Oh my goodness! As far as I can figure I haven’t been out here in bloggerville since close to the beginning of the year 2026. I do have explanations (of sorts.) though. First of all, what I once heard someone say about life – that it’s like a roll of toilet paper — is true. Have you noticed how it flies off the roll once you get close to the end, undoing the wound-on restraints as gravity pulls it down end-first toward the floor. (Only if you’ve hung it free end out toward the room.) In other words, life just plain flies by.
Then add an urge and longing to keep working at writing How Could These Lovely People Have Let It Happen? A Psychologist’s Intimate Journal, finally deciding to publish with Beaver’s Pond Press (a wise choice) and starting the thorough process of editing and re-editing for all kinds of things – not just grammar. But things that might unintentionally offend, or break copyright rule, or you name it.
Then add the fact that my back has been a major part of my structure as long as I’ve been around and suddenly has fallen into a full-blown mess of compression fractures that hurt like all those otherwise meaningless collections of symbols people use pretending they’re not swearing, like maybe #@$%&*+. At one point I called 911 in the wee hours of the morning, deciding something had to be done because I just couldn’t tolerate it. The original title of my book which had been after all, On My Way Out, didn’t seem like such a terrible alternative. I spent a night at the hospital, sampling a wide variety of medications none of which helped relieve the pain. It was only later that I learned of a procedure that, in lay terms, consists of shooting human-tolerated cement into the problem spaces. 80% effective the data say, but not terribly effective for me. So, medications to relieve the pain became the major treatment. I admit, my first taste of oxycodone produced a lovely warm reaction but failed to accomplish the desired result as completely as I would have liked. Still I’m grateful to the medical staff who pulled every possibility out the “ease the pain” stack and assured me that ultimately nature would relieve much of it. The agonizing stuff has, thank God, receded, but I’m now even shorter than I was, and still hoping the whole mess will eventually heal itself and stop hurting. Right now I’m working my way toward reducing the meds that don’t help much anyway. I want to get to the point of enjoying wine with my dinner again.
In the meantime, the Allina Health folks had discovered an aortic stenosis that called for installation of a new valve, finally setting up the procedure when we all figured I could stop writhing long enough to get the job done. That happened a couple of weeks ago – a piece of cake if you want to know. Now they want me to get back into shape. So do I, but I also want to devote my time to what excites me most – being ready for the publication date of August 11 for my book. The book? I’ll tell you about it in my next blog, but today is dedicated to explaining to you why I’ve been hiding out.
As usual, my experience gave me a powerful lesson — this time in empathy. I think it must be hard being a doctor wanting to help and having too little to work with, I’m even more aware of the daily heroism of people like President Kennedy with his permanent back pain, and President Roosevelt, and even sufferers right here at the Waters of Excelsior. And I have more admiration for the medical procedures regularly developing to help people who hurt like me.
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