I just posted this picture on Flickr. I took it yesterday in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park after a visit to UCSF Medical Center. The morning was misty and cold, the grass and trees a delightful winter green.

Winter green?

Many other flickr photographers (from the Northern Hemisphere anyway) are posting pictures of ice storms, whiteouts, buried snow plows, and barren windswept fields. And here come the Californians showing snapshots of green.

California’s coastal winterscapes can drive the ice-bound crazy. Once again we’re seen as Violating All The Rules and Just Not Making Any Sense. But there is a logic to our seasons, even if it’s obscure. It helps to remember that the planet’s largest heat-sink (aka the Pacific Ocean) is just to our left.

So as a service for those who just don’t get all this green, here’s a short guide to our seasons.

Winter

Every hillside is green. A ridiculous, Irish/New Zealand green. So green your eyes hurt looking at it, especially when the sun shines. Green? In the land of perpetual drought? Continue Reading »

What better way to start a new year than finding what’s true?

Unfortunately, this one truth just led to another, then another and another,
finally to the end of the building.

All true, but no answers.

Maybe next year.

I finally got my H1N1 shot today at a big inject-a-thon held in San Francisco’s Bill Graham auditorium. Out front, mimicking event volunteers right down to their day-glo vests and friendly manners, the anti-vaccine, it’s-a-government-big-pharma conspiracy! folks were greeting everyone, handing out official-looking yellow papers. Reading this you found not info on what to do to get your shot, not the who-gets-what-and-why of vaccinating, but furtively hinted-at, semi-argued, conflicting pleas to avoid this vaccine – all vaccines! – at all costs. Especially if you want to “Save The Children”.

I stuffed the thing in my pocket and went in.

After rolling up my sleeve and getting the poke, I dug out the crumpled paper, went up to one of the anti-vaccine guys and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around. I silently held out the crumpled paper and stood there. Staring at me quizzically, he finally extended his hand. I dropped the crumpled yellow sheet into his hand and walked away. He looked at me and at the paper, confused.

You can’t argue with these folks. But you don’t have to carry their garbage.

This happened yesterday. The only info you need to make sense of it are a) I was in the hospital for a few days about two weeks ago due to high fevers following an endoscopy (a look down the throat), and b) when they were looking, the docs saw something that concerned them,  declaring it Must Be Removed. I agreed. Now if only I could get it done…

Rather than polish it up and risk losing the, er, spontaneity, here’s the eMail I wrote to my friends.

Went to ENT (Ear/Nose/Throat) clinic today to get the thingy in my throat removed. The following happened:

1. Doc saw me, said situation is exactly what the docs in the hospital had said two weeks ago: growth on pharynx, probably papilloma, needs to come out. Said he’ll do an excisional (right word?) biopsy removing the whole thing (unless it extends into my brain or some other inconvenient spot). I said hooray for that! Continue Reading »

Otto and street furniture

People leave all sorts of stuff on city streets.
Sometimes you just can’t resist a sit.

…that happily hands out bottles of nasty narcotics, including morphine, but denies coverage for celebrex, the only anti-inflammatory approved for transplant recipients, citing as the reason that said transplantee (me) is two years too young (!) to meet their formulary guidelines.

Go, HealthNet!

Go, America!

Ok, I’m getting sentimental here. But I’ve opened yet another door of the Medical Winchester Mystery House – an  autoimmune condition this time -  and I’m in need a bit of sentiment. I’ll write the gloomy stuff later, but right now…

I’ve posted (and posted and posted) about Otto, my dog. I’ve said less about my ex-cat (ex-mine that is, not ex-feline), Orion. Orion now lives with a dear friend, partially due to my medical adventures, but he’s still a frequent visitor.

More important, Orion and Otto are… well, it’s kind of hard to say what they are to each other: lets just call it a really really strong bond. Orion was here first, and when Otto arrived as a 7 week old puppy they fast became inseprable. Breaking them up was one of the sadder things I’ve ever had to do. It’s been sadder yet for the two critters.

During Orion’s last couple of stay-overs, I started taking notes on life with a cat and dog. Anyone who lives with both knows that the usual cat rules and dog rules – and your life – change erratically.

So here are the notes. And please: send along your own observations. No doubt we can come up with a book. Continue Reading »

Last night a friend came by for dinner. As it was raining all day and he’d been stuck indoors with his dog, Jake, he brought Jake along for some R&R with Otto.

After much trading of toys, guarding of bones, and competing for chewies Otto normally ignores, my friend and Jake left. They left behind a small red squeaking ball. Otto of course found it.

This afternoon Otto ran about the house squeaking it constantly. This evening, when I went to throw it for him, the squeaker no longer squeaked. It just rattles around inside the ball, a dead piece of plastic. 

Somehow Otto managed to disable the squeaker without the usual shredding and body parts. A sort of laparoscopic squeakectomy. I’ve called him the surgeon before when he’s dismembered some stuffed critter; I guess he’s upgraded his skills.
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Few things get a rise out of me faster than someone dissing us left-handed folks. I am old enough to have had my hand whacked with the edge of a ruler by a manaical right-thinking nun in first grade penmanship class. (It was the only time my mom took on the nuns in my defense. They’d done the same to her years earlier and she never forgave them. In my case, mom won. Yeah, mom!) I’ve been fiercely pro-leftie ever since, criticizing rude righties and miscreant can openers as necessary.

ANYway, apropos of nothing…

I notice our new president is left handed. So was the one we just sent back to Texas with his tail between his legs. Now, based on personal observation – I observe lefties a lot – I’ve concluded that we lefties are either:
                       a) smarter than, or
                       b) stupider than
average. We lefties don’t tend to do in-between. I think there’s even research to prove the idea, but I’m not going to take time looking it up. Sure seems like Obama and Bush prove the point though.

Me? Where am I on the either-or scale? Wellllll… I figure I’m both smarter AND stupider than average. Depends on when and how you measure. (See title of blog above.)

Happy evening, people. Even you righties.

For those who don’t know how most operations begin (may you long cherish that small bit of ignorance) here’s a primer.

You check in to a Pre-Op room hidden deep in a hospital. You are led to a little curtained-off cot, one of half a dozen in a row. Nurses come by with papers. You sign your life away, agreeing for the third or fourth time to the same procedures that landed you in the room in the first place. 

Your clothes, any dignity you might still have, and all other belongings are taken away to be returned “later”. Hearing the word “later” your mind substitutes “the other side” and tries to imagine what that might be like. You shiver uncontrollably. Continue Reading »