It is not that I pay little attention to my blog here at State & Lake, I’ve actually been meaning to return here and spruce the place up a bit and get it organized or reorganized.  Earlier this year I decided to do a little spring cleaning and did a wholesale deletion of articles because the site had slowed to a crawl.  Unfortunately, I deleted a number of articles written on Michael Jackson and his bout with lupus and vitiligo.

Never in the life of this blog have I seen a post garner more than 6,000 views like the post on “Did Michael Jackson Have Discoid Or Systemic Lupus?“  Never.  I’ve had a few hit 1,000 views, some hit over 400, but not 6,000 plus.  It is my hope that this particular post educates people on what Michael Jackson went through in his life and I hope, going forward, everyone who has read it will stop and think before passing judgment on someone who may have an unseen and unknown disease.

And while I’m at it, I truly appreciate Diane Sawyer’s looking at lupus and not Jackson’s drug problems.  There was a reason for the drugs.  Her conversations with a rheumatologist and Jackson’s dermatologist while  asking the right questions was a beautiful thing to see.

About Drugs, People And Their Assumptions

Michael Jackson lived the classic example of what many of us experience when we hear the words “but you don’t look sick” or “if you hadn’t told me I would have never known [because you don't look sick].”  Just consider the many people who have been interviewed since Jackson’s passing and you will hear he didn’t look bad, he looked well and in good shape just prior to his death.  Depending on who is being interviewed either Jackson looked emaciated or he was the perfect picture of good health.  Truth is, he didn’t look sick but it is quite possible his immune system was kicking his butt.

A good deal is being said now about Jackson’s addiction to pain meds, xanax and propofol.  With all of this energy being spent on making him out to be a drug addict — which I’m not excusing — very little is being offered on why.  I used to take fist fulls of ibuprofen until my kidneys went south because of lupus.  Now, the only pain meds available to me are Vicodin and Oxycontin and I know where that will lead me.  Two male friends of mine, one with lupus, told me women have a higher tolerance to pain than men.  My male friend with lupus has told me he couldn’t survive this thing without his Vicodin, Xanax and sleep meds.

I don’t do Xanax or sleep meds.  I will occassionally do a Vicodin if the pain is too great to bear.  Now, if you are in my presence and find I am doing very little talking, it’s probably because I’m in a great deal of pain.  As many are wont to do, some have jumped through hoops of assumption believing I am either stuck or myself or being a butt head because of my silence.  Truth is, I’m conserving energy because I’m in a world of hurt and wish to do very little talking.  I’m not a pill popper.  I’m swallowing too many as it is and if I’m out of the house I definitely want to drive myself back to my house.

Because I have chosen to sit and look stupid with pain does not make me any better or worse than the person who is swallowing loads of pain meds, xanax or taking sleep meds.  I don’t like the effect of xanax and sleep meds do strange things to me.  Instead, I deal with it and have learned to live with two hours of sleep, 30 minutes of piddling around the house, another two hours of sleep, another 30 minutes of piddling around the house, two more hours of sleep and so on.  There are days I’ve had no sleep whatsoever.  Yes, I’ve had some 24-hour days of no sleep and when I have those days I’m sure to experience some hard hitting body pains or a flare of some sort soon.

Because I did not live in Jackson’s body I cannot tell you the extent of his pain, how tolerant he was to the pain, or how bad his insomnia was, but I do know I cannot judge him for what he felt he had to do in order to get over.  Sure, it might have taken him out of this world but, like Pavlov’s dogs, if you can get rid yourself of pain oh sure you’ll hit that lever as many times as you feel you need to hit it.

Prior to my being diagnosed with lupus I had the misfortune of experiencing panic attacks.  I had no idea my immune system had started attacking my thyroid, which I hear is common with lupus.  I lost a lot of weight, got down to 120 pounds, and was nervous, had feelings of breathlessness, and a whole assortment of other ailments.  During this time I actually thought I was going crazy.  At that time I was prescribed xanax and my goodness, what a wonderful drug.  It mellows you out and you feel all is right with the world.  Unfortunately my stomach or intestines did not agree with this assessment and gave me grief.  Though I felt good I was belching up a storm, maybe even a hurricane.  If it hadn’t been for the discomfort I too would be addicted to xanax.

The above gave way to two heart attacks.  I stopped talking about these because everyone assumed I was either looking for attention, was lying or “what you actually had was a panic attack.”  As noted above, I know about panic attacks.  When a doctor in emergency says you had a heart attack, you had a heart attack.  Right now, when I get EKGs, there is a blip that shows up on the chart and it told my cardiologist I had a heart attack way back when.  The panic attacks did not cause my left arm to be numb, did not cause pain to radiate into my jaw bone, cause me to be nauseous, didn’t feel like a elephant on my chest, and it didn’t make my body feel as if moving a limp would cause the elephant to sit harder on my chest.

I am currently on oral Cytoxan, I will be on IV Cytoxan at the end of the week.  I cannot tell you the many people who have assumed I have a perm in my head and with their ignorance comes the belief that the perm is the cause of hair loss.  The truth is I am on Cytoxan and it has changed the structure of my hair, thinned it and in some places I have lost hair.  One “down with the people” brother with dread locs down to his bum hole made a passive aggressive statement about me while we stood in line at a store.  He said “my people, my people, why do we self hate so much we’re willing to use chemicals that will take our hair out.”  I am so tired of ignorant folks who make assumptions based on their limited knowledge I had to flip the bro a look and ask “are you talking about me?”

Mr. “down with the people” then furthered his ignorance by telling me — the one walking around with this body and head — that I bought into the white man’s game by putting chemicals in my hair and “it’s damaging your scalp.”  I asked him “you mean the Cytoxan?”  Bro had no idea what that is.  I told him I’m on a chemo drug called Cytoxan which has changed the texture of my hair and it has taken my hair out.  Since he was fully invested in his ignorance he decided to swallow his knees and said “I’m sorry, you have cancer?”  He went on to say his aunt was on chemo and it took all of her hair out.  My trying to tell this idiot the difference between chemo done every week versus pulse treatments or oral chemo was like talking to a brick, it fell on deaf ears.

His knowledge of the world did not extend past the nose on his face and he did not want to know anything past his nose.  That is why, even if Jackson told the world he had lupus, no one would have heard him.  In fact, in a recent interview with Quincy Jones on Men.Style.com, Quincy says of Michael:

Q: You were there to witness the strange evolution in Michael’s appearance. Did you ever step in and saying anything about it?
A: Oh, we talked about it all the time. But he’d come up with, “Man, I promise you I have this disease,” and so forth, and “I have a blister on my lungs,” and all that kind of b.s. It’s hard, because Michael’s a Virgo, man—he’s very set in his ways. You can’t talk him out of it. Chemical peels and all that stuff.

Q: Did you believe him about the disease?
A: I don’t believe in any of that bullshit, no. No. Never. I’ve been around junkies and stuff all my life. I’ve heard every excuse. It’s like smokers—”I only smoke when I drink” and all that stuff. But it’s bullshit. You’re justifying something that’s destructive to your existence. It’s crazy. I mean, I came up with Ray Charles, man. You know, nobody gonna pull no wool over my eyes. He did heroin 20 years! Come on. And black coffee and gin for 40 years. But when he called me to come over to see him when he was in the hospital on his way out, man, he had emphysema, hepatitis C, cirrhosis of the liver, and five malignant tumors. Please, man! I’ve been around this all my life. So it’s hard for somebody to pull the wool over my eyes. But when somebody’s hell-bent on it, you can’t stop ‘em.

Q: But it must’ve been so disturbing to see Michael’s face turn into what it turned into.
A: It’s ridiculous, man! Chemical peels and all of it. And I don’t understand it. But he obviously didn’t want to be black.

You see, why bother telling folks when they are going to believe whatever they want to believe about you and it’s unfortunate.

Bottom line and if I may be so bold to say this, it is probably best Jackson died now while he was still on top — having sold out his O2 concerts within minutes — than to have died a caricature of himself, poor, broken and unable to get a single soul into a seat.  Now we can learn about Jackson the man, all he suffered, know he still possessed a heart of gold in spite of all he suffered, and perhaps, hopefully, learn something from this:  Do not judge.

I am not without sin myself because, as a young woman who knew nothing about lupus sans telling myself I was born a lemon, I too said Jackson was the white man who used to be black and I thought he dropped himself in a vat of Ambi to change his color.  It was not until I was formally diagnosed in 2005, at 47, that I realized all I had experienced in my life was what I saw Jackson go through.  As I taped my fingers I thought about him.  As I considered wigs to wear when I first went through Cytoxan, I thought about him.  When I met a friend of mine with lupus carrying an umbrella, I thought about him.  As I purchased more wide brimmed cowboy hats, I thought about him.  I got past the nose on my own stupid face when I was confronted with formal knowledge of the disease I’ve had all of my life.  Surprise, surprise.

So yes, I have a post here that has hit more than 6,000 views and I hope for everyone who has read it, or other similar posts on the web, that we all take a minute and consider what we say and do to or with one another, that we take Jackson’s life as an example to Heal The World, understand “the blood inside of you is inside of me.”  We are all one and let’s not judge someone because it is outside of your realm of understanding.  Open your mind for a change and learn something.

Forget Michael Jackson the so-called drug addict.  Consider Michael Jackson the man who lost his childhood to stardom and this same man lost his adulthood to lupus.  I cannot imagine the amount of psychological or personal pain the perfectionist experienced when he saw himself, his health, etc., disintegrating.

His 30th Anniversary concert in New York in 2001 showed a man no longer having fun and I noted he was a lot larger then — probably due to prednisone which, as an aside and according to TMZ, was found at Neverland Ranch when the sheriffs went in.  I know that “take with food or milk” warning. I don’t know how many milligrams of Prednisone he was on but if he dropped suddenly from this medication, OMG, he might have been one depressed human being because this drug takes the place of your adrenals.  A high dose will make you feel on top of the world and you can build Trump Tower in a day.  As you are being weaned, you hit the floor emotionally and the pain creeps back into your life.  It’s a hard drug.  Don’t have a bad accident while on this drug.

One more thing I would like to address and it pertains to Jackson’s vitiligo.  Universal Vitiligo happens when most of a person’s body is affected.  Typically, when 50% or more of the body is affected, creams are used to even out the skin tone and the choice is to go with the lighter color instead of the darker because the person’s body is going in that direction anyway.  If a small portion of his body were affected, other treatments would have been considered to make him darker.

John Howard Griffin, in his book Black Like Me, took high doses of Oxsoralen and exposed his body to 15 hours of UV light each day for a week.  The high dose of Oxsoralen put him in a dangerous place.  What Griffin did exposed him to serious health hazards and as a result, he had to have liver panels taken constantly.

Generally, Oxsoralen is prescribed to those with vitiligo but it has to be small as in focal, segmental, or acrofacial.  Universal or Vitiligo Vulgaris is something different and this is what Jackson had.

With that, since I talk about a lot of things on this blog, particularly lupus, you’ll see more posts here on Michael Jackson as more info comes out.  I would like to know more about the extent of his lupus beyond the skin or discoid lupus.

I also hope Jackson is never buried at Neverland because he vowed to never return there.  I do hope he is buried somewhere safe, unlike what happened to the grave site of Elvis Presley after his burial.

And Now Martin Bashir’s Confession

I want to thank Jess for sharing this link