Celebrating a great PET Scan with Patti (4-23-24) My PET scan shows that my Stage Four Lung Cancer is in REMISSION, which is defined as a “decrease or disappearance of signs of cancer.” I am ecstatic and feel as if my life has been given back to me. Dr. Alexander Spira, my oncologist at Virginia Cancer Specialists, told Patti and me the good news yesterday, and we are overjoyed. He said my targeted therapy is working so well that the tumors in my right lung aren’t noticeable on my PET scan. This makes me wonder if I need to reconsider my journalistic skepticism about miracles. When my c ..read more

Photo courtesy of Peg’s Foundation, from The Morgan Impact Awards, Pete and Patti, 2021 (4-3-24) Since learning in February that I have Stage 4 lung cancer, I have undergone a series of scans and tests. I can now share some hopeful news. My cancer is being treated with targeted therapy, which only can be done in a small percentage of cases. I am taking a medication (8 pills per day) specifically designed to target molecules that the cancer needs to spread and survive. While my cancer can’t be cured, it can be treated and targeted therapy is much less caustic on my body than chemotherapy. Indi ..read more

Courtesy of Cottonbro on Pixels (3-3-24) I want to thank all of you who read my blog – A New Journey: I Have Stage 4 Lung Cancer – yesterday and offered me your support, prayers, and best wishes. Writer Hal Lindsey once wrote:  “Man can live about forty days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air…but only for one second without hope.” Your words offered me hope and touched my heart. Life gives us many unexpected challenges, as all of us with a loved one with a mental illness know. My good friend, Walt Harrington, once told me: “No one gets throug ..read more

  (3-2-24) I was staring at the wall clock in the INOVA Fair Oaks (Va.) Hospital when the emergency room doctor spoke but I cannot tell you now what time it was. I only know that it was at that single moment when my entire life changed. Just before Christmas, I’d fallen while hiking in the Shenandoah, breaking three ribs. Seven weeks later, I began gulping for breath whenever I walked upstairs. An x-ray revealed fluid in my right lung, which caused my wife, Patti and me to drive to the ER. The fluid needed to be drained, the first ER doctor explained, while ordering a CT scan. Patti ..read more

Matthew Milam’s parents sued hospital after doctors ignored warning signs their son was suicidal. No one listened. (Photo courtesy of Pat and Debbie Milam) (12-15-23) Pat Milam was desperate. He knew his adult son, Matthew, was planning on killing himself. But doctors at the Ochsner Hospital/Clinic where his hospitalized son was being treated for bipolar disorder and paranoid sczhophrenia weren’t listening. The more Pat tried to sound alarms, the more doctors at the large medical center on the outskirts of New Orleans, La., balked. One said he didn’t want to “upset” Matthew by sharing his fa ..read more

Susan Howard talks about her son’s bipolar disorder. (11-7-23) Gabe Howard is no stranger to readers of this blog. He’s a popular speaker, host of Inside Mental Health: A Healthline Media Podcast, and author of Mental Illness is an Asshole. For the first time since Gabe’s bipolar disorder surfaced, his mother, Susan Howard, talked openly about her son’s mental health on the Inside Bipolar Podcast on PsychCentral. Gabe wasn’t present when his mother was interviewed by Dr. Nicole Washington, Gabe’s co-host on the podcast, Many of you are parents of adult children with mental illnesse ..read more

Dorothy Edwards with her beloved dog, Gunter. (11-2-23) We’ve lost a wonderful housing and mental health care advocate. I served with Dorothy Edwards on the board of the Corporation for Supportive Housing (CHS). She died last month from rapid, advanced cancer at age 65. For eight years, she and her dog, Gunter, lived under a freeway overpass in Greater Los Angles. She was heavily addicted to drugs and couldn’t find a way to get off the streets. She later told Bill Pitkin, of  the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation: “I craved a place of my own. I watched people who, day after day, hel ..read more

Dr. E. Fuller Torrey calls for more funding for Parkinson’s Disease (10-31-23) For decades Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, the founder of the Treatment Advocacy Center and a tireless advocate for better health care, has argued that the federal government should better fund mental health research. Now, at age 86, he is calling for more federal research into the causes and potential cures for Parkinson Disease. In this article, first published by The Washington Monthly, he describes how the disease is affecting him and points out the disparity between funding for Alzheimer’s research and Parki ..read more

Christopher Sharikas with his parents, Sana and James, who are seeking his release to a mental hospital (8-25-23) The Virginia state chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness has joined the campaign to move Christopher Sharikas, an longly-held inmate with paranoid sczhophrenia, from prison into a mental facility. NAMI Virginia Executive Director Kathy Harkey explained in a letter to Sharikas’ pro bono attorney Jonathan P. Sheldon: NAMI Virginia believes that Christopher Sharikas should be receiving mental health services in a facility that is structured to provide them, and that hi ..read more

Calvin Clark at the “Black Sun” sculpture at Volunteer Park in Seattle in 2018. (Courtesy Jerri Clark) (10-2-23) I’ve written before about Jerri Clark’s tireless efforts to help her son, Calvin, who died in 2019. Rather than defeating her, the loss made her even more determined to advocate for other parents and their children as evidenced by this recent OP that she wrote for The Seattle Times. Thank you Jerri. The mental health system that failed my son is fixable  By Jerri Clark Many warranted worries kept me up at night while my son, Calvin, was still living. Would he kill himself ..read more