30x40: Week of 7/14 Progress

WEEK TWO OF MEASURING MY fitness and fat loss has concluded with wins in both areas. I surpassed my goal of reaching 227 lb., and according to my gym-visit records, I got just a little bit stronger. That's precisely the combination I sought during this program, as losing lean muscle is always a risk when reducing total food intake.

I revised my list of weekly goals as follows:

• Improve clean protein intake
  
• Perfect gym attendance through 7/20
  
• Track all meals & weekday calories
  
• Weigh self daily
  
• Superior dinner nutrition
  
• Daily fish oil caps
  
• Blog progress
  
• TARGET WEIGHT: 227

My progress toward these went like this:

Protein, protein, and more protein: My current caloric split is 40% protein/30% carbohydrates (complex for as many as possible)/30% beneficial fats. I've found it hard to meet the protein number. Nutrition/protein bars usually also contain simple carbs (sugar of various types), and red meat has unavoidable bad fats no matter how trimmed the cut might be. I upped the amount of MetRx protein powder I add to my post-workout smoothies to two, and I've used the larger cans of Bumble Bee tuna as my dinner protein rather than the smaller cat-food tins. I eat walnuts or almonds at least once per day, and some days I've replaced one of these servings with half a natural peanut butter sandwich ("natural" = no added sugar). Don't want to overdo the fat intake with the nuts, though. One solution that also helps my perpetual quest for healthful weekday dinners: I made a ton of chili last week that I've begun mixing into the daily menu, which gives me fiber along with clean protein.

Even while not hitting the number I set, I've made some small strength gains during the week. I think it was a factor of keeping the kinds of carbs and fat I ate as healthful as possible, lower overall caloric content, and . . .

Perfect gym attendance through 7/20: Nailed this one today with a cardio trip to the gym this afternoon. I managed to get into the gym early each day except Friday, which I took as a personal day; at any rate, I was perfectly on schedule. I moved the weights up on a few of the exercises, as mentioned, and will seek reasonable opportunities to do so this coming week. Slow, steady progress is most likely to result in sustainable gains without training injuries or burnout. If I do feel the cold/flu-like symptoms of overtraining, I can drop one of the cardio days (Wed., Sat., Sun.) and sleep in. I won't be afraid to do so if it avoids erasing a week's worth of gains when overtraining and a dinged immune system lets some damn virus in. I don't think I said it any better than last week: "Flexibility and consistency trump guilt when these sorts of diversions occur."

Tracking meals/Weigh self daily: Kept on course here, despite some of the aforementioned diversions. On Monday night, I shared in the leftovers of Sunday's dinner at my parents' house; unlike Sunday night, I skipped the simple-carb side dish. Friday night my mom and I went out to dinner while my father spent a second night having a suspected recurrence of an old GI problem checked out at the hospital. (Problem solved; Dad came home Saturday.) I went with chicken parmigiana, but declined the linguine. In all cases, I made note of what I ate, but for these two meals I didn't get anal about the exact calorie count.

In any event, they didn't seem to ding my progress much. I surpassed the planned 227-lb. goal weight by half a pound. My chart indicates I got as low as 223.5, but this was an outlier. I'm setting my next goal at 226, a natural progression from the second week of 227 if I'm losing .57 lb./week. Keeping up with decent amounts of protein will keep the lean muscle coming as much as it will.

To the current weight tracking, I am going to add a measure of waist circumference. Abdominal fat is a precursor to cardiovascular disease. if I can measure a downward trend in the gut, I know that visceral and intramuscular fat are both being depleted, and the long-term luggage is finally, slowly, getting hit. This I will measure on Saturday mornings; I'll get a baseline read tomorrow morning.

Superior dinner nutrition: Other than the two dinners mentioned above, two of three were good-quality meals, including the chili I'd made for just such an occasion. The first night I had it, I paired it with a serving of brown rice, which significantly boosted that day's carbs. Though they were complex carbs, I'm still trying to keep a limit on them in the evening. The final one was an impromptu affair in the hospital emergency department waiting room. I'd had the smarts to bring a small tin of tuna, a fork, and a serving of almonds with me. Because my father was not an emergency case per se, it took him a long time to be admitted; and even when he was in, the necessary test took 2 hours from start to finish. I also had a double-serving of prunes with me in case I felt myself going faint. Oddly, I didn't; I avoided major hunger until I drove my mom home around 11 p.m. that night.

Fish oil: Doing my part to deplete the oceans, I managed to hit this goal each night before bed. I'm leaving it off of next week's list because I did in fact place a Post-It next to the alarm clock. Simple solutions sometimes do work.

Blog progress: I believe I forgot to hit save one day when entering the weight progress, but other than that, I recorded enough detail during the week to offer this minor update.

I've got a revised set of goals up for the week of July 21. I'm looking forward more to fulfilling them than I am to going to work.

Playing Hooky at City Island

TUESDAY MORNING, I DROVE over to my parents' house for a trip to City Island in our ancestral homeland, the Bronx. We planned to visit Johnny's Reef Restaurant at the tip of the island, a long-time weekend escape for my family long before I was born. We try to get out there at least once per open season, which lasts from May to October, but last year we didn't get the opportunity. My mother was laid up for a few weeks after surgery after the joint opened, and by the latter part of the summer, I had managed to get very low on my available vacation days. Now, being jobless and therefore more free to take a day off, I mentioned to my parents a couple of weeks ago to keep an eye out for a day to make the trip.

We had chosen this Monday, but my mother didn't feel too hot when she woke up. This is another concern. I don't know how many more times we'll be able to make this trip together. For now things are well. With elderly parents, however, one tries to grab moments when one can, while everyone is healthy. Knowing this, I had told them to keep Tuesday open as a contingency, which turned out to be necessary.

We in the New York area have been graced with stellar weather for days. Tuesday was no different. We rolled across the Tappan Zee Bridge with a view clear down the Hudson to the Citibank Building and the ominous Goldman Sachs tower in Jersey City. The Palisades behind us were greening over in gorgeous spring fashion.

Dad elected to go the 287/Tappan Zee route through Westchester County because the GWB and the Cross Bronx Expressway were jammed solid with inbound traffic. After my family moved to Jersey, we visited my grandparents in the Bronx just about every weekend. During baseball season or holiday weekends, that highway clotted like a bad coronary, and as a child I became so familiar with the details of its graffiti-spattered brick canyons, its crumbling overpasses and wreck-choked exits, the spindly Washington Bridge dangling over the Harlem River, the stripped tenements with their fake cardboard windows placed by the Koch Administration, that I still see that ride in my dreams. My dad made many a trip in and out via that road, mostly with white knuckles and a barely contained swearing fit at either the other drivers or the hourlong pileup of traffic in front of us. This was trying enough during his forties and fifties; in his seventies, he was having none of that shit. So we dropped onto the Bronx via Westchester and left the suckers backed up onto the bridge alone with their exploding forehead veins.

Traffic was minimal and we snaked onto City Island with no difficulty. Familiar landmarks passed us by after we crossed the bridge. My parents and grandparents had eaten at most of the major restaurants on the island long before my birth. The demographic of the island has changed somewhat since then. Still, I could pick out most of their old haunts despite name changes or closures. I also kept an eye out for reputed City Island resident Vincent "Big Pussy" Pastore. I don't know when his Sirius show is broadcast, but he was either there, or perhaps hunkered in the Bing and bitching about his back. I contented myself with studying the condition of the old shops, the yacht clubs, and near the end of the island, the cluster of seafood joints amid which one finds Johnny's Reef.

Johnny's Reef commands a spectacular view of Eastchester Bay, the Bronx Whitestone and Throgs Neck Bridges, the northwestern coast of Long Island, and the Sound. Diners usually choose from the nearly 100 tables outside to take in this grand vista, which includes several old, historic Long Island estates along the far shore. Coin-operated binoculars ring the dining area and parking lot for a closer look at the scenery. My dad, an amateur birdwatcher, packs a mean set of optics, so we could save our quarters for the other major reason to come to Johnny's: the food.

The big yellow menu boards inside were time-capsule similar to my last two or ten visits, with slight variations in prices. I went with my old standby, a hot dog and a boat of fries, with Diet Coke. Ditto for my parents. Others chose Johnny's famous fried fish or shrimp, and later that day I saw someone tote two Styrofoam containers of Manhattan clam chowder, along with corn on the cob, out to the picnic tables. Bottled beer is available at ridiculously low prices: $2.50 to $3.50 if I saw correctly . . . another reason to make this trip now, at the beginning of the season, rather than in the depths of July, when we would compete with every other hooky-playing worker and about a million kids. And that was on the weekdays. This place is a seething mass on summer weekends.

Food secured, we headed out to the picnic tables to take in the view, dine heartily, and rap about this and that. My folks will be taking a week down in Wildwood Crest in a week and a half, so this was a chance to talk to them before they got out of town for a while. I am hoping their stay down there is somewhat better than the ones they had last year, which were plagued by ill health on and off for both of them. They deserve better in this period of their lives.

After I polished off a hamburger, we decided to take the usual trip through the old neighborhood, Parkchester and the Castle Hill area of the Bronx. Dad hooked off the Pelham Bay Parkway onto Westchester Avenue, where we had our French Connection moment of the day while driving beneath the 6 train el. From there, we drove down E. Tremont Avenue, taking in the sights and noting which business were still there. We stopped making regular pilgrimages into the city when my maternal grandparents moved out to New Jersey in the late Eighties. A few stores still remained from that era, but changing demographics and the shifting tides of city prosperity had made substantial changes. These streets were also part of my dreamscape for many years after we stopped returning here.

