Wordplay (A Haiku)

"Monosyllabic",
despite its definition,
has five syllables.

The Boy Who Lived

This is to update any of my fans who hadn't already heard the story of my summer adventures in health care.
On Saturday, July 18, Beth and I met some friends at an outdoor concert in the park in Bryn Mawr (Tom Chapin, whose CDs I highly recommend for kids.). We had a picnic dinner (hoagies, deviled eggs, etc.), and had a good time. A few hours after we got home, I started feeling incredibly full, as if I'd eaten two or three Thanksgiving dinners. Then I started getting pains in my belly and couldn't find a comfortable position to sit or lie down in. Then I got cold sweats and started vomiting. Around midnight, I told Beth I thought we needed to go to the emergency room. Fortunately, Bryn Mawr hospital, right across from the park where we'd been to the concert is less than 10 minutes away.
They put me on anti-nausea meds and morphine for the pain, then took me for an ultrasound. Believe me, I quickly tired of hearing, "Take a deep breath and hold it" while the tech was jamming the ultrasound wand into the parts of my belly that hurt the most. Eventually, the doctor told me I'd had a gall bladder attack. She said my gall bladder was inflamed, but didn't seem to be infected, and I didn't have a gallstone, but I had "sludge", which is a precursor to gallstones. She said I'd probably have to have the gall bladder removed at some point, but, for the moment, since I was now pain-free, and it was early Sunday morning, they'd send me home with a prescription for anti-nausea drugs and for Percocet for pain. If the pain returned, though, I should come back to the ER.
When I woke up Sunday morning, I was still pain-free, and continued so for the rest of the day, so I didn't fill the Percocet prescription. Early Monday morning, around 1 AM, I awoke with the same kind of pain, although not as strong, as the night before, so we headed back to the ER, where they repeated the ultrasound with the same results as the night before. They decided, as a precaution, they would admit me and put me on Monday's surgery list as an add-on, to remove the gall bladder laparoscopically. Later, they decided instead to do a procedure called an ERCP, in which they would insert a scope down my throat to see if there was something in the bile duct they'd missed in the ultrasounds. (It turned out they had, indeed, missed something.)
I spent the rest of the night in a hospital room while Beth went home to get a little sleep. She came back later Monday morning to see how I was doing. I felt okay, and we didn't know, at that point, when they'd do the surgery, so I told her to go into work and I'd call her when I knew the schedule.
A little while after she left, around noon, I fell asleep. I woke up a short time later shivering like mad. I've never felt so cold in my life. It was as if I were naked in Antarctica. I rang for a nurse, and an aide came in and wrapped me in two blankets, and I soon fell asleep again. The rest of the afternoon is still unclear to me, and most of what I know is based on what people have told me. I recall waking several times to the ringing of the telephone in my room, and, each time I answered it, there was a dial tone. Beth was trying to call me to check on me and the surgery schedule, but the phone was malfunctioning and she couldn't get through. I remember waking up feverish and sweating and falling back asleep several times. I think I was also hallucinating at times, because some of the things that seemed quite real couldn't possibly have been happening.
Since she couldn't get through on the phone, Beth left work and came to the hospital to find out what was going on. When she arrived, the nurse was taking my temperature and it was 104.8 degrees. I don't recall that, but I remember her saying, "We're taking you down to prep you now." and, at the time, I just figured I had been put onto the schedule and everything was normal. I didn't know how bad it was until much later, when every doctor seemed to make it a point to tell me, "You were a very sick man." and "You almost died!"
Beth, at this point, was beside herself with worry, as you might imagine, and decided she should call my brother and sisters. My two younger sisters, who live just across the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia, came out to the hospital. I didn't know any of this at the time.
The next thing I knew, I was hazily coming out of the anesthesia fog, when someone asked me for Beth's cell phone number, which I recited, then promptly lapsed into unconsciousness again. Apparently, she had stepped outside to call my sister and the staff didn't know where she was to let her know I was in recovery. As I awakened again, I saw Beth, trailed by my youngest sister. When Beth saw me, she started crying in relief. Again, I knew none of what had gone on, so I just saw her crying when she saw me and thought, "What the Hell did they do? Cut off my legs by mistake?"
Apparently, when they did the ERCP, they found a gallstone blocking the bile duct (First thing they missed in the ER), and when they removed it, they unleashed a flood of pus (Missed that infection, too, in the ER), indicating sepsis, which was the cause of the nearly-fatal fever. The good thing here is that I hadn't filled that Percocet prescription. If I had, it would have masked the pain and I'd never have returned to the ER, and might have died at home.
I spent the night in ICU, where they take very good care of you, but give you no rest at all. The next morning, I was moved back to a regular room, with IV antibiotics to attack the blood infection before they could go back and remove the gall bladder. I spent the next week on IV antibiotics, and most of that week I was NPO (Nil Per Os, "nothing through the mouth"), so I could have nothing to eat or drink, not even water. I could also only wash up by taking "soldier baths". At one point during that week, they also did a second ERCP, to see if there was any more blockage in the bile duct. When they brought me down for that procedure, I was conscious, and I was like a rock star. The OR staff was the same staff that had been there for the first procedure. When they saw me being wheeled in, they greeted me with, "Hey, it's good to see you again! You look a lot better than the last time you were here! You know, you almost died!" "Hey, thanks for reminding me. I was in the hospital! What else was I supposed to do?!"
Finally, the Monday a week after I'd been originally admitted, they removed the gall bladder laparoscopically. Apparently I surprised the nursing staff by being on my feet later that afternoon, trying to go to the bathroom without assistance (apparently a big No-No). During the week I'd been there, I amused some of the staff by walking in place in my room, to give myself some exercise and activity to keep from going stir-crazy.
While I was in the hospital, I'd also exhibited some jaundice due to a high bilirubin count. At one point my eyes looked like Lt. Commander Data's from Star Trek: The Next Generation.
The day after the surgery, they let me come home. I was bloated like the Michelin Man from a week of IV fluids, and my stamina was pretty low from the hospitalization, surgery and inactivity, but I was thrilled to come home. It took me a day to walk off the fluid build up, and, by the end of a week, I was back up to walking two and a half hours (total) per day. I'd come home on a Tuesday afternoon, and on Saturday, we had a visit from our grand-nephew, Nicky, which lifted my spirits considerably.


