Dear Ones:
The
sun sets early these days, and from our perch, touches the far left edge of
Burrows Island, marking the beginning of the end of the Dark Ages, and time
again to set pen to paper. Yep, I still do this first in fountain pen on legal
pad. These are the best of times,
and the worst of times. In almost the same breath, we triumph, we revel, we
anguish and we rage. We have just
endured another midterm election, where general dissatisfaction with the world
motivated a third of us to vote, for Tweedle Dum or Tweedle Dee, it matters not
which. The rest of us just bitch
on Facebook, and sway back and forth like prairie grasses, mindlessly bent over
by the winds of change. But for
fans of the theater of the absurd, which is politics, it has been a banner
year. We have MacBeth, starring
the Clintons, with Hillary as Lady MacBeth, and Barack as Banquo, and a coven
of witches at the cauldron, auguring toil and trouble, and throwing in some eye
of Newt. I remain fascinated by my
fellow creatures. We are hairy,
wingless moths, attracted in hordes to bling and scandal, but then one of us
(and usually ONLY one) flaps off in another direction toward the pale candle of
reason, and teases us with the faint notion that we deserve to survive. The oddsmakers in Vegas are taking bets
at 30:1 that we will be extinct by 2100.
Optimists all, betting with the heart and not the head.
We
watch in alarm, as Vladimir Putin, hemmed in by a shrinking economy and the
inevitability of history, distracts the masses with literal bare-chested muscle
flexing jingoistic war-mongering, blaming Jews and gays for the troubles of a
troubled nation. (So Chelsea
Handler compares jugs online and comes up a little short.) His is a hollow
roar, but he grows more dangerous, as the obvious end approaches. Meanwhile, direct from the ancient Iron
Age, a monster of religious fervor, armed with modern weapons paid for with our
own money, has roared out of the darkness, to remind us that reason has not yet
won the day, and could even perish, as believers do unspeakable evil in the
name of god.
Closer
to home, we watch as Chris Christie aspires to replace Grover Cleveland as the
fat guy in the White House, if only his petulant traffic-jamming abuse of power
doesn’t dog him all the way to defeat.
We don’t need another jealous and vengeful god, thanks anyway. The rest of the rabble are no more attractive, each a nightmare of arrogance and self-absorption. And the Supremes continue to amaze,
granting Citizen status to Corporations, and giving them all the rights and
privileges we don’t bother to assert as individuals. If, to extend the metaphor, we institute capital punishment
for wicked corporations, mayhaps balance will be restored. Vive la guillotine!
As
for us, no great changes, no big news.
Catherine has come to her senses and retired again from midwifery, after
her journey of self-validation/aversion therapy last summer. (I TOLD you so….sorry,
I couldn’t help myself.) She has also relinquished the reins at Quilts of
Valor, after 100,000 quilts, and so has had more free time to just BE. She did a 10 day silent
retreat/meditation at a Vipassana center here in the south Cascades, and has
been working on meditation daily. The “Get Lost! I am Meditating!” sign on her
door doesn’t quite capture the spirit, but she is working on it. Her new Guru
is Sam Harris, in his latest iteration in “Waking Up”. Her embarrassment of free time is also
spent playing her Solstice present, an electronic piano, working on her photography
and Photoshop skills, knitting, and catching up on Star Trek Deep Space 9
reruns. I look forward to hearing
“Girl With the Flaxen Hair” and “Sunken Cathedral”, as in days of yore. I just
bought the sweater I wanted, rather than wait it out…
Michele
(38) has become part owner of a yoga studio in Columbus, and is doing well in
both business and yoga. Husband
Eric is still flying for NetJets, to destinations exotic and mundane, usually
at maximally inconvenient times.
Kiddies Jack (9) and Lily (7)
are growing ever bigger and smarter. We loved a visit from them this summer, hiking in the
Cascades and just hanging out.
Nathanael
(36) is working as a graphic designer in San Diego, finally earning a living
doing what he trained for, and what he does well. I am so happy for him.
He will arrive tomorrow for a Solstice celebration and the craziness,
which accompanies every set-piece holiday family get-together.
Hannah (28) has finished her Navy
obligation, and is now a homeless veteran, minus the cardboard sign. She celebrated her release with a
cross-country solo bicycle ride.
She blogged it daily, and is working on the book version. Her next cunning plan is to start in
January at Seattle University (Go Redhawks!) in a post-baccalaureate pre-med
program, brushing up on the various required science courses, before taking the
dreaded MCAT and applying for med school.
Seems amazing, but a good fit for her, as a perpetual do-gooder. She will find a crash pad in Seattle
and get on with the next phase. I
am laughing that she will have landed at a Jesuit institution, after my St.
Xavier experience. We will be
comparing notes…
Everett (26) has been (re)
launched, having graduated from the Monterey Institute for International
Studies with an MA, and landed a job in Salt Lake City, Utah, at Goldman Sachs
as an Analyst, whatever that is.
He doesn’t seem to know, either.
He and I just drove there twice in two weeks, first to find an
apartment, then to get moved in.
To provide an east coast perspective, that is the same as NYC to St.
Louis and back, twice. Ugh. But he is gainfully employed, and happy
in his new digs, in walking distance to work, and ready for adventure, action
and danger.
As for me…Work has taken a few
strange twists. The Feds have mandated
transition to an Electronic Medical Record, to achieve the lofty goal of
“improving patient safety and quality of medical care.” The reality achieves neither, but all
the extra secretarial work and electronic box checking has made me and all of
us pathetically slow, increased waiting times, and introduced whole new classes
of error to the process. We now
produce a medical record which is a robotic litany of symptoms and findings,
unreadable by humans hoping to understand what happened in the visit, but
excellent for evil fault-finding retrospective-reviewing finger-pointers and
clickers. That is the point after all.
