It Might Get Messy

Human beings evolved in Africa. Then, as they walked out across the Sinai, species-by-species and individual-by-individual, they stopped and occupied the desert wilderness of the greater Middle East. In fact, there are a number of easily accessible sites in Jordan where, even today, you can stroll around on the tell (a “tell” is a hill, an enormous mound, of layers of the ruins of settlements, built one on top of the other, over millennia) whose onion layers begin with Neanderthal and run through Byzantine, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Muslim, civilizations right to today (of course, the time period we are discussing runs much longer that this, going back past Homo neanderthalensis to Homo habilis and beyond). At one remote site, with a donkey tied up to chunk of Roman blockwork, a woman squatted in a shady nook busily producing the big thin Levantine bread characteristic of the region. She gave one to Nicholas and I. Apart from the stone fragments that made it crunchy and dentally dangerous, it was incredibly delicious. I asked our driver if we could pay her. He said she would be angry and insulted. So we drove on. To this day, I hope he paid her something from his (hefty) fee for the day’s driving. 

Umm…I wandered a little bit there…where was I trying to…Oh. I remember. The point is that the western Middle East is, oddly, given the ecosystem in place, essentially the earliest human landscape. By which I mean a geographic suite of ecosystems that shaped, and was reciprocally shaped by, people. In that context, however, the carrying capacity (number of human beings per unit area) was low 10,000 years ago, and it remains so. Water sources are scarce, and without water, no people. Arable land is scarce and patchy (which is why there are so many goats. Goats can prosper on land that could otherwise support scattered spiky shrubs and lizards. This is also, BTW, why vegetarianism makes no sense ecologically. Much of the land on earth is not suitable for plant crops, but animals can serve as a vector to convert what dribs and drabs of primary productivity there are to human biomass and activity). 

I have seen big chunks of the desert in the western Middle East. In Kuwait, one day we drove to the Saudi frontier, the next, to Iraq. I spent some time in the vacation “hunting” camp of a senior Kuwaiti security official in the north of the country. We hiked across the anti-tank trenching created during the war, which put us within naked-eye vision of the Iraq border. From Amman in Jordan, we drove into the northern mountains to the guard stations on the Syrian border (one of the guards, our guide said after chatting up the guys with the guns, had shot a hyena the prior morning!). I also went way out into eastern Jordan, approaching Iraq (this was also the trip we visited the miles and miles of windrows of shot-up Soviet tanks, guns and trucks from the first Gulf War. But that’s another story. I gotta dig out those slides and get them digitized for you). And I went to Aqaba, on the Red Sea estuary, hard against Egypt and Israel. 

The most consistent aspect of this large and ancient “human” landscape is that it is nearly devoid of people. Yeah, there are scattered Bedouin encampments pretty much anywhere, family groups with a big tent, big pickup truck, and plenty of satellite antennae to grab television for nighttime entertainment. But not many people get by as itinerant Bedouin these days. Rather, there are a few small villages, far fewer large ones, and a couple of cities—Amman and Aqaba. With a couple hundred liters of spare fuel in back, you could drive off into the desert for days and not see another human person, beyond the red and white Bedouin camps off in the distance. 

And that’s the reason I dragged you all the way through the above rambling essay. When you’re watching the news on TV these days, talking head after talking head is spouting off about how terrorist “army” ISIS or ISIL or The Islamic State is a new kind of existential threat to the West. The heads draw this conclusion from the ease with which these people spilled out of Syria to run over and “occupy” big chunks of Iraq. The heads tell you that this is a new and more terroristic kind of terrorism because ISIL is “taking over” big swaths of land [queue colorful map behind the commentator with ISIL lands in red, everywhere else in other colors]. And that prior terror groups like the Taliban and bin Laden weren’t trying to acquire real estate.

But here’s the thing. Any bozo with a RAV4, a couple cans of gas, and a Kalashnikov can run over and “occupy” big swaths of Middle Eastern desert. Hell, you could drive in a circle hundreds of kilometers in diameter and not see another human being. You could put up flags and “No Trespassing” signs. As my trips to desert frontiers of multiple countries suggested, ISIL actually occupies a tiny fraction of those big, colorful wall maps the news people are using. And an exercise in “connect the dots” is how the government and news outlets attempt to foment panic in the masses: “They’re coming for us. They’ve taken over Syria and Iraq. Soon they’ll be on our doorstep… .”

This, I suspect, is pretty much bullshit. The Islamic State has taken over and brutalized villages throughout the region. But they don’t have possession of large areas of ground. That’s left to the Bedouin who, except for the TV and the trucks, have owned and operated the deep deserts since well before the time of Christ. The Middle East is a complicated place, there is no doubt about it. But ISIL is just one of many groups claiming, fighting for, or dreaming of, making that desert exclusively their own. But there is no way that is happening.

My own landscape this week would also have to go in the “complicated” category. It started two Wednesdays ago. I collapsed in the foyer and couldn’t move. Scared the hell out of poor Cathy, who immediately called 911. The ambulance arrived in incredible time—maybe 10 minutes at the outside. The two women on board were around 40 years old. They both operated with military precision. One of them had a weathered desert look to her skin. I’m guessing the pair of them had spent recent time stitching up marines in combat zones. They did an awesome job delivering me to the emergency room.

My acute problems had to do with intractable dehydration (I couldn’t keep even small sips of Gatorade down) and associated imbalances in my electrolytes. I was pretty sick. In fact, they stashed me in the Intensive Care Unit for the first four days, moved me to Oncology Ward for the last three. Now, this was not my usual hospital. It’s the local shop—all three of our kids were born there.

They did a great job. I was so dehydrated it took the whole first four days to fix that. Then, being good doctors, they noticed my chronic respiratory distress and started to address that. After a couple days they realized my respiratory issues were from the cancer and not pneumonia or a fungal infection. When they cultured up my sputum, it sprouted what the impressed nurses said was a very impressive microbial diversity. Finally it clarified for the docs that they were not about to repair my breathing, that they needed to hand me back to GBMC for that.

Thus, I’m home. And am feeling much, much better. The oncologist at Howard County General (local hospital I spent the past week in) looked over the charts and tests and said that the chemotherapy is clearly working. You can’t imagine the wave of relief that coursed through me at that point. Gonna make it easier to take the beating from the next chemo infusion knowing that I’m not just making myself desperately ill every three weeks for nothing. Quality-of-life during these final months of my life is the primary objective we set for the treatment. And it seems like we’re going to meet that objective. 

So, YYYYEEEEEEEEHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAA from Cancer Land (trademark, copyright) this week. Much more will be going down this week. I see doctors, have tests, generally keep working on hitting back at this disease. I’m feeling more and more akin to an aging boxer who keeps getting into the ring, getting his lights punched out, waits three weeks and climbs back into the ring. But when I’m feeling good—like I am now—it is more than worth it.

I leave you with that bit of optimism, my friends. Hope you are all well. Live ‘em while you got ‘em—they aren’t forever!