Column in Hot Springs Sentinal-Record

FACTS ON TEENS AND SEX
“Abstinence Education Good for Schools,” says Jim Davidson (11/27). Abstinence is a great idea, Jim. I’m all for it. But, the statistics on the ineffectiveness of abstinence education are irrefutable. It does not work to keep our teens safe from unwanted pregnancies, STDs (sexually transmitted diseases), or abortion. Period.
The facts are clear. According to recent research, regardless of whether they have taken a virginity pledge, the majority of young people (88% of pledgers and 99% of non-pledgers) will have sex before they marry. Those young people who pledge are likely to marry at younger ages, which may account for the 11% difference between pledgers and non-pledgers. (National STD Prevention Conference, March, 2004) Is marrying younger in order to have sex a good thing? A recent study in Canada revealed that 75 out of 100 teens who take an abstinence pledge have sex within one year. (Sue Johansen, Canadian sex educator, www.talksexwithsue.com)
Did Mr. Davidson bother to do any research before spouting his deeply held (and blatantly sexist) belief that all we have to do is...“teach teenage girls in our schools that they should not engage in sex until after they are married.” No mention of the boys here. These morally based attitudes are aimed at keeping the girls “pure.” Boys are apparently exempt.
What about “it doesn’t work” does Arkansas and the current federal administration (recently dumping another 70 billion dollars into this program) fail to understand? “Abstinence education,” in fact, is an oxymoron. There is nothing educational about preaching abstinence, no learning involved—it is a moral point of view, best left to discussion in the home or in a church setting, not in our schools. On the contrary, in the educational setting proscribed by Arkansas state law, there is little education about contraception and STDs. Any information about emergency contraception, which is extremely effective after the fact, is notably absent.
A study conducted by Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) found that 11 out of 13 abstinence programs studied taught things that were at best misleading and at worst completely wrong, such as “HIV can be transmitted through tears.” Statistics are twisted to try to frighten teens into abstinence and leaves them dismally unprepared when their raging hormones overwhelm their good intentions. (Do you remember being a horny teenager, Mr. Davidson?)
In fact, you cannot “teach” teens or “persuade” them not to have sex. The factors determining when a person becomes sexually active are too complex to address here. (I spent over 20 years counseling with and learning from these teens, frequently listening to their thoughts and attitudes about sex.)
There is a frightening attitude among some abstinence supporters that if teens don’t really PLAN on having sex by protecting themselves from pregnancy and STDs, but only “fall from grace” innocently and spontaneously in the heat of passion, that they are somehow less culpable and “more pure.” Sadly they can still die from AIDS, or their lives can be irrevocably altered from bearing a child they are in no way prepared to care for, by being forced to marry much too young, or by suffering the trauma of giving up a baby, or having an abortion. Do any of these outcomes justify persisting in an educational program that doesn’t work? Is anyone really concerned about the reproductive health and quality of future lives of our teen-agers?
Even for an unprepared, poorly informed teen, all is not lost if she only had easy access to emergency contraception, “Pro-life” advocates have consistently rejected emergency contraception, claiming that it prevents implantation of a fertilized egg and is therefore “an abortion pill.” Again, misinformation prevails in order to support the moral position that abstinence is the only way. A 2003 study (by the FDA) suggests that progestin-only ECPs (Emergency Contraception Pills) work by preventing ovulation or fertilization, and have no effect on implantation. The facts that should certainly interest pro-life folks is that the use of emergency contraception could prevent 1.7 million unintended pregnancies and 800,000 abortions annually (this means reduce by half). This is a 1998 statistic, and the situation is far worse today.
When used within 24 hours of unprotected intercourse, progestin-only ECPs were found to reduce the risk of pregnancy by 95% (World Health Organization-supported study involving almost 2000 women in 21 clinics around the world) If taken within 72 hours, they reduced the risk of pregnancy by 89%. If you are paying attention so far, here are more facts you need to know.
In 2000, Arkansas had the highest teen pregnancy rates in the nation, 1 of the 10 highest birth rates for pregnant teens, and the lowest percent of decline since 1991, (SIECUS) Nationally, 3.750,000 teens contract STDs annually, including syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, human papilloma virus (HPV), bacterial vaginosis, genital herpes, and Hepatitis B (Kaiser Family Foundation, 1998). Many of these young people suffer long-term health problems or infertility as a consequence of their infections.
In 2003, 4293 Arkansas youth (0-19) contracted Chlamydia and 1257 teens contracted Gonorrhea. As of September 2004, 21 Arkansas teens (15-19) were diagnosed with early Syphilis and 11 were diagnosed with HIV. (Arkansas Department of Health)
It is as though unprepared teens who fail their abstinence pledge must be punished by disease and denied access to a safe way to prevent pregnancy, and are often thereby pushed into having an abortion. This seems to be the “pro-life” stance. Go figure.
Please, let’s join together to protect our teen-agers from STDs, pregnancy, and abortion. Isn’t this what we all, pro-life and pro-choice, really want? If you are as appalled as I am by the statistics I have presented here (you can can find all these studies and many more on the Internet) and by the ineffectiveness of the current state-mandated “abstinence-only” education program in our schools, please speak out. We need reality-based solutions to the problems facing our teens.

