posted
Someone in our support group was able to contact Greatcod's brother. She reports that his brother sounded very caring and nice. Greatcod's name was Harold Roy.
Last Wednesday the police were called to his apartment and found Harold dead. As in all unattended deaths, his body was sent to Boston for an autopsy, and the results are not yet back and no arrangements have been made.
I thought it would be nice if each of you who appreciated Harold's wit and his Greatcod posts would share your thoughts here. His brother would probably appreciate seeing some of his posts as well.
I will print this out and send it to him. Or if you would prefer, you can send a card to him. Cameron Roy 17 Hamilton Rd. Cranston, RI 02910
His brother also expressed the wish to come to Cape Cod and share in a service for him. We are pleased about that.
Many thanks. I do not know how to put this on the Lyme Memorial Page, but perhaps one of you will.
[ 24. July 2008, 06:31 PM: Message edited by: nan ]
-------------------- nan Posts: 2135 | From Tick Country | Registered: Oct 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Harold/GreatCod, we're going to miss your witty posts!
For anyone who wants to read what he wrote in his 3 years here, his member # was 7002. Not only did he post here on LN, but on other boards with the GreatCod name also.
I'll be praying for comfort for his family and friends......
posted
If I were to have a final post here, I would want it to be as witty as his final post -- on the thread "Why do only nice people get Lyme" -- I have Lyme and I'm not very nice!
It still makes me smile.
Thank you for the update. My condolences to the family.
Please keep us posted on the cause of death.
-------------------- sixgoofykids.blogspot.com Posts: 13449 | From Ohio | Registered: Feb 2007
| IP: Logged |
Tracy9
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 7521
posted
World of wonder in Lyme bacterium
By HAROLD ROY
I don't know much about God or science, but find myself fascinated by the current debate between intelligent design advocates and evolutionists which is going on largely in Bible belt states.
The ID folks argue that some intervening intelligent being creates life in its multiplicity of forms. The evolutionists see a random and incessant process of slow changes producing the most robust life forms, for that time and place, anyway.
I personally believe that evolution is God's way of getting the results he wants, and that he has a lot of fun doing it. But I don't know for sure, and don't expect to.
Each of us is awesome-a universe of billions of cells, awash in oceans of bio-chemicals. One celled bacteria were quite different, dull, or so I thought.
I was raking leaves at a home near Lake Wequaquet on a Saturday in April 1986. On Monday, I felt very weak, and was at a doctor's by Thursday. I had three reddish oval rashes on my chest, but back then, physicians were looking for the now ''classic'' bulls eye rashes, so my Lyme Disease went undiagnosed.
I recovered some on my own, without treatment, but had numerous relapses over the next months.
A year after the tick bite, I could barely get out of bed. For the next eight years, I was diagnosed, wrongly, with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
In 1995, my Lyme was detected by an astute physician to whom I went to for another problem. In the next years I received substantial oral anti-biotic treatment. It lifted me out of the zombie category, but I never will be genuinely healthy.
All the symptoms continue, less severe, and so does the characteristic cycling. Now, depending on who I ask, I have Chronic Lyme Disease with continuing infection and an up-regulated immune system, or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, cause unknown , or Fibromyalga Syndrome, cause unknown, or Post Lyme Syndrome, with an auto-immune etiology.
I became curious about why medicine has so many different views of the same set of symptoms.
The dispute is over whether the causative agent of Lyme, the spirochete bacterium Borrellia Burgdorferi (Bb), eludes both the immune system and significant courses of antibiotic treatment, as some say, or if the host individual experiences some sort of post-infectious syndrome. The debate is heated, to say the least. Other spirochetes cause syphilis and Relapsing Fever.
These Bb little guys are only 20 microns, 20 millionths of a meter long. They move with the aid of flagella, like little worms with several sets of legs.
They sequester in numerous tissues, preferring neural tissue. Bb's locomotive capacities allow it to move from through the skin and into the blood stream, then into other parts of the body including the brain.
