The Chemo Chronicles: “Chemo Brain”

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I received a gift recently from Laura, a cousin on my mom’s side who lives in Colorado and is a cancer survivor. We’re 2nd cousins, as our grandmothers were sisters. Laura was, by all accounts, a cancer patient with a fierce attitude, determined to defeat her cancer, and she gave no quarter during her treatments. She wore a shirt like this proudly, and sent one to me along with a lot of useful advice based on her own experience during chemo.

It was from Laura that I first heard the term “chemo brain.”

Lately, I think I’m beginning to understand what she meant, based on my own limited experience with the layer of brain fog that settles in on certain days. On good days, I’ve described it as something like a cap wrapping the top 15% of my brain, leaving me a little unsteady but fully able to function. On bad days, I find myself just wanting to go back to bed, unable to muster the energy and focus to do much reading or writing, much less anything more demanding.

What I’m learning is that physical fatigue acts as a real multiplier for this fog. The mental sluggishness rarely stays static throughout the day—it hits hardest when energy wanes, or after a period of sustained mental effort. Managing it often comes down to simple energy management. Learning to tackle writing or important thinking during peak morning hours, taking micro-breaks, and not trying to push through when brain fatigue sets in.

The term “chemo brain” was originally coined by patients—particularly breast cancer survivors in the 1980s and 1990s to describe persistent cognitive issues like memory loss and mental fog after treatment. Early reports were often dismissed by doctors as mere stress or fatigue, but persistent patient advocacy eventually led to formal clinical research and recognition by the mid-1990s.

As it turns out, “chemo brain” is something of a misnomer. The medical world often refers to it now as cancer-related cognitive impairment because it isn’t caused by chemotherapy alone. According to the American Cancer Society, these cognitive changes can also stem from radiation, surgery, immunotherapy, hormone treatments, or even medications like steroids and anti-nausea drugs. In some cases, changes happen before treatment even starts.

So far, my experience has been limited to the “fog” and varying degrees of dizziness, rather than major memory loss or confusion.

I’m able to live with a touch of brain fog for now, pacing myself and hoping it won’t get any worse.

And on the off days, having Laura’s shirt around is a needed reminder of the importance of her positive attitude, as well as my deep appreciation of her support, and that of all the readers of this blog.

The collapse of the Trump administration’s lies about the Reflecting Pool damage

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For those interested in primary documents, here is the full 20-page motion filed Friday by federal attorneys in Washington, D.C., requesting the dismissal of all charges against a former Olympian accused of vandalizing the pool’s recently replaced lining. The motion blames the failure of the pool lining on botched installation by a new contractor who had been awarded a non-bid contract to do the work.

It’s one of those rare admissions that a Trump-backed prosecution was wholly unsupported by the facts.

Who Gives Together? Mapping Hawaii’s Political Contributors

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The recent bribery indictments that included two former powerful legislative committee chairs raised a familiar question: Who really holds the levers of power in Hawaii politics?

To find out, I turned to a massive dataset: nearly 128,000 campaign contributions made to state and local candidates across Hawaii from 2015 to 2026.

By feeding this decade of data from the Campaign Spending Commission nto ChatGPT to perform network co-giving analysis, one clear conclusion emerged:

Hawaii’s donor class doesn’t invest in ideology. They invest relationship building and institutional access.

The pattern is consistent with relationship-building and institutional access rather than strong ideological alignment.

Mapping “Portfolio Similarity”

When analyzing campaign finance, looking at who cuts checks on the exact same day is rarely where the real story lies. The strongest evidence of donor alignment comes from persistent portfolio similarity—donors who repeatedly back the same slate of viable candidates cycle after cycle.

By filtering for donors who appeared in at least ten election cycles and shared eight or more candidate selections, the AI analysis isolated a core network of 577 recurring donors connected by 1,415 strong co-giving relationships, falling into 55 distinct statistical communities.

These recurring donors generally fall into three key categories:

Small Household/Partner Circles: Near-identical small portfolios, typically representing families, partners, or close business associates.

Large Institutional Networks: PACs, registered lobbyists, and government-relations executives who give broadly to viable, winning candidates.

Cross-County Executive Networks: Individuals and organizations that repeatedly support winning county mayors across different islands.

The third category is particularly telling: the common denominator isn’t shared geography or partisan ideology—it is executive governmental authority.

The Central Donor Networks

Rather than functioning in isolated industry silos, Hawaii’s donor landscape is best understood as a web of interlocking political communities.

Donor Cluster Core Participants & Sectors Primary Focus & Leverage Points
The Institutional Core Insurers, Utilities, Corporate PACs, Major Unions, Government Relations Firms Access to legislative leadership, incumbent committee chairs, and regulatory policy across Democratic factions.
Development & Infrastructure Engineering firms, Land-use attorneys, Contractors, Planning consultants County-level zoning, permitting, capital improvement projects (CIP), and procurement contracts.
Organized Labor Public-employee unions (HGEA, UPW), Building trades (Carpenters, Laborers, IBEW), Teachers Incumbent relationships, department budgets, collective bargaining, and legislative leadership support.