By Saturday evening, we went to a Billy Joel/Elton John concert at the ballpark with some of my high school buddies and their wives. On Sunday, we hosted dinner for some of the friends I used to teach with. Fortunately, by Friday morning, I was allowed to shower, so neither Beth nor our friends had to deal with "soldier bath Dave". If I live to be a hundred, I hope I never fail to appreciate the glorious luxury of a shower.
Two weeks after the surgery, I had a follow-up visit with Dr. Denne, the surgeon, and she seemed very pleased with my progress. She said it would probably take a while before I felt physically up to normal, and when I mentioned that I was walking two and a half hours a day, and had been for about a week, her eyebrows shot up. I must confess, I'm not 100%, even now, but, in addition to the walking, I am riding my bike an hour a day now.
The only remaining concern is my bilirubin count. The jaundice is gone, but the bilirubin count was, last week, at 2.4 mg/dL. Dr. Denne told me that "normal" is around 1, but I was down considerably from my in-hospital level of around 7. She didn't seem overly concerned, and said, as sick as I'd been, it will probably take longer for me to return to normal. I thought this was a much sublter and more sensitive way of phrasing it than, "Dude, you nearly died!" She's scheduled me for another blood test in October, by which time she expects the level will be normal. If not, I may need to have a liver biopsy to see if there's a problem there. Let's hope not.
About a week ago, I got my Blue Cross statement for my hospitalization. The hospital billed $114,368.00; Blue Cross paid $30,879.36 (interesingly enough, exactly 27%), which the hospital accepted as payment in full, so I owe nothing. I'm happy about that, but it says something about the health insurance system, I think.


Finally, on Saturday, Beth and I went to a friend's house for, we thought, a barbecue and swimming with a few people. It turned out to be a surprise "Dave Didn't Die!" party. It took a while to understand that it was a party for us, but it was a fun evening.

Meet The Babies

We had a "Meet the Babies" party yesterday, so family could meet the recent additions to the clan, and it was a grand time. We had brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandparents, nieces, nephews, grand-nieces and grand-nephews, first, second and even third cousins, and first cousins once- and twice-removed. All this with about two dozen people. Here, we see GUD (Great Uncle Dave) in his glory, on the hammock with, left to right, Nicholas, Samantha and Cristian. Standing behind the hammock, looking cute, left to right, are Kenna, Makaila and Hailey.



We had my world-famous burgers, hot dogs and chicken on the grill, deviled eggs, coleslaw, apple-berry salsa, veggies and dip, brownies, cakes, Rice Krispie Treats and pie! We even had circus peanuts! Of course, we also had sidewalk chalk and bubble wands for the kids.



