Was Poet Pablo Neruda Poisoned by Pinochet's Agents?

Poet's body exhumed: Was Pablo Neruda poisoned?

A judge ordered a poet's body exhumed to look for evidence that Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda was killed by agents of Gen. Augusto Pinochet's brutal dictatorship.

By Eva Vergara, Associated Press / April 8, 2013

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Forensic anthropologists dig at the grave of Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda as they prepare for the exhumation of the poet's remains in Isla Negra, Chile, April 7. The poet's body was exhumed today in an effort to clear up four decades of suspicion about how the poet died in the days after Chile's military coup.

ISLA NEGRA, CHILE

Chilean forensic experts exhumed the body of Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda on Monday, trying to solve a four-decade mystery about the death of one the greatest poets of the 20th century.

The official version is that that the poet died from prostate cancer and the trauma of witnessing the 1973 military coup that led to the persecution and killing of many of his friends. But his driver and many other Chileans say Neruda was murdered by agents of Gen. Augusto Pinochet's brutal dictatorship.

Experts were concerned that high salinity and humidity could affect the exhumation at Neruda's home in Isla Negra, a rocky outcropping overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

But Patricio Bustos, head of Chile's medical legal service, said Neruda's casket is in good shape after the one-hour exhumation. After draping Neruda's coffin in the Chilean national flag, forensics workers took his remains to the capital for tests. They could also be analyzed abroad and Bustos said they have offers from labs in the United States and Europe.

"After we take a look at our lab, following the biomedical safety measures and with total vigilance, we will be able to set a timeline for the process," Bustos told reporters.

"The most complex part will be searching for toxic substances that could not only be classic poisons, but also, according to testimonies, could be medical substances at very high doses to harm the poet."

Neruda, who won the Nobel prize for literature in 1971, was best known for romantic verses, especially the collection "Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair." He was also a leftist diplomat and close friend of socialist President Santiago Allende, who committed suicide rather than surrender to troops during the Sept. 11, 1973 coup led by Pinochet.

Neruda planned to go into exile, where he would have been an influential voice against the dictatorship. Just a day before he was scheduled to leave, he was taken by ambulance to the Santa Maria hospital in Santiago to keep him safe from political persecution.

Officially, Neruda died there on Sept. 23 from natural causes related to the emotional trauma of the coup.

For years, his driver and bodyguard, Manuel Araya has said that the poet was murdered when agents of the dictatorship injected poison into his stomach at the clinic.

"If it hadn't been for that shot Neruda wouldn't have died," Araya said.

"After seeing him being removed from the site, I felt a huge amount of pain because I lived the 24 hours with Neruda before his death. It took a long time, but justice has been served."

Former President Eduardo Frei Montalva died at the same clinic nine years later. Although doctors listed the cause of his 1982 death as septic shock from stomach hernia surgery, an investigation almost three decades later showed that the vocal opponent of the Pinochet regime had been slowly poisoned to death.

The exhumation was approved by Judge Mario Carroza on a request by Chile's Communist Party. It was attended by the driver and one of Neruda's four nephews.

"It was an emotional moment that reached our very fibers," said Rodolfo Reyes, one of Neruda's nephews.

"It's very important that the truth is known and the eyes of the world are set on this new investigation."

GREAT LOVE POEMS BY PABLO NERUDA

If You Forget Me


I want you to know
one thing.


You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.


Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you, little by little.


If suddenly
you forget me,
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.


If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.


But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.



I do not love you...


I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.


I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.


I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way than this:
where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.



I Like for You to be Still


I like for you to be still:
it is as though you were absent,
and you hear me from far away
and my voice does not touch you.
It seems as though your eyes had flown away
and it seems that a kiss had sealed your mouth.


As all things are filled with my soul
you emerge from the things,
filled with my soul.
You are like my soul,
a butterfly of dream,
and you are like the word Melancholy.