We passed by the former homes of my grandparents on both sides, then the two locations where I and my parents lived in Parkchester. We were surprised to find many of the Art Deco terra-cotta miniatures placed during the construction in the late Thirties, like a mermaid above a doorway or a bear on a pillar, still intact in the neighborhood. Considering that maintenance of this area had been in freefall since my grandparents' departure, I was pleased to see the grounds neatly maintained, the buildings free of graffiti, and a diverse populace on the streets breathing life into the community around the old prewar structures. It amazed me that, as a 4-year-old in 1974, I used to ride my Big Wheels around this area alone. As much improved as the neighborhood is, I can't see that happening in today's parenting-via-bubblewrap era. (Shit, I can't even find a decent goddamn lawn dart these days. Candyasses.)

After touring the old turf, we snaked our way to the GWB and rolled past the still-jammed eastbound traffic to New Jersey. My parents' street seemed far quieter and spacious compared to where we used to live, which is more or less my impression when we moved into the house in 1975. I cannot entirely rule out living in the city again at some point in my life. I doubt I'd do it while my parents are alive; nobody wants to return to the days of brutal Cross Bronx Expressway weekend traffic. Still — and especially after they are gone — nothing can entirely be ruled out. You never know where my next job might need me, or if I might have a freelance position for which train access to Manhattan would be advantageous, or where I might suddenly encounter the woman of my dreams. If she lives in the Bronx, I'd have to come to a decision. At least I know there's decent Italian food on that side of the river. And hell, my dad married a chick from the Bronx, and that seemed to work out okay.

For now, and for the smart-money future, I suspect my feet will tread Jersey soil, and my returns to NYC will be as a tourist or a worker. Hopefully I'll be able to get out to Johnny's with my parents at least one more time this season, and a few more down the road. Both the food and the view are worth sharing.

Two Very Busy Days

IT'S BEEN A CHALLENGING pair of days, and not due to the ongoing job hunt. My father had another visit to the hospital on Thursday. He is home now, and seemingly well, with outpatient follow-up care the next step through midweek. Here's the scoop.

Thursday morning at six, my phone rang. I awoke instantly. Calls between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. are never good. My heart rate accelerated as I heard my mother reply to my hello. She said my father was having chills. For a half hour, he had been shivering, with his teeth chattering, and despite checking to see if the window was open and adding a blanket to the bed, nothing warmed him up. He was in no pain, had no numbness or tingling in any extremities, had a normal heartbeat, could speak and move well, and was fully aware. I began to relax at hearing no signs of stroke or heart attack were present.

I was more concerned about my mother. Her voice betrayed her anxiety, and I wanted to keep it from accelerating. I told her not to worry and that I would get dressed and come over right away. I knew they wanted to go to the hospital to get this checked out. We agreed that an ambulance would probably make both of them more anxious, so I told my mother I would drive us all over.

As I dressed quickly, I thought about what this could possibly be. My father hadn't had a cold in some time, had showed no sign of illness Wednesday night when I had had dinner there, and had gotten a seasonal flu shot. A blood test and perhaps a chest X-ray seemed like the logical next steps.

I dressed swiftly and raced over. My mother was dressed and ready to roll. My father was still in bed. She said his chills had stopped. From his bed, swathed in extra covers, he said he was feeling better. This is never the last word on any given illness of my father's. It takes a few attempts to get the full story out. He does this to spare my mother stress, but in fact this heightens it.

He asked for 15 more minutes before he got dressed and joined us in the car. I assented. What else could I do? His symptom had abated, he was clearly conscious (if tired), so I wandered back into the dining room and read the paper, while my mother shotgunned a cigarette.

We finally left the house at 7. He grabbed another 20 minutes of sleep beyond the first 15, then rose, dressed, and joined us. The hospital is about 4 minutes away, so we were in the emergency room in no time. Admission was swift, the room being empty. My mother filled the time before we were allowed to visit my dad by sleeping. At least this let me know her anxiety had receded.

We got the OK to enter a half hour later. My dad, feeling no further chills, was in a hospital robe, lying uncomfortably on the bed. He had pulled a muscle in his back two weeks prior, and the position to which the bed had been raised was hitting him where it hurt. I eased the bed down to horizontal, which seemed to help. The attending physician had ordered X-rays and taken samples, so now it was a matter of getting some detailed results.

This took the better part of 4 hours. Although my mother and I stopped at the hospital coffee shop for a much-needed breakfast, for the duration, we stood or sat by my father's bedside, waiting for further news on the results. All we knew at that point was he had a mildly elevated white cell count in his urine. This could mean anything; the blood would be more informative, and we would need a culture if there was in fact an infection. His primary-care physician did visit, though, to examine him, and he was leaning toward keeping Dad at least overnight to get some antibiotics or merely to be observed, depending on results. An infectious-disease specialist was incoming to make this read.

Dad was finally admitted to a room at 1:00. I had two career-counseling teleconferences arranged for the afternoon, the first at 2:00. I would have skipped them both, but my parents urged me to go. With Dad stable and asymptomatic, my mother felt comfortable staying on her own and returning home via taxi. I kissed them both goodbye and raced back home, in time to catch the first call from the beginning.

As part of the career counseling program, one can attend teleconference and web conference seminars. I took the introductory one earlier that week, and I had signed up for two more to keep things moving (we only get a month's worth of services). I have to admit, though, that my mind was not on the details, and I was more scribe than student.

Back-to-back teleconferences in my mental state was murder, made worse by the participants' inattention to repeated proctor requests to mute their phones. Every time I heard someone walking around their house, shushing their children, or shifting the phone in their grip, my blood pressure mounted. I just gritted my teeth and kept writing, hoping my notes would make sense when I was clearer of mind. What I recall of the classes seemed helpful.

Once this was done, I rummaged around the place for food and returned to my parents' house to pick up my mother for a second visit. We found my father finishing dinner and watching the Yankees. He had an antibiotic drip leading into his hand, but he was otherwise alert and feeling well. The surroundings didn't seem to be getting him down, but my father has a reputation for stoic endurance, especially when it comes to keeping my mother's mind tranquil.

We had a visit from the infectious-disease specialist while we were there, a petite, cute Jewish doctor who, sadly, was married. Too bad; she had tended to my mother on a visit for cellulitis years earlier, and she got high marks all around. She confirmed that they were culturing the blood sample to determine the precise reason for his chills, and that in the absence of specific or continuing symptoms, they would continue the broad-spectrum antibiotic until they had a culprit.

Said culprit came early the next morning: septicemia. Something had been brewing, and it had created the inflammatory response and chills that are part of the symptoms of that blood affliction. My mother called me with this news and sounded just as upset as she had the previous morning. I told her if he had no fever, further chills, or other signs of illness, then we probably got in front of this disorder early enough to keep it from progressing into the full septicemia syndrome. Considering all septicemia indicates is a bacterial presence in the bloodstream, the doctor or nurse could have picked a less charged term.

The doctors wanted more tests on my dad, including a bone scan to find any hidden osseous infections, and an ultrasound on his heart and kidneys. Return home prior to Easter Sunday was up in the air. No skin off our asses from a religious standpoint, as we don't celebrate it in any sense. My mom just wanted to know precisely what was up. If it was full septicemia, my dad could be looking at a few weeks in the joint. My mother doesn't get around well on her own, and has little recent practice in driving the big retirement-mobile my dad bought a few years back.

During our Friday visit to my father's room, I got a call from my former supervisor, to whom I shall refer in this blog as M. She called to take a break from working; she is racing to finish her thesis presentation and two prototype projects for extremely picky professors. All three have her just as anxiety ridden as my mother, it seems. I tried to calm her down, to let her know that taking breaks from her work and getting enough sleep would pay off in the long run, as they had when I had massive term papers at the very end of my own college career. I gave her the full story on the flower adventure, not having wanted to interrupt her work earlier in the week with details. We covered all manner of subjects from our former teammates at the job to my early impressions of the career-coaching firm. Talking with M. was my first contact with the outside world, so to speak, since Wednesday, and I sensed she needed as much of a break as I did; also, she is an excellent conversationalist and I dearly miss having her on the other side of the cube day to day. By the time my call-waiting cut in, 45 minutes had passed, and my mother was ready to leave; Dad had been taken upstairs for testing. I bade M. a happy Easter, urged her to take a break at some point later that day, and hung up.

I took Mom shopping and over to the hair salon for a visit deferred from Thursday. I stole a half hour to visit the gym and blow off some tension on the elliptical trainer. I had been idle for nearly three days, and eating less programmatically, and I was feeling it. The rest of Friday was a downer blur; I didn't want to commit to anything too distant from home in case I was needed, but I was too disorganized to rejoin the course materials from the career joint.

Saturday brought good news. All tests were negative. The doctors were happy with the results and decided to remove Dad's IV dock and let him come in for treatment from home for a few days. I was relieved, both to have Dad home and Mom more relaxed. When I drove over, Dad was all but scratching at the door to be let out. The hospital has eliminated the checkout procedure, so I was able to escort him down without hurdling a mass of paperwork.

I was pleased to be home, rather than tied up in the city, during this whole adventure. Naturally, had I been employed on Thursday when my mom called, I would have taken the day off; Friday, too, would have been negotiable; no sense sitting there and worrying when I could be helping them both.

The challenge now is to establish the daily pattern I was trying to put together last week. With visits to the career center on Monday and Wednesday, and a mass of reading material and online courses to take, it proves to be a busy month — and that's not even counting the job hunt itself. I need to stay busy at this. I also need to keep a list of any job contacts I make, to present to New York State if there's an inquiry into my unemployment insurance. I've got two contact so far in the first week, so I am definitely able to prove I have been looking. I need more than looking, though; I need finding.