We all had a fun day, and I got to hold babies, which I love to do, but I didn't hog them, even though I wanted to, because that would be ill-mannered.

I hope all the kids slept well last night, and I hope we can see them again soon.

Important Scientific Principles

In high school science classes, I learned some useful principles, usually distilled into pithy little aphorisms.

Biology:
"Xylem, up; phloem, down." and "A dry earthworm is a dead earthworm." These cover both botany and zoology.
Chemistry:
"Ice floats because God loves fish." and "The Laws of Thermodynamics tell us: You can't win, you can't break even, and you can't get out of the game."
Physics:
"F = ma" and "You can't push with a rope."

I also recall that "dirt" is "matter out of place", "noise" is "unwanted sound" and "a weed" is "a plant growing where you don't want it". These tell us that dirt, noise, and weeds are all defined not intrinsically, but situationally, based on human reactions. Soil is not dirt if it's in your garden, but it is dirt if it's on your living room carpet. The sound of flowing water is not noise if you're on a hike near a waterfall, but it is noise if it's coming from your unoccupied bathroom at 3 AM. Dandelions are not weeds if you're growing them to make salad or wine, but they are weeds if you want that green-carpet lawn.
We can reduce the annoyances (like dirt, noise and weeds) in our lives by adjusting our attitudes toward them. There are, for example, few weeds in my life, and relatively little dirt. I will admit that there is a lot of noise, but I realize that's my fault more than anyone else's, and I need to work on that.

What do you need to work on?

Lex Luthor Bailout

This is absolutely hilarious. Thanks to Ben for bringing this one to my attention. I usually prefer the Silver Age "Lex Luthor, evil scientific genius" to the current "Lex Luthor, evil corporate giant", but this is a wonderful take on the current version. And topical, too!

"Lex Luthor Bailout" with Jon Hamm from Jon Hamm

School Better Never Call This House!

I am the fourth of six children, and therefore, the fourth to attend St. Bridget's School in the East Falls neighborhood of Philadelphia. My older brothers and sister were handfuls at school, as evidenced by the reaction of one of the good Sisters of St. Joseph on reading my name on her roll on my first day of First Grade. She asked, "Are you one of those notorious McElvenneys?" to which I replied, "Don't worry, Sister. By the end of the year, you'll forget all about the others." Having had many calls from school concerning my older siblings, my mother always reminded me of the one iron-clad rule: "School better never call this house about you."

When I was in Third Grade, my Dad took my older (Eighth Grade) brother to an Open House at LaSalle College High School, in anticipation of his taking the admissions test, although my brother firmly wanted to go to Roman Catholic High School, and, indeed, that's the high school he did attend. For whatever reason, my Dad brought me along, too, and I fell in love with the place. I told my Dad, when we were going home, "This is where I'm going to high school." Not, "This is where I want to go to high school", but, "This is where I'm going to high school."

When I was in Eighth Grade, waiting for the results of the Admissions Test for LaSalle College High School in the Spring of 1970, the Post Office went on strike, so the results of the test were held up in the mail. For some reason beyond my understanding, someone from LaSalle called St. Bridget's, rather than my parents, with the news that I had been accepted and had earned a scholarship. Mother Superior at St. Bridget's called my house with the news. It was late afternoon, and Mom was making dinner. I was at the kitchen table doing my homework. As soon as she picked up the phone, Mom recognized Mother's voice saying, "I'm calling about David." Without waiting to hear more, Mom reached over and cracked me across the back of the head, saying, "I told you, school better never call this house!" Of course, I had no idea what this was about. I knew I hadn't done anything wrong at school, lately, and I didn't know it was news about LaSalle. When Mom heard the news from Mother, she was very pleased, but she would not apologize for cracking me. She just said, "You knew the rule."

General Election 2008

To remind the latecomers, I've been working for the past two and a half years as a Machine Inspector at my local polling place for Primary and General Elections. I'm mainly responsible for operating the voting machines throughout the day, as well as opening them up at the beginning of the day and closing them down at the end of the day.

This year, as you may well imagine, we were expecting a very busy day, with a large volume of voters, many first-time voters, and possible shenanigans by various partisans. In anticipation of that, last week I went to a refresher course for poll workers to brush up on procedures and find out if there would be anything new I should be aware of. By the end of the meeting, I hadn't really heard anything new, but at least I had the sense that I was pretty well-prepared for Tuesday.

On Monday, Andy, my next-door neighbor and Judge of Elections for our precinct, and I went up to the polling place to set up the room for Tuesday. It's our Township Commission meeting room, so we mainly had to move out the chairs normally set up for the audience, arrange tables for the voter sign-in and place the voting machines in position to be ready for opening the next morning. It didn't take long, but it's good to get that done ahead of time so there's no sense of rush on Tuesday morning.

Our polls in Pennsylvania are open from 7AM to 8PM, so we poll workers got there between 6 and 6:30AM to get everything ready. We posted all the informational fliers for voters, including several sample ballots, which are helpful because many voters seem not to know what candidates or questions are on the ballot before they get to the polling place. We signed our oaths and did all the paperwork and mechanical details involved in opening up the voting machines and set the clock to official Verizon time. We were pretty well ready by 6:50 and Andy went outside to catch a smoke before the polls opened officially. He came back in and told me that there were over 60 voters in line already. We've never had that kind of crowd at opening before. I think people had heard so much from the media for the past couple of weeks about possible crowds and problems at the polls that many wanted to get there early.

We opened up at 7:00 to a large but very orderly and patient group of voters. In our first half-hour, we had 100 people vote. We were busy all through the morning with fewer and shorter "slack" periods than we usually see, and before noon, we'd seen over 400 voters. We joked that, at that rate, we might get every voter on our rolls (around 1100) in to vote and be able to close the polls before the scheduled closing time at 8.That didn't happen, of course, but it was a good thought.

Overall, even though we had a busy day, it was probably one of the smoothest election days I've worked. We had the usual cases of voters who weren't sure if they were supposed to vote in our precinct or somewhere else, or people who weren't in our books, which led to our making calls to the County Clerk to verify registration, and many first-time voters, or people who hadn't voted in a few years and were unfamiliar with the electronic voting machines. Our people at the sign-in table used the sample ballot to show people what the machine would look like and what the candidates and question on the ballot would be, and I could usually take the time to show people how to work the machine, before I turned it on for them to vote "live". I must say, I remain very impressed with the dedication and patience of my fellow poll workers to help every voter to make sure they could find the right polling place and to make sure they understood the machine and the process. I was also impressed with the patience and understanding of the voters. If I was explaining the machine to a first-time voter, or an older voter unfamiliar with the machine, no one waiting in line complained that this was holding them up. If our people had trouble finding a voter's correct polling place and it took a while, people waited patiently and invariably thanked us for our efforts. People wanted to vote, and they were understanding of the time and effort that would take, on everyone's part. I don't think I heard cross words exchanged all day.

There were, of course, the amusing moments. There were the voters who still insist that the electronic voting machines are new, and they know that last time, they used the machine with levers, or the people who will stand in front of the curtains waiting for them to open, even when I say, "Walk through the center of the curtains." There was the teenage first time voter who came out of the voting booth and shouted "I just voted!" to cheers and applause. Then, she went out to the parking lot and got the same reaction from the people out there. There were the people who wanted "I voted" stickers so they could get a free cup of coffee at Starbucks or a free ice cream from Ben and Jerry's. We didn't have any of those stickers, but fortunately some of the political party workers out in the parking lot did. There were the Moms and Dads who brought their kids to watch them vote. They nodded and smiled knowingly when I suggested they keep the kids on their left side in the booth, so the kids wouldn't accidentally push the "Vote" button before Mom or Dad was ready. I could usually hear them say, when they were ready, "Okay, you can push the green button now.", and we'd make a big fuss for the kids that they'd helped Mom or Dad vote. One other suggestion for any parents who bring their kids with them when they vote: Please do not, as soon as you bring them into the booth, say, "Don't touch the green button." Consider: What do you think of if someone says to you, "Don't think of a blue elephant."?

We finally hit our big "slack" time around 7PM, by which time we'd had 848 voters, more than I've seen in my time working there, and over 75% of our registered voters. We ended the evening with two Dads and their kids arriving at 7:55 (Remember: Polls close at 8.), who brought the total of voters on our machines to 850. We also had one or two voters who cast provisional ballots, and around 30 absentee ballots. That was a wonderful turnout. By the time we closed out the machines, it was about 8:15. I left the hard-core political junkies to pore over the vote tallies and I headed home, with aching legs but a glad heart. People care about the process and will act patiently and cooperatively to make it work. It's not perfect, because people aren't perfect, but, especially when it goes smoothly, it's very, very good.

Man of Steel. Wits of Lead.

The Silver Age Superman is, to my mind, the greatest of all superheroes, but I must admit that he doesn't always employ the wisest strategy in the Never-ending Battle for Truth, Justice and the American Way. Specifically, he is far from the best secret-keeper in the world.

