Who are Gypsies?

Are you getting mental images from the Hunchback of Notre Dame? I am!

This whole business about Gypsies came from my writing handbook, actually. Put me in a mass media course and blogs about Gypsies is what you get out! It never even occurred to me that you couldn’t use the word “gyp” because it would be offensive to gypsies.

Do we even have gypsies in Oklahoma? How do you even write about that – do you capitalize it? Upon consultation of my handy dandy AP Stylebook…yep, has to be capitalized. I like that Gypsies are in the AP stylebook!

Merriam Webster and The Oxford English Dictionary both list gyp as a legit verb. The Oxford includes additional literature references that use gipped and gyped and gypped. Discrepancy! Guess which one is approved by the Facebook spell check? “Gypped.” I dunno who made THAT executive decision.

I am sad to admit that I don’t even know if Gypsy refers to a race slash ethnic group, as one would use Latino, or if it’s more of a lifestyle and can be used to describe nomadic tribes that come from anywhere circa Asia or northeastern Africa….preferably those that come dressed in brightly colored scarves with bells attached.

Stereotypes are horrible, horrible things.

I wonder what you would get if you took a few hundred college students and asked them what a Gypsy was? A Google search for “gypsy” gives you a lot of random information. Such as….the word Gypsy is supposed to have been derived from the word Egyptian, but now we don’t really think they came from Egypt? Kinda sketchy.

I asked my roommate and she told me they were persecuted by the Nazis during WWII and actually called Roma.

You get that exact information on the third search result. Good job Elizabeth! That made it a little higher up than Hunchback of Notre Dame. You win this time!

James "Rhio" O'Connor Memorial Scholarship Essay Contest

I know how it feels to want something really bad that you are told you will never have.

My junior year of high school, our choir director announced that we would be taking a two week tour to Washington D.C. at the end of the year. It would be the culmination of everything we had learned in the choral program, a chance to show off everything we had learned in performances and a regional competition, and the chance of a lifetime to tour the nation’s capitol and the surrounding states with our closest friends. The thought of actually standing before the Lincoln Memorial, a monument to one of my most cherished heroes, the words upon which I knew by heart, was enough to make my heart skip a beat. The problem? It would cost thirteen hundred dollars, an unheard of amount of money for my family. Somehow I convinced my parents that I could earn the money, and we signed the commitment form.

I spent the next seven months doing everything in my power to collect those thirteen hundred precious dollars. I fried tacos at fairs and festivals, I delivered flowers all over town, I saved babysitting money, and begged my relatives for Christmas money to add to the savings.

On April 28, 2008 I stood before the Lincoln Memorial. As I looked out across the reflecting pool to the Washington Monument, I was able to remember every moment of frustration throughout those seven months, and I knew then that every grease burn from the taco stand had been worth it.

Though I was very proud of myself for earning the money to achieve my goal of going on the choir tour, there are bigger battles in life. I made the choice to take on the task of earning thirteen hundred dollars, but there are people who find themselves facing a fight they never asked for or agreed to, fights in which more than a school trip is involved.

Mesothelioma is a rare cancer found in the mesothelium, the membrane that lines the body’s organs. Pleural mesothelioma is the most common form of this disease, found in the tissue that lines the lungs. It can also be found in the chest cavity, the abdomen, and the heart. Mesothelioma is caused by exposure to asbestos, a malignant mineral formerly found in everything from filtered cigarettes to brake pads to pipe and ceiling insulation. When inhaled it can be fatal, though symptoms might not occur for several decades, and even then it is often not diagnosed right away. By then it is likely that the cancer has progressed to its final stages, and options are few and unpromising. Radiation, chemotherapy, and surgery are the most common forms of treatment. People who have been diagnosed with mesothelioma are usually given a year or less to live, depending on their overall physical health, length of asbestos exposure, and the treatment plan.

Rhio O’Connor was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2001 at the age of sixty one. Doctors told him that surgery was not possible due to the location of the tumor, and that his choices were to enjoy his last months of life before resigning himself to hospice care or to undergo chemotherapy treatment, an extremely painful and expensive option.

Rhio chose neither option.

He refused to accept that his life would end in the way all knowledgeable medical professionals told him it would. Instead he set out to discover what was really going on in his body and find out for himself if there were alternative options available.

Rhio researched his cancer intensively, and joined with clinicians to create his own treatment plan. Using his newfound knowledge, he combined mind-body medicine, a new diet which included vitamins and other supplements, and the power of optimism. Rhio did not reject medicine and doctors completely, in fact he sought out the science behind his new diet and supplements. He continued this regimen, and enjoyed seven years of life before his eventual death in July of 2009.

It is hard for me to imagine standing in his shoes to receive the diagnosis no one wants to hear, realizing that life as I knew it had ended, and disregarding accepted medical treatment and men and women with years of medical training to place my own life solely in my ability to overcome cancer by my own discipline. Most college students have enough trouble disciplining themselves to stay out of trouble and keep up with coursework, much less have the courage to fight the unfightable, and win.

I often find myself stubbornly refusing to write that detested English paper, or read that last assignment for class. Procrastination is easy when you can justify to yourself sliding through a general education class with a low B. I would like to imagine that if reading could save my life, I would be able to find a source of motivation I had never had in my years of schooling.

As a would-be cancer survivor, I would need to start reading books and websites on the recommended forms of treatment to learn exactly what would be done to me and the effects that would be left on my body. I would need to learn about these processes in my own words, not the words of the doctors who had such a different view of my chances for survival.

Anyone who looks at a list of the side effects of this treatment will find it hard to swallow. The easiest part of Rhio’s story for me to identify with personally is the unwillingness to subject your body, sick as it is, to the devastating effects of the chemicals. It is easy to reject a torturous chemical regimen as an option, but more difficult to decide where to go from there.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, I would imagine that a single first person account from someone who has been through treatment would be worth a thousand articles on the effects of chemotherapy or radiation. My newly acquired knowledge would give me the ability to have informed conversations with cancer patients, but their stories of treatments would be the living proof of what I had read.

Rhio found a treatment plan that worked for him. He said no to chemotherapy, no to cancer.

Corrie ten Boom once said “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength.” An ordinary man chose not to while away his last few months of life in worry and pain and successfully fought mesothelioma for seven years.

The power you already have inside of you can beat death. I may return to Washington D.C., not as a tourist, but as a congressman or an ambassador, to change the world, even find a cure for cancer. I have no bounds.