In what field, though . . . ah, that's the real question. Another post perhaps. For now, I'm just happy to have my father back home and my mother relaxed again.

Brief Pause for Real Life in the ER

A SLIGHT HEALTH SCARE is unfolding as I ride home on the train. My dad, who has a pacemaker to regulate an irregular heartbeat, had his blood pressure spike to 190/120 just this afternoon. (They have a BP cuff at home to keep tabs when he's feeling a bit off.) I got a call from my mother just as I was leaving the office, in which she told me they were taking the entirely prudent step of heading over to the emergency room. I agreed. You don't second-guess a 70-year-old heart already getting an assist on its rhythm section.

I had to pick up from context that my father was feeling well enough to drive over himself. I asked my mother how he was feeling, but she really wanted to get on the road, so I had to remain in suspense until I got to Hoboken and onto the NJ Transit line I take. There, I called them on their cellphone, and was happy to hear my father answer. He feels well, and was waiting to be admitted. I was hopeful that this would be a swift process, this being a weeknight and only about halfway through the evening rush. He wasn't overly worried. This is typical of him: the strong, silent type. I also spoke to my mother, who was also hanging in, though with an assist from two Xanax. They suggested I call before picking a destination (their house or the ER) so I didn't make a needless trip. Not wanting to deliver a mini-thesis on how no trip I make for them is ever needless, I agreed, gave them my love, and signed off.

One never likes to think about one's parents' mortality, but I've forced myself to address it in recent years. Better to do it now, than in the emotional thick of the event. Granted, no amount of planning will make it any less painful, not even the past funerals for other family members or for a friend lost far too soon. Still, I have witnessed couple of end-life legal steps they have taken, so they know I think about such matters. My dad is less open about discussing these sorts of preparations, but they still must be made. If nothing else, I have to assure them both that I will be there to support them in their pain . . . because I know that as devastating as losing one of them will be for me, it will be nothing compared to what my surviving parent will feel.

For now, I am trying to follow my father's lead in knowing he is in the right place in case anything else develops from this, and until he gets a solid word on what may have caused this high pressure, to try not to drive himself crazy speculating about it. Getting him on the phone was a tremendous relief, I have to admit. I'll still feel a lot better when I see him and have the chance to keep my mother company to in turn ease her anxiety. If need be, I will take off tomorrow to assist with whatever — transport comes to mind most saliently. It's been some time since my mom has driven extensively for herself, and with a husband in the hospital, if he is admitted, is no time to take an impromptu remedial course. Work can go fuck itself where my parents are concerned, layoff or no.

So as we pull into the North Hackensack station and draw ever nearer to the Pascack Valley, that's where things stand. I'll do what I can to support them both and take tomorrow as it comes. I'm not to the Xanax stage yet. I'm more the pound-of-jellybeans or Doritos type. Eh, at least I can get 'em on a plane without getting sent to Gitmo or some shit.

UPDATE: All is well. By the time I stepped off the train, Dad had been admitted to the ER with a normal blood pressure. After I arrived at the hospital, my mother and I got the news that his EKG was likewise normal. The three of us spent an hour or so at his bedside, chatting normally, Dad feeling fine — if hungry, as this had hit before dinner — while we awaited the bloodwork. More good news: a slight imbalance in one of his medications, but other than that, and the admonition to call his cardiologist, he was free to go. I knocked heartily on wood, my head serving as some ersatz oak in this case, walked them to the car, and headed on home. I have one stoic SOB for a dad, but I know he was happy not to have to stay the night, necessary as it might have been. Altogether, an alarm that we are all happy to report as, thus far, false.

Mood Swings and the Job Hunt

WHILE EMAILING A FRIEND and former coworker yesterday regarding a long-overdue get-together, I began writing about the possibility of freelance work, and inadvertently came up with a tentative plan for this year. I spent some time at work last week browsing the jobs available in my field on Monster and mediabistro, but found myself discouraged. Many of them wanted a portfolio, because they were closer to full graphic-design positions than my current one. I am ashamed to say I have done very little that might be of interest to these sorts of employers. I never achieved my goal of designing an incoming newsletter from the ground up, which would have been as close as one in my job might get to doing some creative work.

True, the accounting title I worked on for 3 years involved tight deadlines, tables and graphs created under pressure with ill-suited software, and reflow of copy when stories went stale or changed fundamentally. But there is very little to show for it. I will yank some representative PDFs for my book, but that leaves it very thin.

If I were to advise students at my alma mater, I would exhort them to watch very carefully for signs that they will not have the chance to add to their skill sets in their jobs. If they go for longer than 3 months without an opportunity to learn, to secure a new certification, or to crosstrain on another aspect of their profession, they should lobby their employers for these chances, take classes on their own, or quit for a position that will grant them all of this. In waiting for 2+ years for this new workflow to be implemented at my job, I took no classes or cert courses, figuring the launch was just around the corner. It kept me less marketable, and I regret the gap and its unproductive expanse.

This is not to say that nothing can be done about it. Far from it. While writing to my friend about my current choices, and mentioning my deficiencies in areas like Photoshop and Web design, I came up with the following, which I shall paraphrase so I'm not entirely revealing verbatim private correspondence:

1. Find a fulltime job that increases my skill with areas of the Adobe Creative Suite where I am weak. (Or at least offers the chance to train, perhaps with tuition reimbursement. If not, pay it myself and see if it's tax deductible.)
2. Begin copyediting, proofreading, and/or writing freelance.
3. Learn new editing stylebooks — I adhered to American Psychological Association style at my first job, occasionally used AMA there, and got my feet wet with Blue Book during my first year as an editor/typesetter at my current place.
4. With more developed design skills, and a regular roster of editing work, begin offering freelance design work as well.
5. Find myself 2 or 3 years down the line better able to do much of this on my own, and go fully freelance.
   

Granted, in the next month, I could find a compelling, spiritually nutritious full-time job where I gleefully spend the rest of my career. But I let my mind go through the freelance option, for the sake of example, and not without precedent. My Jedi master at my first workplace, who taught me how to copyedit, proofread, and use DTP software, left that company almost 5 years after I started, and 12 years after he had signed on, to form his own freelance business to do just about anything he did while employed, plus writing (he was a talented writer and often crafted every word in the company newsletter). So theoretically, it can be done. I need to get back in touch with him to see what his recent activities have been. He hasn't been using the same email as he did when he was freelancing, so I'm not sure if he's still in business. He may still have some wisdom to pass along on those lines, though. I do recall his saying that healthcare represented a huge nut to cover.

That I had come up with a sort of action plan didn't really sink in until this afternoon, during which I had been searching for jobs online again. The office was depopulated, and I had little work at my desk. Typically we get Martin Luther King, Jr. Day off, but for some reason, they needed a day to complete some holiday weekend that I won't be around to exploit, so we had to come in. Many folks took the day off anyway, because they knew our printers and other vendors would be shut down. So I did some more searching, and read through the materials our outplacement firm had provided.

I found myself getting discouraged again. Each ad required just a little something that put me way behind even the newest graduate from design school. I left today wondering how I could have felt so optimistic back in November after we met with the outplacement specialist. He had said some mood swings were natural, but I just wasn't feeling the initial euphoria of having new opportunities.

I had a date for dinner at my parents' place, where the discussion turned . . . to the situation at work. I had no real difficulty talking about the current state of affairs there, how the typesetters at the outsourcing firm are mangling schedules and offering subpar typeset results, and how there are so many aspects of the jobs being eliminated that our bosses, who have never viewed our roles from trench level, will only encounter when they become a problem.

Where I began to get a bit impatient was when my parents asked me how the job hunt was going. I had told them there were going to be days when I didn't want to discuss it, although I didn't say this immediately, because they didn't push. Eventually, though, after I mentioned that I was in need of some remedial education to better qualify for many graphic design positions, they began asking what I would do if I had to change careers — what else I would want to do. I told them nothing. They pushed the matter, asking if I had any other interests in jobs that weren't going to be sent offshore with everything else. I let their questions follow me to the fridge, where I got another soda, and then by way of answering, I fixed my mother's gaze and said, quietly, "Do we really need to discuss this?"

"No," she said, ceasing her inquiry.

I finished my dinner in relative silence. Later, I gently explained to her that I had had a demoralizing day, and that I had mentioned that there would be days on which I wasn't going to feel like answering a whole lot of questions about my search. She understood, though she did say that my father eventually was going to want to know how things stood. Her phrasing bordered on a suggestion that he was entitled to such updates. Considering I'm not paying him rent, car money, or tuition debt, I think he — along with my mom — will get regular updates as my morale dictates.

I wonder how they would have reacted had I given them the plan I outlined above. Probably they would doubt my ability to get it done, and absolutely they would worry about my health insurance costs. I think a time eventually comes where you realize that you are the best assessor of your own abilities, prospects, and goals, and you can distinguish between those that are truly best for you, and those that you inherited from parents as a product of their concerns. True, they are probably valid at the base, but if they keep you from realizing your best destiny, they are limits, and should be broken. And as I said in the email to my friend, I will be working for the next 30 years, if not more. If it takes a little more time right now, when I in the best financial and health condition I'll be before middle age crashes in, to find the right skills and career path, don't I owe that to myself?

I think the prospect of utter failure is underrated by some people and should not be seen as some sort of living death, but rather as part of the journey to boundless success. This country — its tax system, its unemployment laws. the easy flow of credit and loans — offers many opportunities to recover fully after bankruptcy, misfortune, or utter fuckups. If it takes some false starts, and maybe some gloomy or even hungry nights thereafter, to get where I really need to be in my life, won't those be the most critical and beneficial fuckups I can make?

Bringing the Parents Onboard

I MENTIONED IN MY last entry that I had not told my parents of my slated layoff. I did so earlier today. I called home around noon, got my mother on the phone, and after she mentioned how my dad was doing with a pulled muscle, I presented the story to them as though it had just happened.

She was stunned. She didn't lose composure or anything, just listened as I gave her a brief rundown of the assistance offered and the next steps. I told her I was doing well with the news (which I am), that I needed to put together my resume as a first step (which I do), and that I won't by any means starve as a result of this (which I surely won't).

I have said before I don't want them to be worried about me, but I had a sneaking sense I was overestimating their distress. We're talking about people who have survived the tail end of the Depression, a world war, the passing of their own parents and siblings, and the fact of their own advancing age. What I tried to make clear in my short conversation with my mother, and later, in greater depth with them both at dinner tonight, was that I was looking at the future and was ready for the change.

In discussing the severance math with them. I became more convinced that finding a job as soon as possible was the primary goal. Becoming eligible for unemployment and the severance pay also puts me on the hook for COBRA, which has an expensive bite. Continuity of employment is the top goal right now.

They were supportive, if occasionally angry at my employers, though they didn't spend dinner ranting for their heads. I think they knew I was done there, regardless of what severance I might be around to collect. Telling them is a relief, though. Now for the next steps.

Straight Downhill From Monday

MOST PEOPLE LOOK FORWARD to every day that follows a Monday. So far, this week, I've been looking back to Monday nostalgically.

I had a trip planned to visit my parents in Wildwood Crest on Tuesday and Wednesday. Monday was therefore best spent in deep labor to clear the decks. I did this with gusto. I managed to lay out and send to their editors three sets of proofs, leaving my inbox entirely clear. I like leaving as few loose ends for my coworkers as possible, especially in this case for my immediate supervisor, who was still recovering from the pile of work she accumulated during her extended Labor Day vacation.

I got home in good time and watched the Manning Bowl with some ice cream. My departure time on Tuesday was after the morning rush, so I didn't need to awaken as early as usual. I rode out the slow unwinding of the Giants until late in the fourth quarter, then hit the hay.

The next morning, I hit the gym for a leisurely workout and 30 minutes on the treadmill, packed what few items I would need for an overnight stay, got my Atlantic City casino cards and some of my bankroll ready, gassed up on the newly cheap petrol now available in the area, and got rolling down the Garden State Parkway.

It was around Exit 74 that it dawned on me that I had brought neither contact lenses for Wednesday nor my glasses. To my credit, I merely issued an "Uh-oh" and kept driving. What could I do? To turn around at that point would shift my arrival time toward 5 or 6 in the afternoon, and possibly enmesh me in whatever commuting snarl develops on the lower half of the Parkway. I decided to visit whatever drugstore I could find, buy contact solution and a case in which I could store the lenses I was now wearing, and hope for the best.

This forced me to consider scratching my poker trip on Wednesday afternoon. My original plan was to leave Wildwood Crest around 2:00 or 3:00, get seated at the Borgata or Tropicana poker room, play for a few hours, eat, then head home after the evening rush. Now, with only one set of lenses to last me 2 days (I wear daily disposable contacts), I couldn't take the chance that ambient smoke, protein buildups, or allergies might make them unusable by the time I hit the road after gambling. So I was now leaning toward an early Wednesday departure. Vexing but not fatal.

When I drove over the bridge between the Jersey mainland and the Wildwoods, I splashed through a giant puddle outside a gas station. I noticed, when I stopped at a drugstore to get my eye supplies, that the drying water was leaving a schmutzy residue all over my car. Fearing that this was some sort of fucked-up petro-acid that would eat my finish, I found a car wash and got the basics. (You can see this was becoming an expensive overnight trip already!)

I finally got to my parents' motel by, oddly enough, my predicted time of 3:00, despite all the delays. This was the same place they stayed when I made this post around a year ago, and the gorgeous blue skies and sea wind were calming and helped me unwind from the minor hassles I had faced to get there.

But they weren't done yet. Dinner was, unfortunately, better for the company than for the fare. We went to an Italian place that claimed a multi-decade heritage in the area. I have to say it was among the worst Italian food I have ever had. I got eggplant parmigiana with meatballs. The sauce was made with whole tomatoes and chopped onions, which I spent much of the meal extracting from the layers of eggplant, and the meatballs were garlicky and also floating in the same sauce. I use no onions in my sauce aside from any caramelized ones might have clung to the meatballs, and I have a very low tolerance for garlic aside from the salt one might use on garlic bread. The eggplant itself was only partly done. I gave no indication to my parents of how little I thought of this favorite destination of theirs, but I will lobby against it next time I go down there.

Bedtime followed soon after we returned to the motel. I have had mixed results with the fold-out beds in this property. Up until last year, I had no problem with the mattress. In 2005, however, I woke up sore and stiff from where the bars of the couch had poked me. I got the bed unfolded, gingerly placed my contacts in the solution-filled storage gadget I had bought, and dropped off to sleep.

My cellphone alarm woke me up at 6:00 a.m. Immediately I knew something was wrong. The room was spinning. I knew it was the vertigo. In rolling to turn off the alarm, I nearly tumbled out of bed. Moving in itself was a stiff, awkward endeavor. When I got up to hit the john, I found myself veering to the right, walking into the wall twice. The vertigo seemed centered on that side. Hoping my parents wouldn't see me in this debilitated state, I took care of business, then wheeled back to the bed. I could feel the room whirling even as I sat there. Had I contorted myself into some imbalance-inducing position due to this shitty sofa bed? No way to determine. I had told my parents, when they brought up my coming down for a visit, that I would have preferred to stay in Atlantic City or somewhere along the highways leading to it, to avoid the beaten-with-soap feeling I got the last time I subjected myself to that sort of abuse. But they encouraged me to try it again, because they had a different room booked this time, and the motel had done extensive renovations that might have eliminated the poorer couches.

None of this was helping me now. I gave the exercises I had done in November a try — what else could I do? — and went back to sleep for another hour and a half.

Upon awakening, I noticed the symptoms had diminished but not entirely disappeared. I walked to the bathroom again — this time without colliding with the walls — and successfully inserted my lenses. No real problem seeing through them or tolerating them in my eyes. Had I slept with them in, I would be clawing at my sockets at this point, so I was happy to have taken some time to grab the supplies.

With the added attraction of the vertigo, however, I decided finally to rule out the poker trip. I did actually stop at the Borgata on the way home to marvel at its expanded, enormous poker room, but in an act of discipline and self-interest that would boggle some of the more impulsive members of my poker circle, I threw not a single chip in anger. This joint would be open when next I returned, rested, fully supplied, and intact in body.

Breakfast with my dad (my mom was still stacking zzzz's, having slept fitfully due to painful sciatica) went well, as did the hour or so I spent with both parents before my departure. I wished silently that I had had the motel's French toast for dinner the previous night instead of the subpar Italian grub. I made my goodbyes and headed home without incident or delay. My contacts held firm through an end-of-journey pit stop at Paramus Park and Barnes & Noble, and I finally extracted these journeyman slivers of plastic upon reaching my apartment. It's good to see that, if all else fails, this plan is viable and I won't go blind as a result.

Thursday had another gentle surprise for me. While getting my ass in gear for work this morning, I could not find my transit passes or my work IDs. I have two of each. Normally I keep them in my work bag when I am home, and in my pants or shirt pocket while at work. After 20 minutes of increasingly frantic searching, I came to the possible conclusion that I left them in one of the shirts I brought to the dry cleaners on Tuesday before heading south. I had written my phone number on the back of the transit passes, along with reward promises, but when I called the cleaners this morning they reported no returned items of that nature. They also said, however, that items identifiable as belonging to a specific customer would return attached to the order, so I might have a shot at retrieving them when the job came back. As of this evening, however, they are not back, so I will have to wait until Saturday to determine if I need to dig deep for a new round of ID and passes.

Cutting short a vacation because of visual and balance issues is one thing, irritating (if, in the first case, self inflicted) but not damaging. The first was resolvable upon return home, and the second was shown in the past to fade with time and the exercises I did during the 2005 incident. I was not eager to lay out more cash for new transit passes. Granted, I could buy shorter-term passes and not be on the hook for a full month's worth, but still, it's cash I would much rather save for the future. Paying the reward I had posted on the original passes (I figured I needed to give the finder an incentive not to use them or sell them) would set me back $30, still less than what new passes will cost. So I am very much rooting for a nice surprise this coming Saturday.

Ultimately, however, these are minor issues. I still have my overall health. No lives were lost, nor were more important IDs, like my driver's license, or a credit card. It took me 7 years of travel in and out of the city to lose any of the passes I use on NJ Transit or to get into the office. Most folks lose at least one MetroCard every couple of years. If after 3 years of eating in a college commissary didn't steel me to the occasional shitty meal, then I've clearly been very sheltered. I did get to see my parents and the shore. I fully realize that having these as my biggest problems is a vain boast in light of the grinding poverty, rampant disease, and grievous social injustice facing millions of people across the world. It's just having these things happen one after another without pause that gets to be a drag. I did pull myself out of the morass of negativity over the course of the evening, though, and writing about it has helped vent it. With any luck, I can make this Friday much brighter, address the result of the lost ID/passes this Saturday one way or the other, welcome my parents home from the shore, and enjoy their irreplaceable selves on Sunday for dinner. I have a ton of good in my life, and I can take lessons and survive these bumps in the road.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity-Jig

MOM CAME HOME THIS afternoon, tired from having to sit around the hospital room most of the time, but feeling stronger and very much ready to leave. I still think she was wise to stay another night. No sense in being a hero, and we had nothing planned for Easter anyway, aside from my engulfing a heaping helping of jelly beans (which hardly requires an occasion anyway).

Dad and I actually visited her yesterday, when the question of being released Sunday or today was decided. Her improvement over Saturday morning was marked. She was still using oxygen, but her movements and voice were both more forceful. She was still in pain from her neck and the back problems, but she was getting pain meds for them, and in fact before we left, she gave us a prescription for them. So by the time she got home today, she was covered.

I am tremendously relieved to have her back home. For now, her task is to heal, to walk around and get her muscles back in tone, and to stay off the damn cigarettes. She did have one when she got home, but I know she felt bad about it, and my father is going to get her some nicotine patches tomorrow.

That's all to report for now. She has a follow-up with the surgeon later this week or early next week. We'll take it from there.

The Patient Is Awake and She's Working Blue

"God grant I never die in a fucking hospital! Let me die in some louche bistro, a knife in my liver, my skull split with a beer bottle, a pistol bullet through the spine, my head in spit and blood and beer. . . . Or let me die in an Indian hut, on a sandbank, in jail, or alone in a furnished room, on the ground someplace or in an alley, on a street or subway platform, in a wrecked car or plane. . . . Anyplace, but not in a hospital, not in bed . . ."

—William S. Burroughs, "Lee's Journals," Interzone

TWO DECADES AGO, WHEN my maternal grandmother had a stroke, my mother and grandfather waited with her to receive a visiting doctor. When he arrived, he asked, as most doctors doing rounds will, "How are you feeling?"

Through her stroke-slurred speech, my grandmother still managed to make herself very clear: "Like shit."

Proving herself to be her mother's daughter, this is exactly what my mother said when I asked the same question this morning.

My dad and I arrived around 9:30. The hospital had called him with news that my mother had been moved from the recovery room to a comprehensive-care unit, one step down from recovery but with nurses on hand for those with longer recovery times. In my mother's case, this stemmed from her compromised lung function, which made the comedown from the anesthesia something of a bitch.

She was sleeping fitfully when we arrived, tubes connected, monitor beeping, gauze and tape barely covering a broad, livid bruise along the swollen right side of her neck. I didn't want to wake her up, because I thought that the more recovery she could undergo while not being awake for the associated pain, the better. After about 10 minutes, though, her eyes fluttered, and I moved into her field of vision. Thankfully she recognized me instantly. She further proved her quickness of mind by responding as I mentioned above to my query about her health.

Her voice was rough — from being intubated for oxygen while under, or just from the knockout gas itself, I didn't know, or ask. She was clearly in pain, and not just from the incision; her lumbar condition and sciatica were in full blast from having been on her back for hours. Also, the hospital apparently went to Percocet as their painkiller of choice, which, for my mom — who is under the care of a pain-management specialist — is like Skittles. Added to that, she had to hit the ladies' room, or its portable equivalent. So she was in pain, had to pee, and feeling depressed. "If I'd 'a known I would feel like this, I never would've had it done," she said. I understood her sentiment, but I didn't say anything, while she was dazed from a night of on-and-off sleep and a double lungful of anesthesia, about the Aces I had in the hole: the two photos of her arteries that I had with me.

A nurse fortuitously picked that time to check in, and we let her know of my mom's needs. (Mom did later say the nurses on this floor had been very pleasant and helpful, always a plus.) She was there to prep my mom for a move to a semiprivate room, after the surgeon stopped. She began to remove some of my mom's bandages, including the heavy packing around her throat, and some of the tubing — each in its way traumatic to sensitive or recently incised skin. I held my mother's hand as she winced. The monitor beeped insistently as her heart rate spiked with the pain. It was at that time that the Burroughs quote came to mind. I know I would have traded places with my mom in a minute to spare her further suffering, even as incidental to necessary work as it might have been, but as for being hospitalized myself someday . . . let the scythe fall and the Reaper take His due.

The doctor arrived about 15 minutes later. He kept things light, but he said he was no rush to release my mother if she still felt weak the next day. (Someone my age, presumed to have greater resiliency, probably would have been booted by now, as this is viewed as an outpatient procedure. My response would have been to handcuff myself to the bed.) He was pleased with her responsiveness, though, laden with sleep debt as it was, and reminded her of how much she needed the surgery she had once tried to cancel. That was my cue to produce the photos. I'm not sure which one stunned her more, but they did evoke a "Holy shit!" and a change of heart regarding whether the pain and inconvenience of recovery was worth it.

About an hour and change after we arrived, Mom was moved up to the top floor of the hospital to a semiprivate room. She had been stationary so long, and her cramping back and hip were giving her so much grief as a result, that getting out of bed and then inching onto the stretcher was a deliberate, measured process. But once we were mobile, it was a quick trip. As a bonus, the second patient was moved out of the room a quarter hour after we arrived, and so the place was ours.

Here, Mom was not only able to convince the nurse to get her another two Percocet, but she was served lunch. I returned from the bathroom to find her sipping some egg drop soup, and a platter on the tray held a grilled chicken sandwich and broccoli spears. The broccoli she could give a damn about, but she set upon the chicken breast with a fervor, dropping the bun in the soup and tearing the meat up to eat it piece by piece. We chatted with her about this and that, even though not much had happened between yesterday afternoon and this morning, just to keep her mind off of her pain while she waited for the pain pills to arrive. Her voice was sounding stronger, and her mood was elevated from earlier. And clearly her appetite had recovered!

My dad and I took a break to get food of our own. Before we left, Mom directed us to look for pastry — "Prune danish," she specified. I saw an apple turnover that looked so-so, which led me to ignore it and grab her two of her favorites: M&Ms and Smartfood popcorn. I figured if she wasn't able to eat one, she could go for the other. Unbeknownst to me, my dad snagged the pastry. Mom did confirm that she couldn't eat the popcorn while in the hospital and away from her floss, but she drooled at the turnover and the M&Ms, which she attacked immediately. By this point she had also gotten the pain pills from a nurse. Selecting the chocolate morsels from a plastic cup, my mother proclaimed, "I have my family, my Percocet, and my M&Ms, and the rest of the world can fuck off." Hear hear.

We left her sitting in a high-backed chair, which was easier on the sciatica than lying in bed. I pointed out to her that I had brought her usual Friday Wall Street Journal crossword puzzle, along with her glasses. But by that point, from the food, the lousy sleep she'd had last night, and maybe the Percocets, she was nodding off again, and she told us we didn't have to hang out all day if we didn't want to. Typical Mom, not wanting to seem a burden. We kissed her goodbye, told her we'd be by the next morning, and headed out.

My dad gets quieter than usual in situations like this, and has a tendency to pull into himself and seek the comfort of the familiar. I tried to get him to come to dinner with me at a local diner, but he really just wanted to be home, where he could grab a drink and not dress up — though what that might constitute for a quick trip to a low-formality greasy spoon, I dunno. But I know not to keep prodding him when he is looking for a corner, so I left him at his house, reclaimed my car, and headed back here.

I took a walk into town, my dry cleaning under my arm, in uncharacteristic 80º weather and skies finally blue after a morning of fog. It gave me time to think, even amid what seemed like half the town out enjoying the weather. The plans my parents have to get the main floor of the house switched over to holding a bedroom probably need to be thrown into higher gear. Mom is not going to want to screw around with stairs as much as it can be avoided, until she gets her wind back and is both less stiff and back on her usual pain regimen. She can sleep sitting upright on the couch in the short run, and the more sleep she can get, the better she'll heal. But I know they're both looking forward to cutting the stairs out of the equation as soon as they can. My father can handle the basement stairs well enough for laundry duty, but even he slows down at the lean end of the day.

I don't know if my mother will make any deep changes in her lifestyle based on this experience. The photos of her carotids seemed to make an impression. She had been given a nicotine patch, which was probably the only reason she wasn't clawing the sheets off the bed when we arrived. I would love to see her quit. Too often, though, my father — who quit cold turkey 25 years ago — resorts to sarcasm when my mom mentions cutting back, and provides little support. I can't have that attitude poisoning what might be her last chance to make a difference in her quality of life by quitting. I don't care if she papers herself in patches and chews half a pound of the nicotine gum each day — the less of that fucking smoke that goes into her lungs, the more they'll be able to give her the oxygen she needs to move about, stand for an extended period . . . and survive a future operation.

Oddly enough, my dad just called on an unrelated matter, and I brought up the smoking question. He is indeed very sympathetic to the idea of Mom dropping this habit, but I want to help him be the best support he can be, seeing as he's not only on the scene to provide it most directly, but also because getting that secondhand smoke out of the house will bail his lungs out as well. He's been closely following the New Jersey smoking ban, because as the treasurer of his local Elks lodge, and incidentally one of the few members who doesn't have his head up his ass, he has been working to convince the more stubborn brethren that yes, the ban affects fraternal orders, and yes, it will be enforced. I mentioned how we should try to get her to continue on the patch if we can, so I am hopeful he'll try to ease the topic into conversation as early as tomorrow night if she comes home then.

On that topic, he believes Mom indeed will come home tomorrow. The insurance won't keep paying forever, unless the doctor perceives her condition as still weakened enough to warrant it. If she is breathing strongly without oxygen, she is likely to be given a sheaf of scripts, a bag of wound dressings, and a hefty bill. Thus is the state of the hospital–insurance complex. I feel the faster she is able to walk around her own house, sit on her own deck, and sleep in her own bed or chair, her spirits will rise and her healing will accelerate. If I need to take a day or so off to help that happen, I will. But I suspect she really wants the routine back, and my hanging on her is not gonna help. Looking at those two carotid photos, and deciding for herself how to proceed given how close a call this was, may help a lot more.

