Inditer dot Com Index - - - Inditer dot Com Main PageAnother Important Message From The Editor September 26, 2000This time our message concerns a long time contributor, stand-up-poet, all round good guy and friend. Ric Masten has been dealt a blow by cancer and has a deal for us to partake in. But, we shall allow Ric Masten himself to tell you about it:
"As you probably know I have advanced Prostate Cancer ? metastatic --meaning already out of the prostate capsule having invaded the pelvis bone) In January of this year I became hormone refractory (in other words, traditional treatments - orchectomy (which I had at the very beginning of this odyssey, 4/12/99) and hormone blockade drugs such as Casodex are no longer effective. Traditional medicine at this point in time can only offer last-ditch stand treatments like chemotherapy and radiation. Stop gap measures at best usually not very effective with men in my situation. My doctor recently began using the word "terminal" -- but then aren’t we all? If the above interests you, or stirs a bone or two, please contact Ric directly at his website. - www.ricmasten.com
On the Internet I have discovered a well documented but not FDA approved Chinese herbal treatment called PC SPES. Made by BotanicLab in Brea, California. I decided to give it a try, and low and behold the stuff works - drove my PSA number from 11.9 down to 1.42 in five months. Up to this point keeping it at 3 or under ? it was as high as 81 the day of the orchectomy! This is wonderful, except for the cost of the damn stuff. $420 per month for the dosage that works for me. Medicare won't cover alternative treatments and in fact I can't even write it off on my income tax. This is stretching Billie Barbara and I out pretty thin financially but I shouldn't complain -- at least I'm still here enjoying the sunsets and smelling the roses.
Enter my long time friend Ron Cook -- most recently involving Barbara March of the Carmel Publishing Company. The rascals have talked me into bringing out a special limited edition of my Words & One-liners (poems illustrated with single line drawings) A fancy hardcover deal, numbered and in a box with some handwork by me ? at a cost of $100 bucks per limited edition copy, also an accompanying cheaper paperback edition for general public consumption. They are already compiling a list of people who want to purchase one of the limited edition volumes and the length of the list is surprisingly long and causing me to constantly tear up.
My Words & One-liners have been in the newspaper (Monterey County Herald, weekly, for seven years) and online at my web-site - www.ricmasten.com , and, or course, right here at Inditer dot Com, but never published properly in a book.
Since 1971 twelve different volumes of my poetry have been published, but not with my artwork. The seed money to underwrite this project has already been raised by a group of generous well healed friends. People who have offered to pay for my PC SPES up front. But were turned down ? my stupid pride not allowing me to except that kind of tin-cup charity. But when Ron came up with the limited edition W&O book idea it felt different than excepting flat out gift money from my friends. So now, I am up to my ears doing the grunt work, trying to put together 60 to 80 of my best W & Os and produce a bunch of new ones that I feel are good enough for publication. A diversion that seems to be just what the doctor ordered.
To know how many limited edition copies to produce Barbara March at Carmel Publishing has asked me if I would also send out an early notification to my personal snail-mail and E-mail addresses. Know that folks who do put their names on the list will be notified, probably in February of 2001 as to how the project is coming and when the books will be ready to ship."
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