I like for you to be still
and you seem far away.
It sounds as though you were lamenting,
a butterly cooing like a dove.
And you hear me from far away, and my voice does not reach you:
Let me come down to be still in your silence.


And let me talk to you with your silence
that is bright as a lamp, simple as a ring.
You are like the night,
with its stillness and constellations.
Your silence is that of a star,
as remote and candid.


I like for you to be still:
it is as though you were absent,
distant and full of sorrow as though you had died.
One word then, one smile, is enough.
And I am happy,
happy that it's not true.



Tonight I Can Write...


Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write for example, "The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance."


The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.


Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her,
and sometimes she loved me too.


Through nights like this one, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.


She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.


Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her.
To feel that I have lost her.


To hear the immense night,
still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.


What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered
and she is not with me.


This is all.
In the distance someone is singing.
In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.


My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her,
and she is not with me.


The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.


I no longer love her, that's certain,
but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.


Another's. She will be another's.
Like my kisses before.
Her bright body.
Her infinite eyes.


I no longer love her, that's certain,
but maybe I love her.
Love is so short,
forgetting is so long.


Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.


Thought this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.



Love


Because of you, in gardens of blossoming flowers
I ache from the perfumes of spring.


I have forgotten your face,
I no longer remember your hands;
how did your lips feel on mine?


Because of you, I love the white statues drowsing in the parks
the white statues that have neither voice nor sight.


I have forgotten your voice, your happy voice;
I have forgotten your eyes.


Like a flower to its perfume,
I am bound to my vague memory of you.
I live with pain that is like a wound;
if you touch me, you will do me irreparable harm.


Your caresses enfold me,
like climbing vines on melancholy walls.
I have forgotten your love,
yet I seem to glimpse you in every window.


Because of you, the heady perfumes of summer pain me;
because of you, I again seek out the signs that precipitates desires:
shooting stars and falling objects.



I crave your mouth...


I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.


I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.


I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,


and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
Like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.



Don't go far off...


Don't go far off, not even for a day, because --
because -- I don't know how to say it:
a day is long and I will be waiting for you,
as in an empty station when the trains are parked off somewhere else,
asleep.


Don't leave me, even for an hour, because
then the little drops of anguish will all run together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home
will drift into me, choking my lost heart.


Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;
may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance.
Don't leave me for a second, my dearest,


because in that moment you'll have gone so far
I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?



Maybe you'll remember...


Maybe you'll remember that razor-faced man
who slipped out from the dark like a blade
and -- before we realized -- knew what was there:
he saw the smoke and concluded fire.


The pallid woman with black hair
rose like a fish from the abyss,
and the two of them built up a contraption,
armed to the teeth, against love.


Man and woman, they felled mountains and gardens,
they went down to the river, they scaled the walls,
they hoisted their atrocious artillery up the hill.


Then love knew it was called love.
And when I lifted my eyes to your name,
suddenly your heart showed me my way.



You will remember...


You will remember that leaping stream 
where sweet aromas rose and trembled, 
and sometimes a bird, wearing water 
and slowness, its winter feathers. 


You will remember those gifts from the earth: 
indelible scents, gold clay, 
weeds in the thicket and crazy roots, 
magical thorns like swords. 


You'll remember the bouquet you picked, 
shadows and silent water, 
bouquet like a foam-covered stone. 


That time was like never, and like always. 
So we go there, where nothing is waiting; 
we find everything waiting there. 

Bird Lives! A One Man Play directed by Tommy Hicks

Marvin X speaks on Black Theatre at University of California, Merced, May 30,2013

Marvin X will discuss his plays Flowers for the Trashman and One Day in the Life. Flowers for the Trashman was produced by the Drama Department at San Francisco State University, 1965, while he was an undergrad.

One Day in the Life is a docudrama of his addiction and recovery from Crack, 1996. It includes his last meeting with Black Panther co-founder Huey P. Newton in a West Oakland Crack house. Ishmael Reed says, "One Day in the Life is the most powerful drama I've seen!"

See Black Fire for the early writings of Marvin X and the Black Arts Movement literary figures

Book Description

Publication Date: April 5, 2007 | ISBN-10: 1574780395 | ISBN-13: 978-1574780390

The defining work of the Black Arts Movement, Black Fire is at once a rich anthology and an extraordinary source document. Nearly 200 selections, including poetry, essays, short stories, and plays, from over 75 cultural critics, writers, and political leaders, capture the social and cultural turmoil of the 1960s. In his new introduction, Amiri Baraka reflects nearly four decades later on both the movement and the book.

488 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 7 illus., appends., notes, bibl., index

John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture

Cloth

ISBN  978-0-8078-2934-9

Published: May 2005

Paper

ISBN  978-0-8078-5598-0

Published: May 2005

The Black Arts Movement

Literary Nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s

James Edward Smethurst

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Awards & Distinctions

2006 James A. Rawley Prize, Organization of American Historians

A 2005 Choice Outstanding Academic Title

Emerging from a matrix of Old Left, black nationalist, and bohemian ideologies and institutions, African American artists and intellectuals in the 1960s coalesced to form the Black Arts Movement, the cultural wing of the Black Power Movement. In this comprehensive analysis, James Smethurst examines the formation of the Black Arts Movement and demonstrates how it deeply influenced the production and reception of literature and art in the United States through its negotiations of the ideological climate of the Cold War, decolonization, and the civil rights movement.

Taking a regional approach, Smethurst examines local expressions of the nascent Black Arts Movement, a movement distinctive in its geographical reach and diversity, while always keeping the frame of the larger movement in view. The Black Arts Movement, he argues, fundamentally changed American attitudes about the relationship between popular culture and "high" art and dramatically transformed the landscape of public funding for the arts.

About the Author

James Edward Smethurst is associate professor of Afro-American studies at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. He is author of The New Red Negro: The Literary Left and African American Poetry, 1930-1946 and coeditor of Left of the Color Line: Race, Radicalism, and Twentieth-Century Literature of the United States.

Reviews

"A richly insightful and informative account of the often occluded racial dynamics of early modernism."
--Journal of American Studies

"The most comprehensive work published to date on the Black Arts Movement, painstakingly detailing the movement's national thrust. . . . This book is a monumental achievement and will serve as the definitive text on the movement for some time to come."
--Journal of African American History

"Smethurst… has written a tour-de-force that will quickly become the definitive analysis of the sprawling and internally contradictory entity known as the Black Arts movement."
--Against the Current

"Mapping important connections and offering a cornucopia of information, The Black Arts Movement: Literary Nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s is a truly valuable contribution to the study of American letters. Smethurst gets it right! His thorough research and astute analysis overcome two decades of deliberate critical misrepresentation to help us examine a tumultuous era when visionary leadership and nationwide grassroots participation created a dynamic, paradigm-changing cultural renaissance."--Lorenzo Thomas, University of Houston-Downtown

"A momentous and singular contribution to the study of literary ethnic nationalism in particular, and post-World War II cultural history in general. Anyone interested in United States culture and politics in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s will be drawn to The Black Arts Movement as a chronicle, survey, and fabulous reference."--Alan Wald, University of Michigan

Somethin' Proper:  The Life and Times of a North American African Poet

Marvin X (Marvin E. Jackmon) [El Muhajir]. Somethin' Proper: The Life and Times of a North American African Poet. Castro Valley, CA: Black Bird P, 1998. 278 pp. $29.95.