Antigenic variation is another tactic of Bb survival, and is a very interesting phenomenon. Bacteria have Outer Surface Proteins (OSPs), or antigens, to which the humoral immune system develops antibodies which then attack and destroy the bacterium.
Antigenic variation gives the bacterium the capacity to up-regulate (increase the number) or down regulate specific OSPs, presenting a complex and varying pattern to the immune system. A set of antibodies sufficient to control the bacteria's spread at one point becomes inadequate later.
Other cards up Bb's sleeve are that, in the host, it can exist in alternate forms, against which antibiotics are ineffective. It has a cyst form, an egg- like mode from which the full bacterium can later emerge.
Another variation is a cell wall deficient form, which protected it from antibiotics which attack cell walls. Bb also exchanges DNA with others of its kind. This is the mechanism which produces bacterial antibiotic resistance, which has become a very serious medical problem.
Bacteria have been shown to communicate bio-chemically with each other. Bb may be one of those with this capacity, and there is evidence that it produces neurotoxins.
So, our agile little friend is quite gifted, a wondrous thing really, not merely a brainless one cell simpleton.
It uses it complex strategies to survive and reproduce, as do we all. As with the AIDs virus, it is small but not fragile, and is no easy foe. It seems quite plausible that it may be extremely hard to eradicate.
It was Blake who asked that we see a world in a grain of sand. I have come to understand that there is a stunning beauty to Bb and other bacteria.
Even the smallest living things, including those which may harm or kill us as they live out their lives, are gloriously endowed.
Whether life is designed or evolves, or both, it displays a complexity and magnificence to its many forms that speaks of more than we can ever know.
13 years Lyme & Co.; Small Fiber Neuropathy; Myasthenia Gravis, Adrenal Insufficiency. On chemo for 2 1/2 years as experimental treatment for MG. Posts: 4480 | From Northeastern Connecticut | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
Melanie Reber
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 3707
posted
Hi Nan,
I added Harold to the Memorial yesterday when I read of his passing. Thank you for the family information and for the additional news.
I am so terribly sorry for all who knew and loved him.
Melanie
Posts: 7052 | From Colorado | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
bettyg
Unregistered
posted
tracy,
thank you for posting harold's post above; well done and thought-provoking!
IP: Logged |
posted
There is a special sadness that comes from learning about the passing of a wonderful person that I never had the chance to know.
GreatCod was clearly one of those people. =) Thanks for sharing his legacy.
-------------------- Wishing You Showers Of Blessings! Lyme since Fall 1983 = Diagnosed Summer 2008 IV Rocephin 7 weeks Stopped due to drug fever Now doxycycline "For I know the plans I have for you...plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11 Posts: 430 | From Sunny South | Registered: Jul 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
Nan, is there really a town called Ctanston? This looks like a typo maybe.
Posts: 8430 | From Not available | Registered: Oct 2000
| IP: Logged |
13 years Lyme & Co.; Small Fiber Neuropathy; Myasthenia Gravis, Adrenal Insufficiency. On chemo for 2 1/2 years as experimental treatment for MG. Posts: 4480 | From Northeastern Connecticut | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Sending condolences to his family and friends. He will truly be missed!!
Posts: 4638 | From South Carolina | Registered: Mar 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I live about a mile from Harold's brother in Cranston.
Is there anyway I can help? I don't know how but am willing if my proximity helps.
Many Rhode Islanders do not place obituaries in the Providence Journal as it is cost prohibitive. A small obit costs about $1000.
Posts: 79 | From Rhode Island | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged |
bettyg
Unregistered
posted
tick tock,
$1,000 is OUTRAGEOUS for a small obit!!!! *****************************************
wow, that's nice you live so close by his brother!
IP: Logged |
AZURE WISH
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 804
posted
So sad to hear of this. My condolences to his family and friends.
We just paid $950 for my mother-in-laws obit and I was outraged too.
A single column, only 5 inches long for a single day in the statewide Providence Journal.