Good News Thus Far

IT WAS WHITISH-YELLOW, a floppy, wrinkled square centimeter of matter, not unlike a scrap of scrambled egg you might forget on the side of your plate while polishing off a platter of breakfast at your favorite diner. This neglect would be fortuitous for you, as it would only end up helping produce this stuff, clinging insidiously to the lining of one of your vital arteries. It was a sample of the plaque my mother's doctor removed from her carotid artery, in the course of a successful operation to straighten and clear it of what turned out to be an eighty percent blockage. She is still recovering from the anesthesia at the hospital, and she may remain on painkillers and oxygen for the bulk of the evening, but she should be in a room by late tonight so we can visit her tomorrow.

We made an early start of it, at least for my retiree parents, who usually don't even start futzing with coffee as early as we left today. Via back roads, to avoid even the thin Good Friday traffic along the frequently jammed Route 4, we arrived at the hospital early. My mother was still in a good mood, not apparently afraid, so I had high hopes for the time we would spend together before her admission.

Checking in proved to be no problem, and we were routed to a temporary hospital room where, we were told, we would be visited by a nurse to get some medical information. My mom was also left with a pair of robes, one attaching in back, the other snapping up front. When she emerged from the bathroom after shrugging out of her street clothes, the bulky, drooping layers and odd pattern of the robes made her look one gaudy medallion short of being a white, early-Nineties Al Sharpton.

One slight detour from the usual admission came with the nebulizer. Because she has smoked for her entire life, the anesthesiologist wanted to open her lungs up to allow the oxygen he would administer during the operation to get into her system better. To that end, a second nurse came in with a plastic tube, one end of which ended in a reed-like mouthpiece. The nurse emptied a medication into a reservoir beneath the tube, into which she plugged an air hose that led to the oxygen port on the wall. My mom was able to breathe in the atomized drug, but when she breathed out through this peace-pipe-looking apparatus, smoke streamed out in a display more suited to a Hendrix concert than a pre-op holding area. This provided my dad and I some much needed laughs, and Mom happily blew smoke around the room while the 5-minute supply of juice lasted.

Shortly thereafter, an orderly appeared outside with a stretcher. It was time. Only one of us could accompany her to pre-op, so I elected my dad. I kissed my mom and told her I would see her later. She was relaxed, seemingly ready. I could do nothing more than to watch them both round the corner into the surgery section.

My dad eventually returned, finding me in the waiting area, which would be our home for the next 2 hours. The rest of the area was taken up by a large family. From what their doctor said (yes, this was potentially a HIPAA privacy violation on his part, but so is this post about my mom!), a female relative weighing 400+ pounds put herself on a crash diet, suffered some form of health crisis as a result, and ended up in the emergency room. If it involved any sort of a collapse, the family may have suspected a heart attack. Not too far from the mark, as starvation diets cause the body to deplete not adipose tissue but protein and mineral sources, these being muscles in general and — in the case of potassium — heart tissue. The ticker of a person weighing a fifth of a ton is under enough stress without taxing it further by depleting one's blood of vital nutrients.

At about 1:30, I went downstairs to grab a sandwich in the fantastic commissary of the hospital, but my dad couldn't be convinced to do likewise just yet. He usually eats at 12:30 to 1:00, so he must've been more anxious than hungry. By the 2-hour mark, though, I could feel my heartbeat elevating a bit. I was under the impression that the procedure would take on the order of 2 hours, and I was losing my ability to just trust everything to the surgeons and time and getting antsy for an update.

As if at my command, an update arrived, in the form of my mother's surgeon. He confirmed that everything had gone well, which was a tremendous relief to hear, and he had a couple of visual aids to share with us.

The first — which I would scan and post if I had the means — was a pair of color-enhanced ultrasound photos of the flow through my mother's afflicted carotid arteries. In the "before" shot, he indicated a tiny colored dot in the center of a circle. The circle was the normal capacity of my mom's right common internal carotid; the dot was its current flow, a difference, as I mentioned, of 80% of capacity. The "after" shot showed both the internal carotid and the adjacent external one, both fully flowing and clear. He laughed and agreed with my suggestion that my mother put them on the fridge.

The second item he had was the plaque I cited at the start. Both this, and the comparative ultrasound shots, were, I realized, his effort to show us why he had fought to convince my mom to reconsider her decision to cancel the surgery. This one, however, was all the more arresting. I had noticed the white bundle in his hand when he entered, along with the photos and a large pair of tweezers, but they hadn't really registered. He opened the wad of surgical gauze, to show us the limp whitish gunk, which he described as being only part of what he had removed. My previous misgivings about his urgency, and my worry over his possibly being only in it to notch a new case on his belt, disappeared.

My dad visited briefly with my mother after the doctor finished speaking with us. She was still coming out of the anesthesia, and being awake only exposed her to the pain from the incision. The nurse administered a painkiller while Dad was there, but he didn't stay long due to a 5-minute limit on visitors in the recovery room. We decided it would only agitate her further if I, a second visitor, attempted to keep her from the sleep she needed. Keep in mind, that in addition to the hangover from the knockout gas, and being on oxygen, and having a stitched-up slit on her neck, she was probably jonesing hard for nicotine. Seeing as the doctor was pleased with how she was coming along, I couldn't bring myself to upset her further.

Finally succumbing to hunger, my dad led the way to the cafeteria. We discussed the possibility of somehow getting my mother to quit smoking. This has failed in the past, but we hoped the head start she will have this weekend, and the evidence of how much more complex the compromised lung capacity has made the surgery and recovery, might help her decide. It's never too late to begin repairing the damage, and in light of the New Jersey ban on smoking in most enclosed commercial and transit areas, which takes effect at midnight tonight, she would be joining a trend. One thing at a time, though — let's get her home and out of the hospital first.

My dad and I left soon after that. He called about 30 minutes ago to tell me she had been moved to an intermediate recovery room, not as restrictive on visits but still a common area where her progress can be monitored. She is still fairly hung over, but the nurse was happy with her status, so it's only a matter of when they'll get her into a semiprivate room tonight. We intend to visit as early as we can tomorrow, so we can at least get the poor girl her glasses, which we were loath to leave behind for fear of their getting lost in the chaos of admission and movement and whatnot.

Right now, I am tired, and sporting a kicking headache, possibly brought on by the second group of guests in the waiting area earlier, a trio of North Jersey yentas who yelled at one another due to deafness in heavily accented, cigarette-ruined voices about their ailments, the decline of today's youth, and how mediocre their children were. In the spirit of the recent Passover holiday, if these jabbering old bats had been in Pharaoh's Egypt, their first-born would have washed the lamb's blood off of the lintels. Oy already!

I will probably turn in early tonight, in anticipation of the start we want to get to the hospital. We are assuming Mom will have been assigned a room by that point. Either way, I am hoping the worst of this is over, that the hospital will retain her as long as it takes for her to feel strong and confident enough to leave, and that she will be home with us soon.

Watchful Waiting

I JUST GOT HOME from my parents' house for Taco Thursday. Some things never change, even on the eve of vascular surgery for my mother. My dad shuffled off to an Elks meeting afterwards, as he does every other Thursday, and my mother busied herself with dishes and speculated what she should include in her overnight bag for the hospital. I gave her a big kiss and a hug before I headed out, and told her not to hesitate to call me tonight if she felt any jitters.

I suspect she won't. They would have hit by now. Aside from a couple of pre-op appointments, it has been a routine week for my parents. Whenever I've called over, she's sounded strong, not preoccupied . . . nothing like the morning she called me at work in a thorough state over the conflicting diagnoses. Tomorrow morning may be a different story, but that's why she has a supply of Xanax handy.

I've been handling the approaching date calmly too, as I've said. There's nothing I can do to remedy the situation; she's going to be in the best hands available (she's still getting compliments from nurses and diagnosticians on scoring this guy); she herself is resolved to see this through; and I want to be able to support my dad, who rarely expresses his inner thoughts on situations like this. You never know when someone's going to feel very alone or vulnerable, and after 36 years of supporting my aimless drift through life, I certainly owe him that.

I don't like to think of my parents as "old," even though they fall into the category well enough. I live in an apartment building where many of the tenants are decades older than me, well into retirement, in some cases incapacitated. Behind my building is an actual retirement home, and in my limited exposure to its residents (I vote there), the range of capabilities is not wide. I don't like to cast my mental eye forward and imagine my folks in that state (to say nothing of myself), but that could be where they're headed. Mentally they're a bit forgetful now and again, but they know this and work around it to function well regardless.

Physically, my mother is slower in getting around than my dad. Sciatica, arthritis, and an old knee injury, plus the extra weight that accompanied these disabilities due to reduced exercise and agility, are all taking their toll on her facility with stairs and long walks. My dad used to golf, but no longer can pull even nine holes without getting foot pain, and he has received a pacemaker and a corneal implant in recent years. Both of them are on a jumble of medications — yes, they have the stereotypical big pill container with S M T W T F S on the little doors.

They are slowly taking steps to move their bedroom to the family/TV room of their two-story house. I have relieved them of as many books from the family-room shelf units as I could take (my Harlan Ellison collection quadrupled!), and they plan to shift the TV/entertainment tangle of wires and speakers one room over and make this their new bedroom. They'll still have to deal with the basement steps, but that could be consigned to my more nimble father. I am eager to help them, but part of me sees this as a sad retreat from vitality and the powers of youth . . . "youth" being in this case as close as their early sixties.

It is tough not to imagine what will happen when one of them is gone. I spent at least one sleepless night worrying about tomorrow, unable to keep my mind from trying to lay the groundwork for the worst possible outcome. Mom's resolve in the face of this surgery has ended the runaway worry over this (though I haven't gone to bed yet tonight, have I?), but still . . . how can one prepare to share the grief of a surviving partner in a 40-plus-year marriage, whether sooner or later, even as I might still be dealing with my own bereavement?