Marvin X's autobiography Somethin' Proper is one of the most significant works to come out of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. It tells the story of perhaps the most important African American Muslim poet to appear in the United States during the Civil Rights era. The book opens with an introduction by scholar Nathan Hare, a key figure in the Black Studies Movement of the period. Marvin X then takes center stage with an exploration of his life's story, juxtaposed with the rapidly changing events and movements of contemporary history: the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Arts 

Autobiography/ African American culture. In this autobiography, Marvin X, the first North American African Islamic poet to achieve international recognition for his poetry and plays tells the story, "of the black consciousness movement and the world of the troubled inner city" (from Nathan Hare's Introduction). His work has been compared to that of Franz Fanon and LeRoi Jones. "Somethin' Proper works: writers should tell our history, that's our job" -- Amiri Baraka. "Through the poetry of Marvin X, I became conscious of my own ethnicity" -- Janice Mirikitani. 278pp. Black Bird Press

Oxford Companion to African American Literature:

Marvin X

Marvin X (b. 1944), poet, playwright, essayist, director, and lecturer. Marvin Ellis Jackmon was born on 29 May 1944 in Fowler, California. He attended high school in Fresno and received a BA and MA in English from San Francisco State College (now San Francisco State University). The mid-1960s were formative years for Jackmon. He became involved in theater, founded his own press, published several plays and volumes of poetry, and became increasingly alienated because of racism and the Vietnam War. Under the influence of Elijah Muhammad, he became a Black Muslim and has published since then under the names El Muhajir and Marvin X. He has also used the name Nazzam al Fitnah Muhajir.

Marvin X and Ed Bullins founded the Black Arts/West Theatre in San Francisco in 1966, and several of his plays were staged during that period in San Francisco, Oakland, New York, and by local companies across the United States. His one-act play Flowers for the Trashman was staged in San Francisco in 1965 and was included in the anthology Black Fire (1968); a musical version, Take Care of Business, was produced in 1971. The play presents the confrontation between two cellmates in a jail—one a young African American college student, the other a middle-aged white man. Another one-act play, The Black Bird, a Black Muslim allegory in which a young man offers lessons in life awareness to two small girls, appeared in 1969 and was included in New Plays from the Black Theatre that year. Several other plays, including The Trial, Resurrection of the Dead, and In the Name of Love, have been successfully staged, and Marvin X has remained an important advocate of African American theater.

In 1967, Marvin X was convicted, during the Vietnam War, for refusing induction and fled to Canada; eventually he was arrested in Honduras, was returned to the United States, and was sentenced to five months in prison. In his statement on being sentenced—later reprinted in Black Scholar (1971) and also in Clyde Taylor's anthology,Vietnam and Black America (1973)—he argues that

Any judge, any jury, is guilty of insanity that would have the nerve to judge and convict and imprison a black man because he did not appear in a courtroom on a charge of refusing to commit crimes against humanity, crimes against his own brothers and sisters, the peace-loving people of Vietnam.

Marvin X founded El Kitab Sudan publishing house in 1967; several of his books of poetry and proverbs have been published there. Much of Marvin X's poetry is militant in its anger at American racism and injustice. For example, in “Did You Vote Nigger?” he uses rough dialect and directs his irony at African Americans who believe in the government but are actually its pawns. Many of the proverbs in The Son of Man (1969) express alienation from white America. However, many of Marvin X's proverbs and poems express more concern with what African Americans can do positively for themselves, without being paralyzed by hatred. He insists that the answer is to concentrate on establishing a racial identity and to “understand that art is celebration of Allah.” The poems in Fly to Allah, Black Man Listen (1969), and other volumes from his El Kitab Sudan press are characterized by their intensity and their message of racial unity under a religious banner.

Marvin X has remained active as a lecturer, teacher, theatrical producer, editor, and exponent of Islam. His work in advocating racial cohesion and religious dedication as an antidote to the legacy of racism he saw around him in the 1960s and 1970s made him an important voice of his generation.

Bibliography

• Lorenzo Thomas, “Marvin X,” in DLB, vol. 38, Afro-American Writers after 1955: Dramatists and Prose Writers, eds. Thadious Davis and Trudier Harris, 1985, pp. 177–184.
• Bernard L. Peterson, Jr., “Marvin X,” in Contemporary Black American Playwrights and Their Plays, 1988, pp. 332–333. “El Muhajir,” in CA, vol. 26, eds. Hal May and James G. Lesniak, 1989, pp. 132–133

Michael E. Greene

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/marvin-x#ixzz2PqrrhUS9

Message from revolutionary educator, Jitu Weusi

We pray for the recovery of our beloved brother warrior, Jitu Weusi. In our last visit to New York, we spoke with him on the phone. He was in the hospital but holding onto the rope of life.

--Marvin X

Dear Family/Community, For those of you who may not have seen this posting on facebook by Nandi, Bro. Jitu's daughter....  Thank you for posting it, Nandi.  We encircle Bro. Jitu and your/our family with prayers for his continued recovery.

You can send positive thoughts and wishes for wellness to Bro. Jitu at jweusi@aol.com.  He will also get the messages sent via his wife, Angela, at aweusi@gmail.com

This article was published by Our Time Press http://ourtimepress.com/2013/04/06/jitu-weusis-journey-in-this-journal-message-to-the-communitythe-education-activist-relates-his-biggest-struggle-ever/

Jitu Weusi’s Journey: In this Journal Message to the Community,the Education Activist Relates his Biggest Struggle Ever

• Saturday, April 6, 2013, 8:57

 

Jitu Weusi

Looking back to December 3, 2012 when I went for a routine doctor’s visit with my physician of 29 years, Dr. Oliver Fine, I would not have thought that three months later I would be incapacitated fighting my biggest struggle ever – to stay alive. The day after that visit I received an alarming call from Dr. Fine urging me to visit the colonoscopy specialist because I was experiencing a precipitous drop in red blood cells. I was anemic. Later, I underwent two exams: a colonoscopy and an endoscopy, both were very invasive procedures. 

Subsequently, I was urged to do another exam, which required that I swallow a camera scope to obtain images of my intestinal tract. All of these tests were proactive attempts to diagnose the cause of the red blood cell loss, all to no avail.

Shortly after the camera-swallowing test (I remember it was December 10th because Kenny Gates performed at For My Sweet’s Jazzy Mondays), something strange happened. For about three minutes the right side of my brain felt sizzling-hot like an egg frying, and my hand and right eye were moving uncontrollably. It occurred while I was alone.

Although concerned and alarmed I chose to keep this incident to myself.

A month later, on Tuesday, January 15th , I experienced the same symptoms for a longer period of time. This too, I kept to myself. However, the very next day, I had yet another episode while in the presence of my eldest son, Kuzaliwa Kojo Campbell, and my wife, Angela. I was escorted home and immediately thereafter persuaded to go to the hospital. I was later told it was a seizure.

On Wednesday, January 16, 2013 at approximately 11:47PM I was taken – at my request– to the emergency room of the Cornell New York Presbyterian Hospital at 70th and York Avenues on the Upper East Side of Manhattan of which Dr. 

Fine has affiliation.

After arriving and providing staff with a recent history of events, examinations began immediately. The staff conducted a CT scan of the head and a chest X-ray. While waiting for the results, I took notice of my surroundings for the first time. I observed a scene straight out of an episode of MASH. All around me were people—hospital staff and patients alike. Space was limited; there were beds in the hallways and the family waiting areas were transformed into makeshift rooms. The hospital was severely impacted after Hurricane Sandy hit, closing two other NY hospitals. It would be days before I would be assigned a bed.

A Mass in Brain Detected

At 2:45AM, reports from the first tests returned – a mass was detected on the right frontal lobe of my brain which was causing the seizures. Also, a large mass was seen on my lung. In the next few days, while still in the emergency room, I underwent more tests, which served to produce more questions. More CT scans were taken of my abdomen and pelvis as cancer was being speculated but the specific type of cancer was unknown. Cancer. “The Big C”. 

This was a surprise to me. I was not in pain. How could I possibly have cancer? The hospital had their team of doctors that attended to me going forward. They started me on the drug Keppra to control the seizure activity. They arranged for a biopsy of the lung mass. The results were conclusive. The results were surprising. The results confirmed that which was mere speculation the day before. Malignant. Cancer.

Family Team Formed, Message to Community Drafted

The next morning, a team of doctors who reported to Dr. Fine gave me a complete analysis along with their suggestion as to a path to healing. My family (on the ground with me) included my wife Angela Weusi, Dr. Damali Campbell, Kweli Campbell and Kojo Campbell. They would form a team to help with the analysis and help answer any questions that I had. The additional tests that were taken revealed additional masses on the right hip and the kidney. The diagnosis was that I had advanced stages of kidney cancer that had metastasized to the brain, lung and my right hip. A message was drafted to send out to the family and community as to the diagnosis at the time.

The first decision I had to make following my diagnosis was to find an oncologist. Dr. Fine recommended Dr. Nannus, an oncologist who specializes in cancer of the kidney. Having been his patient for 29 years, I trusted his opinion. After consulting with a neurosurgery team, Dr. Nannus recommended that the first course of action was to remove the tumor on the brain because tumors on the brain don’t typically respond well to chemotherapy. The neurosurgeon, Dr. Schwartz, consulted with me and my family about performing brain surgery. Brain surgery! He claimed that if there was only one tumor near the surface of the brain, then its removal would be easy. Brain surgery—easy?! The neurosurgeon hypothesized that if surgery was done to remove the lesion on the right side of brain and if it was successful, it could slow the spread of the cancer to the other organs. Brain surgery. At this point I needed a moment. I needed to think. This was a lot to understand. I needed guidance. I spoke with my 86-year-old godmother and best friend of my deceased mother, Alma Carroll, who told me that I should go ahead and do what the doctors suggested because everything would be on my side. Hearing this is what I needed to make the decision to move forward and to get through the hurdle before me.

Soon after testing was done in the PET scan lab and MRI and all was approved for the surgery, I was taken to surgery at about 4PM in the evening. The last thing I remember was the head nurse explaining to me the effects of the anesthesia she was giving to me. She told me to relax and enjoy myself. Shortly thereafter, I was in dreamland. It was about 1:30AM the next morning when I awoke with a headache, feeling like I had a hole in my head. My wife was beside me. I squeezed her hand and told her that I had a headache. She called for the head nurse in the Neurosurgery ICU recovering room to come and deliver pain medication for the throbbing headache I was experiencing.

The drug of the day was Percocet, which allowed me to sleep 

to the next morning.

Difficult Adjustments

I was told the following day that the surgery went well, and for a moment I felt like a rock star with a cult following, as various doctors and other medical staff routinely came around to ensure that my post-op experience was going along well. This feeling would soon fade as I began to understand the extent of the surgery. One of the earliest experiences was a complete loss of bathroom functioning. Bathroom functioning! Because the procedure was to the brain, the mobility of my legs and arms was affected. If I can’t move my legs, I can’t walk to the bathroom; something I didn’t bargain for. I became completely dependent on someone else to change my diaper at least a half-dozen times a day. Initially, I was constipated so my embarrassment went undetected. But four days later, I had a breakthrough and suddenly there was an outpouring of stool. While overjoyed for the intestinal evacuation, I was embarrassed and upset by my inability to better control the situation or participate in the cleanup.

It is needless to say that my stay at the hospital was a difficult adjustment. I rarely got any rest; there was a constant stream of medical staff coming to my room at all hours of the night and day to meddle in my medical business— drawing blood, checking my blood pressure and sugar levels, and giving me some kind of injection or another. Most were competent, getting it right on the first try; more than a few were not so competent—rendering my right hand to a most painful but legal form of abuse. A drug regimen began and was now in full swing: steroids to reduce brain swelling which causes blood sugar instability; Insulin to control the blood sugar instability; keppra for the seizure activity; a blood transfusion was needed on several occasions. Physical therapy would be needed to move again and a walker would be needed to preserve the strength of my hip which is weak and a fall could mean a hip fracture.