The Institutional Core

The most influential cluster consists of major corporate PACs, labor unions, top government relations executives, and active individual donors.

Key players in this broad access network include Island Insurance PAC, Alexander & Baldwin’s HIPAC, Local 1186 IBEW PAC, Nareit Hawaii, Hawaiian Telcom Good Government Club, Matson Navigation, HGEA, UPW, Hawaii Laborers PAC, Hawaii Regional Council of Carpenters, and General Contractors Association of Hawaii PAC. Active individuals and lobbyists appearing in this space include Bruce Coppa, Blake Oshiro, Jennifer Sabas, Ross Yamasaki, Bert Kobayashi, and Stanley Kuriyama.

Their connection isn’t necessarily about giving identical amounts on the same day—it’s about repeatedly selecting the exact same set of key decision-makers across election periods to ensure a seat at the table regardless of which faction holds power.

Development, Engineering & Professional Services

A second major cluster centers on individuals in the built environment: developers, civil engineers, land-use attorneys, and contractors.

Prominent figures in this recurring co-giving group include Patrick Kobayashi, Greg Hiyakumoto, David Tanoue, Dexter Kubota, James Yamamoto, Richard Asato, Leonard Leong, Ken Hayashida, Susan Kobayashi, and Collins Lam.

This group’s portfolio overlaps heavily around county-level governance where critical decisions on land use, infrastructure, permitting, and construction contracts are made.

Organized Labor: Overlapping, Not Monolithic

While labor unions are among the most active political donors in the state, the data shows they do not act as a single, indivisible bloc. Instead, distinct sub-networks exist—public employees (HGEA, UPW), construction trades (Laborers, Carpenters, Operating Engineers), education (HSTA), and utilities (IBEW). They converge most heavily around viable incumbents and leadership figures who control committee assignments and budget allocations.

A Note on Network Analysis & Legal Context

Co-giving patterns reflect persistent portfolio similarity—meaning these donors consistently back many of the same viable candidates over time. While this methodology identifies the institutional relationships most worth examining through public records, co-giving does not, by itself, establish improper coordination, illegal straw contributions, or undue influence.

Next Steps: Building the Full Investigative Map

Mapping campaign contribution records is just step one. To turn this donor network map into actionable investigative reporting, the next phase requires integrating six additional public datasets:

Employer Normalization: Standardizing name variations across thousands of entries (e.g., matching “A&B” with “Alexander & Baldwin”).

Corporate & Non-Profit Boards: Cross-referencing top donor clusters against DCCA corporate filings and IRS Form 990 board rosters.
Government Boards & Commissions: Overlaying recurring donor lists against state and county board appointments (e.g., Land Use Commission, HART, Planning Commissions).

Lobbying & Procurement: Matching contribution timing against registered lobbying clients, government contracts, and contested land-use proceedings.

By layering these datasets, we can move from simple campaign finance tallies to a clear, multidimensional map of how institutional influence operates across Hawaii.

But whether these data are available in a form that can be accessed for such an analysis remains to be seen.

Have a specific donor cluster, contractor, or board you’d like to see analyzed in the next phase? Leave a comment below or drop a tip.

[Original post revised at 6:33 a.m. with assistance from ChatGPT and Gemini.]

The Chemo Chronicles: Setback!

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I had a blood test Thursday morning at the Queen’s Cancer Center at Kuakini. Instead of searching for an elusive vein in my hand or arm—a process that has left my arms feeling like pin cushions lately—the blood was drawn through the port installed earlier in my chest. It’s the same two-way port used for chemotherapy infusions, accessible only by registered nurses with special training. So instead of just having blood drawn at one of the many available Diagnostic Laboratories locations, such as the one just a few blocks from home, I went across town where Nurse Pattie was able to use the port for access.

Afterward, I met briefly with my oncologist. Everything appeared on track for my next chemotherapy session on Friday.

Then came the 3:10 p.m. phone call. Chemo was cancelled and postponed until next Friday. The morning lab results showed my white blood cell count was simply too low to proceed.

Chemotherapy works by slowing or stopping fast-growing cancer cells, but it also impacts the immune system by reducing infection-fighting white blood cells. As the Mayo Clinic notes, low counts significantly raise the risk of infection, often forcing doctors to delay treatments or adjust dosages until the body has time to rebuild its defenses.

Given the numbers, my oncologist called off this week’s treatment.

It also means that I need to take special precautions to avoid infections. Stay away from groups, or people who might be sick. Wash hands frequently, even here at home. For us, that appears to require staying out of restaurants for a while, and being sure to wear a mask on any other outings.

And my oncologist also noted another option for moving forward: shifting the schedule.

The original plan was two consecutive weeks of chemotherapy followed by a week off. Switching to a treatment every two weeks would give my white blood cell count more time to recover between rounds.

There’s a lot of trial and error at this stage of cancer treatment, it seems.