Hospital Time

I’ve known hospitals, in general, and one in particular far more than I’d care to--never as a patient, but even so, more than I'd care to.

Starting in sixth grade, I spent a lot of time at the Medical College of Ohio (MCO) in Toledo, where my father had two surgeries a year apart to try to remove malignant brain tumors. And then he was there quite a while after the second surgery went awry. We drove the hour-plus between my childhood home and MCO more times than I can remember, and mostly they all blend together.

One scene stands out in my mind: Back then, smoking was allowed pretty much on every floor except for the one with the lung cancer patients and where oxygen was in use. I remember the ash trays,with their little beaches of sand, and just as vividly I remember a man who was dying from lung cancer coming down to the waiting room where we sat. First, he tried to bum cigarettes off the people waiting there, but when the nurses had told everyone that he had lung cancer and was not to be given cigarettes, he took to rooting through the ash trays looking for butts that still had something worth smoking—and it didn’t take much to meet that criterion for him. That was probably the first time I saw true desperation.

Another scene. December of 1989 or 1990. There was a big Christmas tree in the lobby, and hung on it were ornaments that had been crocheted from white threads. My mother took a few of the ornaments off the tree to take home and copy. A man on the elevator saw her take them and said “Lady, you sure have your nerve.” I don’t remember if it was before or after that, but my mom made a lot of ornaments and not only brought back the ones she’d taken but also donated more ornaments. She might already have been donating ornaments to the hospital and just wanted to learn add new patterns to her repertoire, or maybe that’s how she got her start. In any case, it didn’t hurt anyone and she made and gave away a lot of nice ornaments not just to the hospital but to many other people as well.

Step forward over 20 years and I find myself there again, though MCO is now the University of Toledo Medical Center. It looks a lot like MCO to me, but at the same time everything’s changed; the stream is the same but the water’s moved on.

We got a call Thursday night that my mother had fallen, either from a heart attack or a heart attack had followed her falling. She’d been taken to the local hospital and from there to UTMC. She said she almost just decided to lay there on the floor until morning, but she did drag herself to the phone. If she’d stayed there, said the first doctors she saw, she would have died. Fortunately, she didn’t and she didn’t. We nearly left Thursday night to head to Ohio but were prevailed upon to get some sleep and make our way out in the morning. Details have been slow to follow. One that's emerged is that her carotid arteries are pretty severely blocked. They discovered pretty quickly that she has a fairly severe kidney infection, and until that has been treated, they can't treat her cardiovascular problems or even fully diagnose them. 

All of which leaves us in limbo. We don't know whether or what kind of surgery she may need, nor the recovery period that will follow. We don't know if/when they'll release her to "home," and we haven't figured out what that will mean. In less than a year she's fallen and broken her hip and now had a near-fatal fall and heart attack, so it seems clear that her days of living alone, four hours away from us, are at an end. But where, precisely, do we go from here? Unclear. Today, she seems to be fairly sharp, mentally, but that hasn't been uniformly true since she's been here.

And this gets at one of the biggest differences between when we came to this hospital for my dad's cancer treatment and being here now: responsibility. Back then, I was along for the ride, responsible only for sorting out and managing my own emotions, dealing with the prospect of losing my father. It was, of course, plenty of responsibility for my age, but it's very different from these adult responsibilities, trying to find a balance between home life, work responsibilities, and care for my mother. As a friend told me, "It's not easy or particularly graceful to dance through adulthood." Especially since we seem to be making up the steps as we go.

The Eyes Have It

Not to turn this into the "John goes to the Doctor" blog, but I went to see an optometrist today, which I probably would not have done if the little one hadn't broken my glasses.

And that's another subject. I first got glasses when I was in junior high, though I really wanted them when I was much younger, just because my parents both wore glasses. So when I went in for the kindergarten screening, I intentionally failed a test in the hopes of getting glasses. I was not, however, as clever as I'd hoped, because I failed the wrong test. They thought my ability to process what I saw was what was screwed up.

So I didn't get glasses at age 5, but did get them 8 or 9 years later when I started developing headaches from reading, which was problematic since I read a lot. It turned out that one of my eyes was far-sighted and the other was near-sighted, so the two didn't play well together and I got headaches. Glasses for me.

By then, naturally, I was not so keen on having glasses, so either in my freshman year of high school, I tried contacts, but I always hated how they felt on my eyes and just couldn't get used to them--glasses for me!

I've always had a fairly weak prescription. In fact, I've never been legally required to wear glasses when I drive, as I've always managed to pass the vision test (there was a time or two when I wondered if they actually checked the letters I was saying or if they just assumed if you could see anything that looked like a name-able letter, then you were good to go). 

Over the years, I've had different styles of frames, and for a while even a different style of lens: the wildly un-stylish "transition" lenses that my friends jokingly referred to as "amber vision." In any case, I've had glasses now for longer than I haven't had glasses, including all of my adult and most of my adolescent life.

And now, I don't. The last time I went to an optometrist, four and a half years ago, I was told that my eyes had gotten themselves more or less back to 20-20, though I had astigmatisms in both eyes that would cause details to be just a bit blurry (and it wouldn't matter whether things were near or far, it would still be true). This time around, the eye doctor told me that one eye was a little less than perfect, though my two eyes together can manage "better than perfect" vision. I do still have astigmatisms, but if they don't really bother me (I've gone almost a week without glasses), then he's doesn't see why I need glasses. No more glasses for me!