My wife, my children, a rock of support

During this crisis my spirit was bolstered by midnight visits from my sons, Toure and Kojo. It was refreshing to open my eyes at midnight to see Kojo reading over his lesson plans or Toure with insomnia cookies in hand. My daughter Kweli took some time off from work and would read the NY Times so I could keep abreast of such issues as Obama’s battle with Congress, Hugo Chavez’ health (now deceased) and updates on the Nets and Knicks.

I spent very little time alone as my wife was at the hospital daily giving me solace and confidence to deal with all the machinations as we dealt with modern medicine in a big hospital. We would often lament about how medicine today operates on a factory-type model (system with various pieces to carry out order and assignments: many employees, doctors, doctor assistants, nurses, nurse’s aides, technicians, janitors, transporters, etc.). Over a period of six weeks, I could identify hundreds of jobs that would be available for people to work in a comprehensive medical center or hospital.

During this time I had visits from all my children who live in other states: Nandi Campbell, Makini Campbell, Taifa Graves and Hazina Campbell-Dorius. They all came in at various times to attend to my health and well-being. My sister Shirley Clarke came in from California and showered me with attention. I had weekly visits from my brother and his wife, Job and Muslimah Mashariki. Visits from concerned nephews and nieces also served as a source of comfort.

Condition stabilized, Chemotherapy commences

Once my medical condition was stabilized, the medical team transferred me to the Baker Pavilion wing of the hospital where I would receive intensive physical therapy 4 hours a day, five days a week. The occupation and physical therapists managed to get me out of bed and into a wheelchair every day, helping me to regain some of the basic functions I had lost after the surgery. Meanwhile, I was given a battery of tests such as X-rays, eye exams and other specialty tests for eye, nose and ears. My medical team advised that I start receiving radiation treatments for the brain and begin an intravenous form of chemo once a week. The radiation treatments were an experience I struggled heavily with as it required the most discipline. I was prescribed 3 sessions of radiation treatment to my brain where the mass was removed and 3 more to another area where an earlier test discovered a small mass. The procedure called for me to be fitted for a device that would allow the technicians to get radiation to a targeted area in my brain. I had to be strapped down with my head stationary while they zapped my brain.

The chemotherapy is to slow down the progression of the cancer in all areas of my body. While I have been told that I am holding up surprisingly well for a chemo patient, I have struggled at times. After my second week of chemotherapy I experienced fever and chills. It was discovered that this reaction was a result of a urinary tract infection (UTI), which was qualitatively the worst pain I had experienced since arriving at the hospital. On the night of the 23rd, I awoke no less than 20x crying in pain from the burning that accompanied my urination. The next day, because of my persistence, I was moved to a floor that specialized in infectious disease— fifth-floor MASH unit. They employed a team of nurses to analyze and treat the problem. In order to cure the UTI, I had to undergo a series of tests to identify the type of infection and proper treatment. Here, I received more effective antibiotics.

My UTI soon went away.

Not cured, but strong

This has been a difficult ordeal, fraught with lows and lower lows. I have been faced with difficult decisions regarding treatment options. I have had to confront head-on the aftermath of brain surgery and the debilitation that follows.

Since my arrival in the hospital I have had to daily engage in a battle, a war, against cancer. It may have temporarily taken away my ability to stand and walk to the bathroom on my own, but it has not taken away my resolve to fight. And each battle that I have faced, I have not faced alone. My family has been a constant source of support and companionship, giving me strength to face each battle head-on. I have also been blessed with home-cooked meals from my daughter-in-law Debbie Campbell and my daughter Dr. Damali Campbell that greatly aided in my food consumption and kept me strong during the chemotherapy.

I am not cured, but I am feeling stronger. I don’t know how many days I have remaining in this life. I feel great and have no pains at the current moment.

Outpourings of Love

I thank God. I thank my entire family, 8 children, 12 grandchildren, my wife and friends and relatives for the support given to me in making this journey possible.

I am thankful for the many calls, letters of concern, words of encouragement and overall outpouring of love.