Front Street Weekly; 619

Oh. [music] And. You. Investigators traced it to human error. Now hundreds of cancer patients live with the knowledge that they were overdosed during radiation treatments. A report from Bam. What's it like to be one sex in the physical world and the opposite sex in your mind. A study of transsexuals: Meet those who altered their bodies to resolve the conflict. And those who have not. [music] And winter sports like you've never seen. We'll travel to Mt. Hood and meet the people who make up a shared outdoor adventure recreation, also known as soaring. Good evening and welcome to Front Street Weekly. I'm Jim Swenson. And we're here in Central

Oregon with a story about radiation -- the kind of radiation that's supposed to help people. Only here in Bend, something went very wrong. "The tissues were just. Too red and sore and along with the dysentery the pain was just, oh I don't even like think about it; it was just almost more than I could endure. Seventy-three year old Lila Brown found radiation therapy so uncomfortable she gave up before completing her last two treatments for cancer of the uterus. Now two years later Brown wishes she had never agreed to the therapy in the first place. She is one of 592 patients inadvertently overdosed with radiation at St. Charles Hospital's cancer treatment center in Bend, Oregon. Eighty-two year old George Hubble is another.

"They cut me open to see what the [inaudible] the pain was and found my little intestine tied in a knot. They took 6 feet of them out. And what did your surgeon say? Said it was caused, and the records are there, caused from the radiation. I feel my body has been it's been invaded, it's been... I can't think of the term I want to use right now. But I just feel that I wouldn't do it if I had to do it over again. [inaudible] St. Charles Medical Center sits on the high desert country of central Oregon. It houses the only radiation treatment center in the state east of the Cascade Mountains. The linear accelerator installed there in December of 1982 is a sophisticated complex machine. But like any piece of medical equipment it is only as good as the people behind it. [electrical whirring]

For three and a half years from the time the machine was first used, the linear accelerator delivered doses of radiation 14 percent higher than the doctors had ordered. The hospital says the company hired to calibrate the machine, Northwest Medical Physics of Seattle, used the wrong barometric pressure to set the accelerator. Northwest Medical Physics refused to comment for our report, but the error was repeated over and over again. Yet pressure correction is a routine step outlined in standards and widely distributed by the American Association of Physicists in Medicine. Quote: "The reader is reminded that most common barometric reports and instruments relate to a specific elevation. Serious errors could result if these instruments or reports were used without proper correction." We had three different physicists that have checked the calibration of the equipment. And how could they all three missed the error?

And it seems they all misread the barometer. And set the calibration for sea level instead of 3,620 feet elevation. As soon as the error was discovered, the machine was properly calibrated and the hospital asked 2 oncologists, doctors who specialize in cancer, to review the cases of the overdosed patients. The impression of the oncologist that did the review, was that the treatments that were ordered,we were very conservative in the amount of radiation therapy that was ordered. Of the 592, about 450 is still fell within the normal range of treatment given for their particular type of cancer. Sister Catherine claims that patients who may be at some risk of developing unusual side effects have not done so. Lila Brown admits her doctor warned her that radiation therapy could cause the problems that she suffers from, fatigue, bowel, and bladder problems. But she has filed a lawsuit claiming

that her discomfort is more severe because the machine was not properly calibrated. Well it's going to do damage regardless of what dosage you receive. And I wish that I had had that extra 14 percent. "How are you doing Nancy?" "I'm fine." Radiation works by killing cancer cells. The trick is to kill the cancer without damaging too much normal tissue. Every case is different. As Dr. Richard Lowy of Portland St. Vincent Hospital explains. As an example, of a resistant tumor and the problems we have would be say like, the common brain tumors. They are not sensitive enough to give, in most cases adequate doses of radiation to destroy them. Without affecting to the point of destroying normal brain tissue. And so we don't do well with that kind of a disease. If you look at something like Hodgkin's disease or

lymphoma, there, the tumors are much more sensitive. And though they may cover an enormous part of the body, We rarely run into serious complications. And certainly the disease is curable by radiation. Dr. Lloyd cannot comment directly about the incident at St. Charles Hospital. He has been asked to serve as an expert witness by an attorney representing a former St. Charles patient. But several respected oncologists say a 14 percent overdose of radiation might benefit some cancer patients, make little difference to others, or in some cases, be devastating. Dozens of lawsuits are expected to be filed in Deschutes County, but a circuit court judge recently rejected a request for a class action certification. Each case will be handled separately. In hindsight Saint Charles has taken some steps to prevent future problems. First, the hospital has added an experienced physicist to its staff. That's no guarantee that problems won't occur, but an

inexperienced physicist was blamed for a radiation disaster that occurred a decade ago in Columbus, Ohio. There are some 400 patients who are overdosed. Some by as much as 40 percent. More and more, large treatment facilities are hiring physicists certified by the American Board of Radiation. But some smaller institutions don't feel they can afford one. We're moving in a direction where that's not enough. And any time you have a situation or sort of a crisis situation where something terrible happens, then you say we must improve our standards. Secondly, St. Charles has begun to double check the calibration of its linear accelerator. We bring in other independent physicist at random. No scheduled check, for us to be assured that this could not occur again. The original error in Bend was not discovered by St. Charles but by researchers from the

M.D. Anderson hospital in Houston, Texas. Had St. Charles not been a participant in that research, The over radiation might have continued indefinitely. All radiation equipment must be licensed by the state of Oregon and treatment facilities are required to perform certain tests. But the law does not require the kind of testing that revealed that error in Bend. The national president of the American Association of Businesses in Madison is calling for spot checks by government agencies to assure that radiation equipment is properly calibrated. And the chairman of that association, Radiation Therapy Committee says the cancer treatment centers should employ at least one radiological physicist. Many do not. And in Oregon, there have been no attempts to tighten the rules. No matter what you do, you're going to find either equipment failures or some kinds of errors either calibration or even judgment that's going to take place. And I don't know how you regulate that. When you're dealing with life and death stuff and you're burning up

tissue, which is what radiation does ,I think you should have state regulations and state examiners checking these machines on a annual basis. And that hasn't been done. I'm not sure that's going to be done but I think it should be. Attorney Thomas Seale represents a Portland woman whose mother died after receiving radiation therapy at St. Charles Hospital. Seale admits it will be difficult to prove the 74 year-old woman was a victim of over radiation because her cancer had been diagnosed as terminal. When your doctor tells you or an oncologist tells you particularly that you should have another five years to live and you die couple of weeks later, makes you wonder why. And then there are those such as George Hubble, who envy the dead. I know how these people feel, I know how I feel. This is going to last as long as they live. For some of them, that's not going to be very long.

Next up, Marilyn Deutsch in Portland with a report on some men who would rather be women. From a distance, Heather and her two children look like any other family spending a Saturday afternoon in the park. But this family has a secret. Heather is not the kid's mother. She is their father. [inaudible] the apartment, my car and everything else. How did you feel when you first saw your father dressed as a woman? Afraid. She did what she did. It's just the way it's going to be. Three years ago, a $10,000 sex change operation helped turn a husky 28 year old brakeman for the railroad, into a flirtatious blonde. After four hours of surgery, Tom fulfilled a lifelong ambition to become a woman. I just know I was different than other little boys. As I grew up, and in adolescence, I began to realize what it really was, and that I really

did feel cheated, that I should've been born female. And I tried to deal with that and tried to fight it and tried to ignore it. And through the years, and it just didn't work. Before Tom became Heather he married, fathered two children, and as often as possible, he dolled himself up, trying to look as much like a woman as his strapping 190 pound frame would allow. I don't think I was repulsed by being a man. I was uncomfortable being a man. I'm comfortable being a woman. And I'm attracted to being a woman. I feel like I'm in my right place now. It is almost impossible to understand what it means to be transsexual. It is not simply someone who dresses up as the opposite sex such as a transvestite. And I don't want to be a full time female. I only want to do this part time because I still like being a guy. But male transsexuals do not want to be guys. They want to be heterosexual women. I suppose really it's a mental problem

