Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
NOVEMBER 27, 2024 – We’d just sat down at the dinner table in the Connecticut home of our younger son’s family, when my phone rang. Caller I.D. showed “Allina Health.” I gulped. Our older son had undergone a heart MRI Monday and a PET scan on Tuesday. When scheduling these tests, the primary doctor had …
OCTOBER 30, 2024 – Today I went to a doctor’s appointment. For the first time in a decade (when my parents were alive), it wasn’t on my own account. The patient was a severely ailing family member, however, and for months my wife and I had been working on getting him to today’s appointment. By …
OCTOBER 18, 2024 – Last spring in a three-part series—Zen and the Art of Dock Installation (See 5/12 through 5/14)—I described my engineering project up at the lake. Today I reverse-engineered it. That is, I took out the dock and staircase that I had so carefully installed last May. I’m 70, mind you, which means …
AUGUST 30, 2024 – Blogger’s note: Today’s central activity—a trip to the Minnesota State Fair with our almost nine-year-old granddaughter—produced material and memories that warranted a break from my Landscaping: The Great Escape series. “Plan A” called for my wife to take Illiana to the Minnesota State Fair today while I got an early start …
AUGUST 20, 2024 – Today I underwent a P.E.T. scan in the nuclear medicine department of the University of Minnesota’s Sprawling Medical Science and Services Empire (I’m making up the name but not its size or substance). The exercise was what I call “a data generator” in anticipation of my upcoming second annual check-up with …
MARCH 27, 2024 – Early this morning I woke up, checked the time—5:00—started coughing and went straight into a panic attack. It was stupid really. There was no reason for such alarm. Well, I won’t say there was no reason, but as far as I could tell there was no good reason. Except, I thought, …
MARCH 23, 2024 – Last December I thought it would make a fun Christmas present to give my wife three tickets for a performance of the classic ballet, Giselle, starring Daniil Simkin and Skylar Brandt, at Northrop Auditorium 15 minutes from our house. My thought was that Beth and I could take our eight-year-old granddaughter, …
MARCH 21, 2024 – For yet another day I’ve been stuck in a neutropenic rut, but I’m treating this condition as far from hopeless. In the first place, what’s the alternative? Second, at around 11:45 this morning, just as I was about to lie down for a nap, my good oncologist, Dr. Bhaskar Kolla called. …
DECEMBER 14, 2023 – (Cont.) While listening to the Bartok on the drive to the Red Cabin, I reacted as I always have when listening to a “war horse” of the violin repertoire[1]: “Hmmm, now that passage [or movement, even] I could play . . . with a little practice” and . . . “Uh …
MARCH 28, 2023 – Today I had a medical encounter that bolstered my faith in the future. The occasion was a six-month check-up with Dr. Arndt, my pulmonologist, which went swimmingly (my transplant workup a year ago had revealed a lingering lung issue arising from a cat allergy, channeling me to the pulmonology section for …
FEBRUARY 16, 2023 – Today I experienced another bone marrow biopsy ahead of my six-month-post-transplant appointment with Dr. Killjoy. The doc earned his nickname when he said last August, “No more downhill skiing for you.” I plan to show him a picture of S-turns I made recently on a downhill ski slope. I’ll explain that …
JANUARY 30, 2023 – The other day I attended to some light “work-work” against the backdrop of a recording by Itzhak Perlman performing Sergei Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in D. I hadn’t heard the piece in a while, and it evoked many memories; nothing specific, just remembrances of how great music has edified my …
JANUARY 23, 2023 – I have a confession to make. For many years I contributed nothing to my alma mater’s alumni fund. I’d soured on the whole idea in the course of paying major bucks through both nostrils for our younger son’s college education. How could increases in the all-in cost consistently far outstrip the …
JANUARY 17, 2023 – Today I had my monthly follow-up appointment with Dr. Kolla, followed by an encounter with the “infusion center,” where nurse Patty administered two butt shots plus a rabies injection. In more professional lingo, the butt shots were doses of csxzysesisterkappalambdaiotazonifer and xylicriminelamndanumuomicronpiclomyaquavazine, otherwise known as mono-clonal antibodies packaged under the brand …
DECEMBER 23, 2022 – This year I’ve fully grasped that none of us is as rugged or independent as claimed by our culture of “freedom” and “liberty.” I became acutely aware of my dependence. The great “cure” for the delusion of self-reliance, I discovered, was serious illness; diagnosis and treatment of a “killer disease” depended …
DECEMBER 19, 2022 – Today I met with my oncologist, Dr. Kolla, the saint who’d called me on December 29 last year—five days before my first appointment with him. His outreach had impressed me. When we met in person, I was even more impressed—and assured. At today’s appointment, Dr. Kolla started off by telling us …
DECEMBER 17, 2022 – When heavy snow flocks the woods, beauty reigns. But nature doesn’t care that its mantle blocks our satellite dish and thus, internet connectivity, so we can’t check your temperature gauge remotely. Nor does nature care about unleashing 30 to 40 mph winds and blowing down ice- and snow-laden trees onto power …
NOVEMBER 24, 2022 – Turkey Day has always been my favorite holiday of the year. As a kid, I savored the story of the Pilgrims and Wampanoags sitting down at a bunch of picnic tables against a backdrop of fall foliage and breaking acorn-squash-bread together in peace and amity. At the center of the whole …