Ann
Hot Springs

Christmas Letter

Dear Friends,
As Christmas approaches, I'm still recovering from a rousing family Thanksgiving. My brother and his wife from Los Altos, my niece and her family from Sacramento, my nephew and his wife from Kalamazoo, and his daughter and her baby from Houston, plus, of course, my own kids. Tim and Amy drove over from Dallas (sans children), and Mark flew in from Denver, and, of course Andy, Kim, Jacob and Emily drove down from Little Rock So 18 of us, including 3 toddlers gathered at my house! Fortunately, Tim did most of the cooking—thanks to years at the Lair of the Bear, he cooks a mean turkey. Thanksgiving Day was gorgeous and we took the California contingent, the first to arrive, for a boat ride. My lake is drawn down in the winter and as we rounded an island we managed to get ourselves grounded in the mud, requiring that Tim jump out and pull us to deep water. We decided that this was to be "our little secret" (Andy is somewhat anal about his boat). Andy arrived after dinner Friday night ( he was on call until late) and became suspicious of our giggly response to his questions about the boat ride. He sneakily extracted the boat ride incident from my 3-year-old great-niece, who doesn't yet understand what "our little secret" means. In this family, she will need to learn.
I am in the middle of my third month/round of chemotherapy. I am supposed to have 3 weekly treatments and then one week off. Since the first round on this schedule, however, I have been unable to tolerate more than 2 weekly treatments, and then need a couple of weeks off for my white blood count to recover. (I have chronic neutrapenia, low white count, from the first round of chemotherapy in 1997-98.) I had treatments each of the last two weeks, but now we'll wait until after the new year to begin again. I'll have another PET scan after Christmas to assess how I am doing.
I think I am responding well to the chemotherapy, because the tumor in my neck muscle has visibly receded, a good indicator of progress. The new drug, Avastin, has proved to be a little disappointing, and not as benign as expected. I think it has been critical in reducing the tumor, but it has raised my normally low blood pressure, so that I seem to only tolerate one dose of this drug each month. It also seems to effect my vocal cords, and my throat muscles. All in all, minor side-effects, considering the alternative.
I will be driving over to Dallas (only 4 1/2 hours from here) to Tim and Amy's new home for Christmas. I'll take my new van, Isadora II, and use if for my bedroom —it's really comfy. Still trying to sell Isadora, the original, but she doesn't seem to want to leave me. Several done deals have fallen through for every reason imaginable, like hurricanes. My driveway looks like an RV lot.
Emily (now 7) has agreed to ride to Dallas with me. Andy, Kim and Jacob (9) will fly. Amy's children are 9, 8 and 6, and the five of them all have a great time together, as demonstrated by some good times on my lake this summer.
We have had some pretty cold weather this month, in the low 20s some nights, and I'm trying to adjust. My body and my sinuses do not like it. I'd rather be swimming in Chacala Bay, as you may guess. I am still very much on board for Cambiando Vidas, our nonprofit in the village. The Learning Center and Scholarship Program thrive—we sponsor 27 students from middle school through University. I currently putting together another newsletter for our donors. For more info on our programs, please go to www.chacala.org. newsletter.
My book is selling slowly, but I am getting very rewarding responses from readers. I have had some signings and readings, both here in Hot Springs and in California when I was there last August. I am so grateful for all the prayers and well wishes that have come my way in the last few months. You all have supported me in every way imaginable— I have not felt alone for one moment. I am so blessed to have such an amazing friends—so much healing love. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
May your Christmas and holiday season surround you with Peace, Love, and Joy and Healing at every level. Savor the moments—they are so precious.
Love and Blessings, Ann