Posts: 79 | From Rhode Island | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged |
kelmo
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 8797
posted
It costs a lot of money to die. $1000!!!? I had no idea they were ripping off people that much.
Posts: 2903 | From AZ | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged |
aklnwlf
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 5960
posted
I remember reading some of his posts. Thanks Tracy9 for including one of his posts in this topic. The fact that he was quoting Blake's Auguries of Innocence makes me miss him even more and wonder about what kind of person he was.
My condolences to his family.
-------------------- Do not take this as medical advice. This comment is based on opinion and personal experience only.
Alaska Lone Wolf Posts: 6147 | From Columbus, GA | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
My condolences to Harold's family. He will be greatly missed around here!!!
I've had the pleasure of being here on Lymenet with Greatcod for many years. We didn't always agree, but he was never disagreeable! And his wit will be remembered by us all!!
I LOVED his essay (above) .. it is nicely put and I'd never read it before. Thanks for posting it!!
As for obits, it's the same way in Houston. Not quite as high, maybe.. but $700+ for a small obit...
I'm old school. I remember when ALL obits were FREE.. as they SHOULD be!
-------------------- --Lymetutu-- Opinions, not medical advice! Posts: 96222 | From Texas | Registered: Feb 2001
| IP: Logged |
bettyg
Unregistered
posted
the obit range is just awful!
thanks ticktock and tutu for your input on what was paid in yoru areas.
it's been 7 years since our last family member passed, and i know our FREE ones were changed to show only name, and time/date of funeral ONLY!
they get you coming and going!
tutu, my sympathies to you on your sister-in-law's recent death also! xox
IP: Logged |
posted
In all honesty, I didn't know him very well, at all, but I do remember reading some of his posts here.
Antyime I hear about the passing away of anyone anywhere from lyme disease, it always deeply saddens me, regardless of if I knew them well or not.
I can tell alot about him just by what those of you all here who knew him well have said about him here though, including his great wit and humor, including his one-liners.
I gather from that he was very well liked, fought hard to try to regain his health, and contributed meaningful information here too, which tells me he was a wonderful person I regret not knowing better.
May God comfort each and everyone of his friends and family members, who will miss him very much and with good reason, all of which I extend my sincerest heartfelt sympathy.
May Harold Roy finally be able to rest in peace and experience a new life filled without the pain and suffering he once endured from having lyme disease now.
Love, Light, & Health, Jennie
-------------------- My Lyme dx:11/05. My Mom's Lyme dx:5/16. ISO ASAP-Lyme Literate Dr & Neurologist-Prefer IL, IN, KY, MO, OH, TN. Can travel farther. Finances limited. Prefer Drs take Medicare or Payments. Need great list to find best fit. Tyvm. Posts: 701 | From Owensboro, KY | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I miss his presence here and I never met him. I appreciated his responses to me and everyone else on the board.
Posts: 13116 | From San Francisco | Registered: May 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Last week I was in my LLMD's (Dr. D.) office in Massachusetts and was reading the Cape Cod Voice and happened to open it to an article about Harold Roy, including a photo.
The article was called "Chronic Lyme: Fact or Fiction", by Doreen Leggett. June 2008 issue.
I did not know Harold (Great Cod) and only heard of him through LymeNet and the wonderful posts I've read.
I read the Cape Cod Voice article with such interest and studied the photo as if I knew this man.
It's funny how connected I feel to this network.
Posts: 79 | From Rhode Island | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged |
The Lyme Disease Network is a non-profit organization funded by individual donations. If you would like to support the Network and the LymeNet system of Web services, please send your donations to:
The
Lyme Disease Network of New Jersey 907 Pebble Creek Court,
Pennington,
NJ08534USA http://www.lymenet.org/
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
![[kiss]](graemlins/kissing.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[group hug]](graemlins/grouphug.gif)
![[rant]](graemlins/rant.gif)
![[cussing]](graemlins/cussing.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic