{"id":935,"date":"2019-12-16T09:05:43","date_gmt":"2019-12-15T20:05:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/?p=935"},"modified":"2019-12-16T09:05:43","modified_gmt":"2019-12-15T20:05:43","slug":"rip-clive-james","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/?p=935","title":{"rendered":"RIP Clive James"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row row_height_percent=”0″ override_padding=”yes” h_padding=”2″ top_padding=”3″ bottom_padding=”3″ overlay_alpha=”50″ gutter_size=”3″ column_width_percent=”100″ shift_y=”0″ z_index=”0″][vc_column width=”1\/1″][vc_custom_heading heading_semantic=”h1″ text_size=”h1″]RIP Clive James[\/vc_custom_heading][vc_column_text]Clive James, the Australian wit, broadcaster and poet died last Sunday at the age of 80, ten years after being diagnosed with CLL.<\/p>\n

He wrote the best \u2014 the only? \u2013 poem about chemotherapy, specifically about Ibrutinib. the wonder drug that helped keep him and many thousands of others alive for a lot longer than expected. Here it is:<\/p>\n

Ibrutinib<\/em><\/p>\n

The Marvel Comic name should tip you off<\/p>\n

That this new drug is heavy duty stuff.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t get this one just to cure a cough.<\/p>\n

A chemo pill, and powerful enough<\/p>\n

To put the kibosh on your CLL,<\/p>\n

It gets in there and gives the bastard hell.<\/p>\n

Five years\u2019 remission and the beast is back.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s in your bones the way the Viet Cong<\/p>\n

Poured through their tunnels to the Tet attack,<\/p>\n

And what comes next might not last very long.<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s see what Ibrutinib can do<\/p>\n

To win the war whose battlefield is you.<\/p>\n

Ibrutinib, you little cluster-bomb<\/p>\n

Of goodness, get in there and do your thing!<\/p>\n

All that the bad guys seek is martyrdom:<\/p>\n

Their own demise is the death they bring.<\/p>\n

They work in cells. There is no high command.<\/p>\n

We let you in and then it\u2019s hand to hand.<\/p>\n

Should you prevail, we promise you a role<\/p>\n

From here on until the natural end.<\/p>\n

Just beat them back and it will be a stroll,<\/p>\n

Unless you don\u2019t, in which case things might tend<\/p>\n

To go bananas in a serious way.<\/p>\n

But not yet. Down the hatch. This is today.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Inspirational stuff \u2014 and Ibrutinib really is a remarkable drug, a pill rather poisonous goo, showing the way to targeted treatment of leukaemias and other cancers. Only Clive James could make it sound so poetic![\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clive James, the Australian wit, broadcaster and poet died last Sunday at the age of 80, ten years after being diagnosed with CLL.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":936,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[12,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-media","category-featured"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/clive-james-pic.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=935"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":937,"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935\/revisions\/937"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clladvocates.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}