A Conversation With Cancer

A Conversation with Cancer 11/05

“Wake up. Pay attention,”
my old friend, the cancer, seems to say.
She silently and stealthily
creeps up into my neck and shoulder
on her slow cat feet.
Imitating some benign muscle inflammation,
fooling us all.
“It is nothing,” I say to myself.
“Cancer doesn’t act like this.”
But she did.

And so we resume the old conversation, she and I.

“I do not want to kill you,” she says.
“If I wanted to kill you, I could slip easily
into your lymph system, and invade
your brain, or your bones.”

“So what DO you want,” I ask.
I already know the answer.

“I just want you to pay attention.
You forgot how fragile your precious life is.
You forgot to pay complete and total attention to me,
to the insistent nature of my invasion.”

I did forget. I pretended as though she were gone for good.
I pretended that I was in charge of my life and my destiny.
How easy I repeatedly fall into that seductive illusion.
She’s her to remind me, once again.
That mine is not to choose the path,
but to surrender to it.

“Remember your fountain?” she asks.
“I was there, you know.
I was those rough pieces of gravel
covering the bottom layer of your fountain.
I absorbed the red liquid you eye-dropper dripped
on to those porous stones,
pretending it was the red poison
that was supposed to kill me.
How you lifted one stone out every
day, threw it from the deck into the creek bed,
asking it to peacefully leave your body.
You were kind and I couldn’t resist your plea.
I even watched with some pleasure
as you replaced each rough, gravelly cell that was me
with a smooth, lovely, polished, healthy river stone.

“I remember the angels that came,
as you sat in the plastic recliner
with the needle in the back of your hand.
How they gently asked me to please leave the area,
and escorted me to the door,
to dissolve and be whooshed out with the blood, the urine.
You were paying attention then.

“You paid careful attention for an entire year.
Sitting on your mountain top,
meditating, visualizing. preparing for a graceful death.
You watched the blazing fire of the sunrise
on those sleepless early mornings,
the mist dissolve in the valley below,
the deer scamper as you came out your door,
the lights come on across the Monterey Bay at dusk.
You were peaceful and kind. How could I not cooperate?

“But then you forgot.
You forgot that each day you have on this earth is a precious gift.
You forgot that you need to watch for me with mindful eyes,
and that I will leave quietly if you ask me nicely.”

Friends and relatives swoop in, expecting to hear my swan song.
“I think I will be singing and flapping for a few more years,”
I tell them. I’m paying attention.

The Diagnosis

The Diagnosis 9/2/05

“I have never seen this before,”
says the radiologist, examining the
pink blotches on the PET screen.
“I don’t see any cancer anywhere in your body,”
he says, “but I don’t know what all this inflammation
is in your neck, shoulder and axilla.”
Observing son sits quitely looking at the screen,
wheels visibly turning in his head.
He says only,
“We’ll do a biopsy in the morning.”

A late afternoon phone call the next day.
A sad, somber son voice, “The pathologist just came by, mom.”
“And...?”I coax.
“It’s breast cancer,”
I am incredulous. “In my neck?”
“Yes, you see, you have infiltrating, lobular cancer. It...”
“I know what I have, honey. I’ll call you back in an hour.
I’m going in for a haircut now.”
“A haircut?” He is distressed at my seeming nonchalance.
“Just let me be for awhile, I’ll call you back later.”

“I’m so sorry,” Krystal tells me again and again
as she absently chops at my hair.
She is distraught.
I am numb and don’t notice.
Until I get home and look in the mirror.