It makes me think back to how they supported each other when their parents died, or — worse — when their brothers died early, his from fast-moving stomach cancer, hers from homicide. My grandparents had all been sick when they finally passed, so it was not a surprise. I have no way of knowing what fate has planned for my parents, how swiftly their end will come. All I know is I will need to be there for my surviving parent as best I can, even as I know that my loss can be nothing compared to the loss the survivor feels, seeing as they've known each other since high school.

And beyond that, listening to them speak of their various ailments, the pilgrimages they make from specialist to hospital, makes me wonder what sort of road I will walk when my own health finally begins to betray me. Assuming things continue as they are, I will have no spouse, or offspring, or relatives with me at that time, and any friends scattered across the country's traditional retirement havens, if they haven't already preceded me into the Big Casino. With today's medical science, and compared to the smokers and drinkers in my family, aside from obesity I can expect to dodge most major causes of death for the better part of a century. I need to recognize as early as possible the landmarks that my parents never knew to search out in their forties and fifties, to dodge them as best I can, to pay for them somehow, and then . . . what?

To die alone?

Now you know why I couldn't sleep that other night. Not too tough to look through the lens of your own parents' medical status to spy on what the future might have in store. I ducked out of this morbid mood at the time, and I don't intend to sink into it again tonight, but I wanted to pin this skein of anxiety to the wall, so to speak, to return to it and determine if it was just my mind galloping off on some wild worry chase, or just cautious planning at an overheated pace.

For now, though, I intend to get a full night's sleep, to wake up and take a nice walk in cool Spring air, eat a full breakfast in case the hospital commissary is rife with prepackaged mystery wedges on syntho-rye, and be there for these odd folks who decided to drop me onto an unsuspecting world. More to come.

My Father, the Arsonist

THE SCENE: LAST THURSDAY, at my parents' house, for Taco Night. The conversation turned, as if urged on by the hot 'n' spicy meat and salsa, to the recent series of wildfires on Staten Island. My mother observed that the authorities believe them to be of mischievous origin.

My father then offered, "Me and my friends used to set fire to the dry grass in [insert wetland section of 1940s Bronx whose name I forget]."

My mother looked stunned. "You never told me this!"

"Sure I did. We called it, 'Burn the Swamp.'"

I began laughing. My father is such a straight arrow, it is difficult to imagine his taking part in even the most innocent youthful mayhem . . . to say nothing of torching a couple of acres of dead reeds.

"You're an arsonist!" hollered my mother.

"There was nothing there," said my dad.

"No, not after you got done with it!" I said.

"I can't believe I'm married to an arsonist," sighed my mom.

"This coming from a tax cheat," I reminder her. (Decades ago — well outside the statute of limitations, IRS — my mother claimed on her taxes that she "lost" her "fishing equipment" on a "fishing trip," and also deducted some "dental work" done by one "Dr. Goldcapp.")

All I can say is, I am well behind schedule on my youthful felonies. Even if I started now, I'd hardly call them "youthful." My dad probably would have caught worse from his parents than the cops of the day. If I even looked funny at a pile of leaves while carrying a Zippo, I'd have ATF officers dropping onto my lawn from black helicopters, get knocked on my ass with the microwave weapons they're using on riots now, and wake up 5 weeks later in a dungeon that makes Abu Ghraib look like the Wonka works. Complete with menacing midgets.

Gale-Force Sigh of Relief

I RECEIVED A WELCOME and surprising phone call at work today from my mother. "Good news," she said. "No. Surgery. Needed."

As I described in a couple of previous posts, my mother was heading toward surgery for a diagnosed partial blockage and congenital contortion of her right carotid artery. This was to come at the end of the month. She had already endured a couple of panicked moments before going for preparatory appointments with specialists, including one with a retinologist this week. Although she knew she had to have it done if it was this badly blocked and throwing clots, she was none too eager about it.

And neither was I. I was reading up on the subject, and although I have little to no background to understand the problem and its remedy, what I could comprehend scared me. This was, incidentally, psychic revenge in my mom's favor. I have given her grief over her habit of watching medical dramas and surgery shows on cable. To my thinking, I am eventually going to go to a hospital for something — why get a preview and endure all manner of stress? Aside from volunteering or for a flu shot, I'd just as soon steer way clear of all major medical institutions. However, I quickly became a hypocrite, because I looked through Gray's Anatomy for information on the carotid artery, and tormented myself by wondering if she had to have work on the seemingly more accessible external carotid or the seemingly buried internal one. And asking my mother which one the doctor might have mentioned only had to potential to alarm her further. But at least she would have had the satisfaction of seeing me confess to what I used to accuse.

Then she visited a neurologist yesterday for a scan of the vessel, which — as the provider of half the brain's blood — fell into his purview. At least she felt better about going to this appointment than the one she rescheduled at the retinologist, because much to everyone's surprise, the scan revealed no blockage at all. The artery is still showing up as being unusually curvy, but there is no reduction in blood flow whatsoever to indicate an occlusion.

Upon being told this, my mother began crying. All the tension and fear she was bottling up flooded out in tears of relief. The doctor tried to comfort her, saying she didn't need to cry due to good news. But she did, really. And better this anxiety should flow away this way, neutralized in salty water, than in the form of a panic attack or worse.

The neurologist's opinion is that the clot in her eye — whatever its source — could have been prevented by a regimen of aspirin. Mom was put on a daily aspirin recently, so it is our hope that this, along with a statin, will reduce the odds of any further plaque dislodging. She has gotten a couple of nosebleeds recently, to which she was subject to begin with and which now seem to be more frequent. Frankly, I think I can speak for her in saying that even a weekly nosebleed is preferable to the prospect of general anesthesia and having a carotid filleted. So she is going to contact the cardiologist and regretfully inform him that, despite his wonderful staff and his excellent bedside manner, she will opt out of surgery.

Naturally, I expressed my extreme relief and congratulated her for this wonderful turn of fortune. I did silently wonder just what in fact was going on in that sneaky little artery, but I was too relieved to have her back out from under the knife to venture any of these misgivings. It would have been one thing for me, a 36-year-old, to say "fuck it" and have them dig in. I am younger and more resilient than my mother, and if I had sufficient evidence to support a 70% blockage at my age, then hell yes I'm having the damn think opened, reamed, sewn up, and sealed with a kiss. My mother cannot afford to be so cavalier.

While I had her on the phone, I finally told her about Nick's passing. I said I was still going to my scheduled checkup in May, not only because of her experience, but because . . . and I told her the whole story. I said I didn't tell her at the time, even while I was upset and could have used another ear to bend with this, because the last thing she needed was to hear about a 43-year-old stricken down so suddenly. Indeed, she was deeply appreciative that I held back, and duly stunned at the details.

So that's how things stand. A cardiac scan a week ago showed normal flow through her coronary arteries, so who the hell knows where the fucking plaque came from in the first place. Maybe there is something somewhere. Maybe drugs and aspirin will control or even safely reduce it, and she will live until 90 and go down swinging against the Grim Reaper with a More Menthol in one hand and an upraised middle finger on the other. All I know at this point is that she will spend a very relaxed weekend for the first time since February, one that she, as a retiree from both the workforce and the role of active kid-wrangler, has most certainly earned.

I'm Not in the Happiness Business

SO FAR, I HAVEN'T made too many metaposts about this blog itself, especially regarding my schedule. I post when I have something to write. When the idea's mostly done in my head, I sit, write, warm the idea to completion, and send it on its way into the dark dungeons of the internets. I have a number of prose blobs in my computer's blog folder . . . half-baked ideas, sentences, paragraphs, that never really jelled. I hang onto them in case I ever come back to them with the right sort of mindset to finish them, or bearing the ending that was eluding me, or whatever.

Still, I feel crummy for not promptly finishing my whole set of Las Vegas posts. Not to use real life as an excuse, but . . . I don't know how to finish that sentence. Seriously, I think I lost momentum on relating the tale, despite taking notes while I was there. Bringing a computer along next time might assist matters, especially if I stay at the Plaza again — the table and chair setup there was great for writing.

I may still finish out that trip with some sort of summation, but when I have the words done. I'd hate to just apply some sort of conversational twist-tie to seal it off like some sort of literary Hefty Bag. It might spend a little time in my fragment folder, or just pour out when it's done. I want it to be as true as it can be, even if it's just closing out the story. I'm not here to lie about myself. The truth is far more amusing.

So this will be a catchall catch-up sort of post. Strap in.

The other big issue weighing on my mind recently, in addition losing a friend of mine, is my mother's continuing quest to determine what's been up with her health. I can sum it up thusly: Don't be afraid to ask for a second opinion.

Last time I wrote about this, my mother had been told that her right carotid artery was 50% blocked, and that the doctor didn't regard it as an emergency. The number struck me as odd. The stereotypical responses to a test of an artery's flow are either that it's totally clear and the patient has nothing to worry about, or it's 90% blocked and the patient is immediately swabbed with Betadine and cracked open like a Brazil nut. It's never 50%.

This piqued my mother's curiosity as well. She was also concerned about her continuing visual impairment, and whether anything else could potentially break off and travel somewhere more sensitive. She spoke to a friend of hers who had suffered the same condition and had been treated with carotid surgery. The friend spoke highly of the care she had received from a doctor practicing at a hospital on the other side of the county. Mom mentioned this to the primary care physician's nurse, and she gushed over the doctor in question, a vascular specialist. So she asked for a referral.

Now, keep in mind that my parents both spend a few days a month each at one doctor or another for chronic ills. If my mom isn't getting an epidural from a pain-management specialist to stave off sciatica, or having her liver enzymes checked to monitor the side effects of the psoriasis and anticholesterol meds she is on, then my dad is at the cardiologist having his pacemaker checked or having the latest suspicious growth examined by the dermatologist.

At this rate, the future depicted in Logan's Run is looking mighty sweet.

Anyway, this just shows how little incentive my mother had to add yet another medical station of the cross. But she thought, I didn't even get my diagnosis from the doctor himself. He didn't request a CAT scan of the brain for blockages, or a heart scan to see if any coronary arteries were occluded. What the fuck? (Yes, in those words. Salty gal, my mom.)

Her experience with the second doctor was in every way excellent. It turns out this man is not only a vascular surgeon who has broad experience in clearing carotid arteries, but he is the chief of that specialty at his hospital. His card had more board certifications than a medical convention. He put her at ease, interviewed her for a history, asked to see the previous scan, and — when his staff couldn't read the results — asked her to have a more complete scan done there.

Good idea. The prior scan was unreadable because my mother has irregularly formed carotid arteries, curving repeatedly instead of straight. The other hospital quoted 50% because they were seeing an incomplete picture. Her right carotid is actually 70% blocked, on top of being malformed.

Had she simply heeded her primary care guy's advice — which didn't even come directly from him — she might have put off surgery for months. The vascular specialist was stunned to learn of this, as well as to hear that the other guy prescribed no cardiac scan or plaque-managing drugs. As for the technician who prepared the first scan, he said that the person ought to lose his license.

The next step is surgery on the afflicted carotid, sometime within the next few weeks. The primary care physician finally got his shit into gear and ordered cardiac and brain scans, but earlier this week, my mom had to cancel on at least one of them. The pressure of going from one doctor to another for this, on top of having to push one of them to get serious about followup, gave her a panic attack, to the point of shaking like a leaf and being unable to hold a cup of coffee. A day of blessed inactivity with my father at her side and an extra Xanax helped calm her down, though, and she has continued the march from MD to MD this week in a more tranquil spirit.

All of this — my mom, Nick's death — has reduced my tolerance for bullshit by a marked degree. Some things I deemed important have diminshed; others have grown. I have also been reading two productivity blogs, 43 Folders and Lifehack, and picking up hints on tightening my routines at work and home.

At work, the four Mac users in my groups lost the ability to use Microsoft Outlook for email. I know what you're thinking, "Free at last!" Not so simple; as the company uses it, so must we, even if it's through its vile Exchange incarnation. So we had been struggling for two weeks to read, print, and archive email via this clunky Web interface. An utter waste of time.

Last Friday, we all got Microsoft Entourage. So much more functional. Once again, we can drag and drop files to get them in or out of emails. Filling archive folders is now an instant experience, not a 7-step series of clickthroughs. Moreover, we can organize groups of emails, contacts, and calendar dates in "projects," a quantum leap forward from merely having a swelling Inbox in which lurk five or six related emails with disparate headers and addressees.

This inspired me to instigate a purge. I deleted well over a thousand emails over three days. I felt like the last 5 seconds of an Ex-Lax ad. My immediate boss had asked the other three of us to organize our printed emails and off-press work in file folders along her system. I had done so, but now I felt like this new software could help me group this sort of stuff in these projects and keep everything moving and marked for updates.

Then I turned to workflow. For the vast majority of our newsletters, the in-house editors provide us with printed MSS and Word files on a common server. For three of them, though, the files are emailed directly from the publications' editors in the field to me — not to the in-house folks for reviewing art quality, styling text, and the like. This has me printing the MSS, doing the aforementioned editorial tasks, and (for one of the three) contacting the field editor to solicit MSS.

This is patently not my job. I pointed this out to my boss, who agreed. I then emailed the two in-house eds and their supervisor to tell them that the next issue should go directly to them, not to me.

Said super came down to discuss this. She has a history of being spongy on decisions, of not standing up to demanding field editors, and of allowing her eds to be used for tasks better suited to a temp. (Amid slates of 9 to 11 active monthly or quarterly editing and proofreading jobs, she has them review online Web versions of their pubs for quality control. Get an intern to do this and let the editors edit!) More alarmingly, when I pointed out an aspect of workflow to her in explaining why this job was better done by her staff and not me, she betrayed basic ignorance about how the edited files are prepared for typesetting — and I made it a point to run through that process for her in a voice loud enough for my boss to come over and get involved in the discussion.

In the end, I evaded her claims that "this is how we've always done it" and "it will create more work for these folks" and left the issue in her lap. I was pleased to receive my boss's direct support and her compliment for "standing my ground." I replied that the company is riven with inefficiencies like this, and I am not interested in supporting them, especially with a major switch in how we produce newsletters coming sometime this year (read as: should have been in operation for 6 months by now). that, incidentally, will require that supervisor to know the procedure she blanked on as well as her staff. I said to my boss that I had a feeling the editors wouldn't be happy with my move, but — and this phrase has been running through my head for the past week since I read a thread on personal mantras — "I'm not in the happiness business."

This is not to say I will not make people happy. I made my boss happy by detaching an inessential function and grafting it back onto the department where it will best be carried out. I surely made my sysadmin happy by douching out a grand of useless email. In the phrase, the happiness I am denying people is the happiness of complacency in believing my department will do your shit work, of tolerating mediocre results like a half-assed medical scan that could have killed my mother, of letting a thousand emails rot, of seeing tasks and believing them impossible rather than digestible in single bits . . . of evading the excellence I could achieve in writing, in exercising regularly, in mastering poker, in being an example at work and leading rather than responding.

I'm not in the happiness business. And business is good.

Fuzzy Vision Leads to Clearer Future

HAD A BIT OF a scare over the weekend. My mother developed a minor physical symptom that, in showing up this way, may end up preventing fatal consequences. The funny thing is, if I ask her one more time if she and my father want me to postpone the Las Vegas trip to be close to home, she might actually kill me.

Yesterday afternoon, the vision in my mother's right eye changed. It blurred in the lower section, so that part of her visual field disappeared. It went on and off for a half hour, then stopped altogether. She called me about an hour after this happened to let me know she had contacted her ophthalmologist to arrange an ASAP visit. Her father had suffered a detached retina in his middle age, and she wanted to rule that out.

I, however, wanted to rule out another cause, the one that had struck her mother: a stroke. Loss of sensation or vision on one side is a marker for an ongoing stroke. Plus she is at risk: overweight, a lifelong smoker, and a moderate drinker; on anticholesterol medication; and the daughter of a stroke victim. Her speech over the phone sounded perfectly clear, though, and she said she didn't feel numb or weak on either side. So all we could do at this point is determine whether the eye guy would see her that day or today.

It turned out to be this morning. I waited anxiously until 11:30, then called home. I punched through their call-waiting on the third attempt. My mother said it was Hollenhorst plaque, and that although the visual distortion hadn't recurred, she wanted to make an appointment to get her carotid arteries scanned. It turns out someone in the Elks Ladies Auxiliary had this done, so she felt speaking to this former patient would throw a lot more light on her condition.

While I was speaking to her, I was skimming the page to which I linked above — and feeling more and more nervous. The gist I picked up is that this sort of thing doesn't happen unless a patient has some sort of major blockage somewhere, and that my mother was incredibly lucky it wasn't a larger embolus or a cerebral vessel that was occluded. I asked her if she wanted me to email the article, and she asked, "Is it going to upset me?" To which I had to answer in the positive. If she wasn't going out of her way to upset herself before she had the test done, who was I to disrupt that?

This didn't mean that I couldn't get upset though, and I spent the better part of the day steeling myself against any potential next step. Surgery on a woman with compromised lungs and a balky heart. The sheer wrongness of surgery that required a major artery to be laid open like a bio-class earthworm. A stroke before she got to the OR. My father and I helping with rehab. Or worse.

And then there was the trip to Vegas. When she called with the diagnosis, she repeated strenuously that she didn't want this in any way to change my plans. I began to wonder how well I could fake being in Vegas while secretly monitoring the situation from New Jersey. For a poker player, I am a lousy liar, so I expected this plan would fail spectacularly — perhaps in a Twilight Zone–like twist, my parents would run me over accidentally while on the way back from the doctor with a clean bill of health.

Most of all, if I stayed home from Las Vegas, my mother would actually feel like there was something terribly wrong. If I pursued my business as usual, she could do the same, regardless of what the doc told her.

I spoke to her again on the homebound train before it left Hoboken. By then, my mom had gotten in touch with the woman who had had this surgery done. The surgeon apparently did this procedure day in and day out, like some specialists do tons of prostate or ACL jobs. This she found very reassuring. Her tone was very positive, and she said she basically wanted to find out the problem, have it removed or extracted or whatever, and move on.

She credited her experience with breast cancer as helping with this attitude. When she got that diagnosis back in early 1991 — during my final semester of college — her overwhelming emotion was not fear, or powerlessness, but anger. If she got through the diagnosis, surgery, and rehabilitation of that experience, she said today, she could face anything. And in addition, this minor condition may serve as an early warning of some cardiovascular condition that could have made its presence known in a lot more fatal way.

I have to say that this conversation was the first point today at which I stopped worrying. Once again, she exhorted me not to worry about her or my father (who no doubt dug into the Internet as I did to decipher what the hell Hollenhorst plaque was), to enjoy Las Vegas, and not to think about the next step. This time, I silently agreed with her.

So that is how things stand. My mom will see her family doctor late this week, bring up the name of the vascular specialist she got, and take it from there. My orders are to go to Las Vegas and loot the locals in the name of the family honor and her — and her parents' — reputations as jubilant degenerate card players. What sort of son would disobey?