terrible, and he still isn't himself.

At the peak of his smoking, he only smoked about one pack a day, which is a pretty small habit compare to other smokers. I can only imagine the struggles somebody with a three or four-pack-a-day habit would go through when trying to quit.

When looking at all the harm cigarettes do, it's amazing that they still maintain a pretty high profile in our society. I won't bore you with a long diatribe of how damaging cigarettes can be. We've known for decades about the link between smoking and cancer, heart disease and other problems.

Still, I can't help but wonder how cigarettes would be received if they were presented as a brand new product today. I can only speculate, but I imagine they would not have anywhere near the stature they currently have.

Because this product has been around for such a long time, cigarettes have been allowed to stay available though with plenty of warnings. If it were a brand new product, I would like to believe the public would reject them with extreme prejudice. However, some people will always be attracted to danger so I'm sure there would be an audience for them.

As for smokers trying to quit, I hope we all will be sensitive to their needs and be supportive when possible. Their attempts to quit are noble. Quitting will not only benefit them but others around them.

After all, it's really sad to see smokers who are banished outside to smoke on these cold winter days. It shows how addictive smoking can be.

Help your neighbor if possible.

I hate cancer

I am getting really fed up with cancer.

That doesn't mean that I once tolerated it, but I'm getting fed up with it more than usual.

I guess, the bottom line is I hate cancer. Before we go any further, I feel the need to emphasize what I mean by the word "hate."

Two of the most misused words in the English language are hate and love. For example, when describing a bad meal, somebody may say that they "really hated that spaghetti."

I remember saying that a lot as a boy. My mom cooked it a lot, and everybody in my family enjoyed it but me. So, to persuade her not to make it, I would often emphasize how much I hated spaghetti.

Obviously, I didn't have a good understanding of what hate really means. My trusty dictionary defines hate as regarding something "with extreme aversion: an extreme feeling of dislike or animosity."

The key word in that definition is "extreme." When our emotions are pushed to the extreme, we experience feelings from the depths of our heart. Just when we think our emotions can't run any deeper, we will experience a situation that touches us in places we didn't know existed.

I think this applies to my feelings toward cancer.

With that in mind, when I say I hate cancer, I mean that I HATE cancer.

I hate watching the work of this disease and the damage it has done. This disease is so firmly entrenched in our society that there isn't one person reading this who hasn't been impacted by it.

Dear reader, if you haven't suffered personally from this illness, then I'm sure you've had a family member or a friend or a co-worker or somebody else who has suffered from it.

Whether directly or indirectly, cancer's wrath has touched us all.

Despite its impact on our culture, I sometimes feel the disease doesn't get enough attention. Yes, I understand that tens of millions of dollars each year are spent on research, but it seems like other diseases get more publicity.

An example of this is AIDS. I know this is going to be politically incorrect, but it often appears that this disease gets spotlighted a lot more than cancer even though it impacts fewer people here in the United States.

Obviously, I am not trying to minimize that illness. AIDS is a devastating illness, and its victims should be treated with the same love and care as cancer sufferers. Funding for aggressive research to find a cure for it is important.

However, the disease is a lot less mysterious than cancer. I won't go into graphic detail, but AIDS is preventable if people use good judgment and take certain precautions. The bottom line is AIDS is a lot more controllable than cancer.

True, some forms of cancer can also be prevented through good judgment and taking precautions, but there are other forms of cancer that appear to materialize out of nowhere.

In my life, I have known people who have lived robust and healthy lives only to be stricken. They exercised regularly, ate the right foods, and did not smoke, but could not escape cancer's wrath.

So, what do we make out of all this?

I really don't know. All we can do is live each day to its fullest. When presented with the opportunity to help somebody with the disease, take advantage of that opportunity.

We all should help our neighbors carry their load. Sometimes just telling a cancer sufferer that you love them helps them in numerous ways.

So, why not do it?

Chris Lofton cancer story is amazing

I'm sure most of you have already heard that Tennessee Volunteer All-American guard Chris Lofton privately battled cancer between his junior and senior seasons.

If you haven't, here's a quick re-cap. Following the 2007 basketball season, Lofton underwent surgery and radiation treatments for testicular cancer. He didn't go public with his illness at the time because he didn't want to distract his teammates. He kept the news quiet until last week when he spoke about his battle for the first time.

In a way, this makes sense. For followers of the program, it was obvious Chris was out of sync during the early part of last season. Even though the team was winning, there was a lot of talk about what was wrong with him.

I've known several people who have had cancer, and they have talked about the fatigue and sluggishness they felt for months after their treatments ended. It is something that takes a long time to get over, and I believe it played a big role in Lofton's early season funk. It says a lot about his character that he kept trying even when he had every right to walk away from basketball to concentrate on his health.

Here's praying that he remains cancer free and lives a long and healthy life.