All records people know that the only real function of a hospital is to
produce closed medical records and bills supported by the record. Meanwhile, we stay hours late every
day, so my formerly regulated life, divided into work sleep, exercise, eat,
work, has devolved into work, work, sleep if possible, forgot to eat, work, and
so on. I forget a lot of things
that used to matter, actually. Meanwhile, we struggle with Ebola panic,
burgeoning numbers of homeless/psychiatric/drug related visits, with no
resources and nowhere to place these people, once they land on our
doorstep. Real conversation this
week:
“Hi, I am Dr. Christopher. What can I do for you tonight?”
“Leave me alone. I want to sleep.”
“I am sorry, but is there a medical
issue that brings you in tonight?
How can I help?”
“No. It is cold outside, and I need
a place to stay.”
‘Uh, sorry, but this is an
emergency room, and not a homeless shelter. I will be needing this bed all
night to take care of sick people.
If you don’t have a medical issue, I am going to have to ask you to go
back to the waiting room.”
(patient turns over and goes to sleep) “Sigh…Security needed in room 15.”
Or:
“Hi,
I am Dr. Christopher. What can I do
for you tonight?”
“I
am withdrawing from heroin”
“When
did you last use?” (noting pinpoint pupils and stoned demeanor)
“An
hour ago.”
“So
how could you be withdrawing?”
“I
am not now, but I am out of heroin, and I don’t have any money, and I just
don’t want to get ‘sick’.”
“So
you are not withdrawing yet. Do
you want detox? Can I get you a
bed at the Detox center for a withdrawal program?”
“No.
I don’t want to detox. I am just out of heroin.”
“So
what can I do for you?”
“I
need Suboxone, to get me by.” (prescribed substitute, for detox purposes)
“I
don’t prescribe Suboxone. I am not
licensed to prescribe it.” (true—it is federally regulated, separately from
other drugs.)
“They
told me I could get Suboxone here.
You mean I have wasted my time, waiting for you?”
“I
guess so. You were misinformed by
‘they’, whoever that is. ‘They’
don’t seem to know much about much.”
“Is
there another doctor here?”
“Nope,
just me.” Patient departs without
a word, another dissatisfied customer and another black mark on my
statistically validated Press-Ganey patient satisfaction score.
I
still fix people, actually. Just
fewer of them. I used to see 30
patients, finish my charts and leave more or less on time. Now I see 15, and need a scribe doing
my charts, to leave two hours late and call it a good night. I get to the end of these shifts,
literally jogging from room to room, never having had a drink of water after my
starter coffee, and never having visited the necessarium. I suddenly become aware of intense,
disabling bladder pressure, and jog off to download a liter and more, in one
epic, life-affirming animalistic act.
I must sound like a Baptist Tent Revival in there, shouting
“Hallelujah!” and invoking the deity. I emerge, pounds lighter, sweating, and shriven, as it were,
and resume my charting. I do have moments where I want to pull a 'Dexter' on somebody I just saw, (or their obnoxious significant others) but those are rare moments, fortunately. OK, unusual moments. Well, enough
of work and whining. Everything is
great. Really.
I
sold my boat this year, just to get out from under ongoing expenses. I had to take a loan to get out from an
upside down mortgage situation, but in two years it will be paid off, and no
more expenses, nor more mortgage. Mark us a notch closer to
retirement, at least. The sweet to go with
the bitter, of being a lubberly landsman again. I still have my trailer sailboat, so I guess I am not a
complete nautical nebbish. Just
trailer trash.
I
pause again, as every year, to note the passing of notables from our midst—to
wit: Lauren Bacall was my second
favorite Hollywood heart-throb, after Ingrid Bergman. Robin Williams’ suicide makes me sad still. Wish he had come into my ER, instead of
hanging himself. So long to Mickey
Rooney, and Shirley Temple, who each had a great run. Casey Kasem has dropped his last platter; Pete Seeger spoke
to our consciences but his last chord has faded, and Maya Angelou also talked
to our better selves in poetry, but has left us with her words. Joan Rivers was
killed by her doctor, alas, while seeking eternal youth. Ben Bradlee was the last of the
journalistic lions, and with the passing of his generation, journalism has lost
its compass and its way. Marion
Berry, crack-head mayor of the District of Corruption, has had that last
Cadillac ride, and Jim Brady, who took one for the Gipper, but lived to
champion gun control while remaining Republican, has fallen silent also. No fond Adieu, but perhaps an Au
diable for Jean-Claude Duvalier, dynastic despoiler of Haiti. Closer to
home, we mourn the sudden loss just this fall, of Dane Caldarella, Catherine’s younger brother.
She is the sole survivor of that immediate sibship, and is understandably
stricken.
And
so, long suffering friends and family, if you have soldiered on this far, I
commend your persistence and patience.
I bid you peace and contentment, success in your endeavors this year,
and clarity of purpose in those endeavors, for the betterment of ourselves, and
our poor old planet. We are the
stewards of this world, also the plunderers, but also potentially the patrons
and saviors. We broke it,
we bought it, now we own it, and we have to fix it. Be kind to each other.
Everyone has a story, a stressful life, so let’s give each other the
benefit of the doubt. Be open to
possibilities as yet undreamed, be forthright in defense of the truth, but
don’t imagine you have an exclusive or complete understanding of the truth. Huddle together against the shadows of
doubt and evil that grow longer around us, and persevere against the
madness. The light is coming.
Cheers,
best, love, and all that