because The intense wish to be and live an agenda opposite from the one that your anatomy says you are. It would be a mental phenomenon yes. For the last ten years, Dr. Jeffrey Hyde has treated roughly 200 transsexuals here in the Northwest. The Beaverton psychiatrist, like others who have studied transsexualism, can give you no hard data on how often it occurs. You can neither prescribe a cure nor tell you why the phenomenon exists. Early theories had to do with child raising but now scientists believe transsexualism may be physiological. In brain tissue, there are receptors for sex hormones. And there are some conditions that you get whereby we know that the receptors for these hormones are the absent or non-responsive. So you make it a normal level of hormones in the body. But the body can't respond to them. And this abnormality may mean that some people, and no one believes we're talking about more than a tiny

fraction of one percent of the population, but that some people cannot identify with their own gender. Was it just a matter of you wanting to do the kinds of things that girls were doing? Or was it something else? Partly. I felt that it was more of an inside, you know, within me. I felt emotionally feminine and female. What does that mean.? I don't know. [laughs] I felt that I had the emotional structure of a woman rather than a man. It's the only junior size 13 that I was able to get into a normal size 14. I pay attention to more detail on important things now like women do. Heather like many other transsexuals confused, about their own sex, tend to be pretty sexist. One might think in late 20th century America that looser sex roles would free transsexuals. That does not seem to be the case.

I'm not a feminist. I like to be treated like a lady. It's a part the reason I did this. I wanna be treated like a lady and expect such. Kissing. I like being kissed instead of having to be the kisser. Make up has to be just right. Clothes has to be just right. Hair has to be just right. For all of Heather's old fashioned femininity, she still works as a brakeman for Southern Pacific. The surgery that helped Tom become Heather is long, complicated, and costly. Oregon Health Sciences University is the only local hospital that performs the operations. Perhaps just three a year. If you're going from male to female you're taking something off and making a pocket basically and you can use the parts and slide them. Turning a woman into a man is a lot tougher, Often requiring skin grafts, and sometimes using parts of arms and legs to fashion male genitals. This is not as successful as the male to female surgery. And I can have,

And have had an active sex life and enjoy sex. And someone sleeping with you, will not necessarily know? No. I don't have to tell. And have not told men. Because of the operations cost, most insurance companies do not cover it. Very few transsexuals ever have what's formally called sexual reassignment surgery. Most come to grips with their problem by living lives of duplicity. I do not identify with men. My gender orientation is feminine. And I have fought with myself for over 40 years to establish a stronger male identity. [inaubible] Scott Abernathy is a field engineer for AT&T. Typical of most transsexuals, at work he is straight-laced. At home, he struggles with buttons on frilly blouses and fits his feet into size 13

pumps. When you look at yourself, stark naked in the mirror what do you see, what do you feel? I look at myself and say this can't be. It's trying to live as two separate cells. Which created probably the biggest amount of conflict When I got married, I went into the service, I thought this is all gonna go away. Someday, I'm going to grow up. I'm going to be a man. We haven't been married three months and I was out playing my womanly role again. In other words, you were sneaking out, dressing up as a woman and your wife never knew about it. No. For 25 years, she never knew about it. As obvious as some transsexuals look, most just say they want to fade into the woodwork. I think the main thing is not so much accepting us as something different. It's

blending in and not being noticed as something different. Jim or Sara takes hormones. All these men do. But none has had a sex change operation. Tom calls himself Kelly. He's a construction worker. Jim sees himself only as Sara and wears makeup and skirts to work. Experts say that for some unknown reason there are two to five times as many male transsexuals, like the men you see here, as there are female transsexuals like Patrick. Patrick Jocelyn was once Patricia Jocelyn. In April of '85, I had a double mastectomy. In August, I had a hysterectomy. And then in December of '85, I had a vaginectomy. [chuckle] So I said OK. That's enough. I need a year off. Because I was pretty wiped out. So right now you're somewhat neutral? Really. Very neutral. But eventually you would like to have male