Any military or police strategist would agree that it's best to keep the bad guys in the dark about your capabilities, as far as possible. Superman himself clearly accepts this premise when he decides to keep the existence of Supergirl hidden for years after her arrival on Earth, in part so that she can be his "secret weapon" against crime.

On his own behalf, though, he sometimes drops the ball. For example, he would be wise to keep the extent of both his powers and his weaknesses as secret as possible, to avoid giving away any advantages to either super-criminals like Lex Luthor and Brainiac or common criminals like bank robbers and racketeers. Clearly, some of his powers are too obvious to hide, like flying, super-strength and super-speed, but why let people know he has super-hearing? It's much easier to overhear evil plotting if the plotters have no reason to believe you can hear them. Similarly, why let people know he has x-ray vision, or heat vision, or any of his other "stealth" powers?

Even assuming that Superman is so confident in his powers that he doesn't care if his foes know about them, we must wonder why he goes to the extreme of revealing his weaknesses, both physical and psychological. Superman's vulnerability to the various types of kryptonite is so-well known as to be the subject of Sunday Supplements in the Daily Planet. It seems that no criminal, whether mastermind or petty thief, sets up shop in Metropolis or its suburbs without first procuring at least one piece of kryptonite. A wiser man than Our Hero would never let anyone know kryptonite exists, much less reveal its effect on him.

Superman even reveals his smaller weaknesses. Knowing that neither his x-ray vision nor his heat vision can penetrate lead, Lex Luthor and others have lined their hideouts with thin sheets of lead. One assumes they regard the poisonous nature of lead to be a worthwhile price to pay for some measure of protection against their arch-enemy.

Perhaps the most stunning example of poor secret-keeping is the fact that it is fairly common knowledge that Superman has a secret identity---someone he is, when he's not being Superman. Consider that Superman, unlike most of his fellow superheroes, wears no mask. This would suggest to the public that he is not hiding who he is, because he's always Superman. People would not assume he has any identity other than Superman, but, somehow, he has let that secret out. Keeping the secret of his dual identity is psychologically important because Clark Kent provides him a way of interacting with ordinary humans as peers, as well as giving him some measure of privacy, away from constant demands on Superman. Thus, the fact that people know he has a secret identity, even though very few know who that secret identity is, needlessly lessens its usefulness.

Superman, you know I love you like a brother, but maybe you should talk strategy with the Batman.

Life, In Four Words

Every one of us experiences joy and sadness, both large and small. Every one of us experiences the mundane nature of life, as well as its transcendent nature. In each of these cases, and many more, every one of us would do well to remember the secret of life in four words: This, too, shall pass. It is a cliché that people tell the survivors of a tragedy, that "life goes on", which is true, although not always helpful at the time. When we are in the immediate grip of a great sadness---the death of a loved one, the breakup of a marriage, a devastating natural disaster---we are often so overwhelmed by our strong emotional reaction, that we cannot conceive that our life can ever go back to "normal" again. It feels like our grief, our anger, our terror, are all that we have left, or ever will. For most of us, though, in time---sometimes a long time---we regain our equilibrium and resume some sort of normal life again. We don't forget the bad thing, but we make some kind of accommodation People don't often say to someone experiencing a great triumph that "life goes on", although it is still true. A friend of mine recently had a novel published, to excellent reviews and good sales. He complained to me that, despite the success of the novel, he found he still had to deal with the mundane, irritating aspects of his regular (non-writing) job. Part of him, at least, wanted to enjoy his success to the exclusion of "regular life". I had to remind him that "life goes on" in the face of great joy, too. "This, too, shall pass" suggests that nothing we experience in this life is permanent. Our great tragedies will not last forever. Neither will our great triumphs. Even our mundane, boring daily chores will not last forever. We will have all these things at different times, and in different measures. While immersed in any of them, we allow ourselves to believe that it is a permanent, steady state, but, truly, we know that's not so. We sometimes need to be reminded of this. Good friends are those who know when we need reminding, and do so, even when we don't thank them for it immediately.

Memorial Day

During this Memorial Day weekend, I ask that we all remember why we mark the day. Please, take a moment during the long weekend, especially on Memorial Day itself, to remember those who have given their lives in service to their country. Spare them a thought. Say a prayer for their peace and the peace of their loved ones. If you see a Veteran selling poppies, consider buying one. Put it in your lapel, or on your briefcase, or on your purse, or on the visor in your car. If you have children, teach them to honor those who sacrifice on our behalf. Remember: "If ye break faith with us who die, we shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders fields."

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918) Canadian Army

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.