genitals? That's coming up next. There is a debate among doctors over just how successful sex change surgery is. After all, you cannot make a broad shouldered six foot tall man seemed dainty and petite. And the emotional toll is enormous. Heather rarely talks to her parents, brothers, and ex-wife. She sees her children two days a month. Heather cannot go home anymore. It's very hard emotionally because you feel totally alone. Loneliness isn't doing things alone. Loneliness is knowing that your family doesn't want anything to do with you. Still, Heather, like most transsexuals who go through surgery, would not turn back the clock. I see in the mirror the woman that I had imagined that I would become. And I am. Next up: Skiing. It's a favorite winter sport in this area and tonight you'll meet some people who hit the slopes, thanks to Shared Outdoor Adventure Recreation

better known as S.O.A.R. "OK. Ready? Set. Go!" [skiing] [cheering] Broke my back on a motorcycle racing in the mountains. I never skied before though. I'm an athlete and then I was into river rafting and then SOAR had this program with its skis and my feeling is any way you get from point A to Point B without a wheelchair is ideally ??? and I would like to do it. I went through lessons, two years, and then I think with third year I bought my own sled. It was nice to be able to go up there and ride ticket and go up and start skiing on my own. That's a good feeling. So what's the snow feel like to you? Oh it's great, it looks great. If it's packed, it's good. I grab in and get a really good grip and keep my speed under control. I'm using There are my poles. I kind of made these myself. I kind of

took one and improvised and redid it sort of. So I've got these I use for brakes and these I use for just kind of pushing along and then kind of gliding along, gliding, kind of keeping my balance. We'll go down a mountain kids and people, kids have the funniest expressions they'll come out with. Like, "wow, check that out?" You tell em, you wanna - you have to be a double amp or paralyzed and then you can get in one, then they're like, "Oh that's okay, I don't need to get in one that bad." SOAR really helps when, I don't care how strong or how active you are, sometimes you need special equipment, people to help, and really technical things and SOAR is definitely the one to go to when it comes to sailing, kayaking, rafting, hiking, skiing. They go out of their way to adapt special equipment for your needs. Did you ski before? No. So this is the first time? The very first time and I love it.

And you wonder what you've been missing the whole time? Right. Well I'm hooked now. One, two, three, lift. No, don't hold it up. Thanks. Well I've always liked activity. I mean, I was really active before my accident and I've never really found anything since outdoors like this that I could really do. And so this just really enables me to feel that need to do something exciting and new. My name is Carl Hay I'm presently the president of the board of SOAR. I've taken programs with SOAR, I've volunteered in programs with SOAR, I think I've done about everything one time or another. Each person is really challenged to go as far as they can with any particular skill and I think that that's really what SOAR does for people is it brings them into a structured, safe

situation and yet doesn't coddle them. It forces them to meet themselves and to challenge themselves and to go as far as they can go. Good turns, you've got a lot of confidence here, huh? Yeah, so we're good. People seem to really think it was sort of rather neat, you know, wow, you're going skiing. It's an addition to my life just as it would be an addition to an able bodied life experience. It's something really exciting, something new in our lives and I think it's a real asset. Now that that there is a project like SOAR. What's neat about SOAR is they won't hold you back, they'll just let you do as much as you can, and prove to them that you can do it safely and you'll just continue to advance. [music]

All right! 10 seconds on the combine two times. Got me by ten seconds. I try to really I tried to really open up on my last one. I'm really going for it. God, you're going that speed, all you gotta do is just make the wrong little gesture you're over compensated or under compensated. Yeah that last run I felt good on. You looked good. I was hitting the right berms and everything, it was just kind of falling into place and I was going, all right, come on, let's go! I would just say that SOAR is probably one of the best groups that work with the severely handicapped. And they really go out of their way to do it. What SOAR means to me is that, it gives me an extension of my own life. And it allows me to experience some new things that I never really thought I could experience. It really enhances my life, I think. Everybody likes a good challenge and this is definitely it. Now let's take a look at what's coming up next week on Front Street

Weekly. A look at Oregon's efforts to designate trauma care hospitals. Trauma care is a medical issue. But it's also becoming a competitive political battle. We'll see some children who are learning how they can protect themselves. Crimes against juveniles are increasing. We will show you how you and your children can keep the statistics down. And Jack Ohman of The Oregonian is America's youngest syndicated editorial cartoonist. He points out the foibles of presidents and politicians. But how does he know where to draw the line? And that's Front Street weekly for this week from Central Oregon. This is Jim Swenson. Good night.