But really, it's rather strange. I mean, I feel like I've always had glasses. Every picture depicts me with glasses. They're virtually a part of me, or so it seemed. Ah well: I'm sure I'll need glasses again soon enough, in the grand scheme of things!

What's up, Doc?

I went to see the doctor this week, largely based on the results of a health screening that my employer paid for back at the end of October. It said my cholesterol levels were high, which wasn't exactly a surprise.

When I lived in Providence, I found this out and went on medication, which I took for perhaps two years. When I moved to Pennsylvania and my prescription ran out, a combination of laziness and wishful thinking took me off the medication. It turned out to be a hassle to find a new doctor, so I didn't do it. I've been off medication for two years, I've exercised with regularity off and on, added more vegetables to my diet, and hoped for the best.

No such luck, it turns out.

So, I went to see the doctor. It wasn't quite as tedious to get a new doctor this time, since our pediatrician is also a general practitioner. He wasn't taking new patients, but since I had a family member seeing him (our baby), they fit me in. Our pediatrician--now my primary care provider--seems like a really nice guy, which is why we sometimes feel bad about lying to him all the time. You see, it's just that our infant care philosophy (attachment parenting) doesn't really fit with what he thinks we should be doing. We have the feeling that he would be appalled at how long we waited for solid foods, the fact that our daughter still sleeps in our bed with us (or even in our room with us!), but oh well. Like I said, he's a nice guy, and we don't know of a pediatrician in our area who would be more in line with what we're doing.

With that in mind, let me say that I really felt good about my appointment with him. I basically went in to reluctantly renew my relationship with cholesterol-lowering medication. I showed him the results of my blood work, we talked about my lifestyle choices. For instance, the way I work out five days a week (at least, when I work out--after Thea was born I didn't see the gym for over 5 months, then I worked out consistently for 2, and then had almost 4 more months off before I got back into a routine again (which, admittedly, lost a few weeks to the holiday break). And I've been working to eat more vegetables and less meat--I also told him about my New Year's Resolution to only eat meat that I feel good about.

As we went through this, he admitted that it if I wanted a prescription for cholesterol-lowering medication, it would be hard to argue against it, because my cholesterol levels are high. However, out of the top five risks for heart problems, I only have that one--I don't smoke, I'm not diabetic, I don't have high blood pressure, and I'm not physically inactive. Interestingly enough, he asked me what I thought my ideal weight should be. I weighed in at 200 pounds and told him that I thought probably around 180. He said that while the charts might say my weight should be even lower, that since I exercise and lift weights, 180 might be a very good weight for me, and attainable. I've heard stories of people going to their doctor and being told to lose weight, so I thought it was an interesting and positive approach to ask me what I thought. Granted, he might have come out and told me I needed to lose weight anyway if I'd said I thought I was already at a good weight, but ultimately it felt more meaningful this way. To look my doctor in the eyes and say--not be told--that I could stand to lose 20 pounds: I think it's more likely that I will do what I need to do to get there. I've already started, though the biggest step was probably planning out our family meals for the next week from the Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites cookbook. We had steaks on Saturday, but we'll probably go more or less meatless over the next week (and the recipes look delicious, so I don't think we'll be suffering for the lack!).

So yeah. All things considered, it was a pretty good visit to the doctor's office.

MLK

Okay, I wasn't there, I didn't live through it, but it's pretty clear that in many ways Martin Luther King, Jr. lived in a different America--a different world--than the one I live in today. I overheard a student today wonder what King did "besides give speeches." Once I got over being appalled by the ignorance (well, okay, moved beyond it), I could see that at least to some extent, this was at least in part the usual sort of ignorance that the young are prone to: being unable to imagine the world being much different than it is now.

From this misconception, with only a vague notion of Dr. King's life, it might be easy enough to see King as little different than, for instance, a politician or other public figure today. He gave speeches, he inspired people, so what? What this young man fails, I think, to recognize is that King lived in a world where black Americans did not have the rights of white Americans; that King lived in a world where his protests could--and did--get him jailed, get his house bombed, get him harassed by the government, and draw death threats--and ultimately, of course, assassination. Nonetheless, he continued standing up for his convictions and his causes. So on that side of things, we have him as a man of strong character, which is always worth celebrating and holding up to inspire us all to be better, more heroic than we are.

Even more historically important, perhaps, is the way that King shaped the Civil Rights movement. Things were pretty bad, all in all. There was, throughout, a rather appalling level of violence, primarily from opponents of civil rights, but also from some of its proponents. Malcolm X, with his famous "Bullet or Ballot" speech exemplifies the other face of the African-American struggle, a militant face that would fight violence with violence. As I said--an appalling level of violence was already the order of the day: lynchings, police violence against protesters, riots, the Kent State shootings, and assassinations--King, Malcolm X, JFK, RFK, to name the most prominent. Now, imagine for a moment that, in that context, there wasn't Martin Luther King, Jr. or any other black leader of prominence advocating non-violence. Imagine what a world that could have become: more violent, more racially polarized, and no end in sight. Escalating violence gives you Northern Ireland, it gives you Israel, it gives you a world where acts of terrorism, acts of politically-motivated violence are common, still tragic, but something like normal, something like accepted. It gives you Iraq or Afghanistan.

We Americans live in a country where the September 11 attacks were shocking. We live in a nation where the shooting of a member of Congress is shocking and understood to be the act of a mentally-ill individual, not par for the course in a place where politics and violence go hand in hand. And we live in that country in no small part because of the influence of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This holiday isn't just to celebrate the historic achievement of the civil rights movement, it isn't just a time to celebrate the fact that racism has been greatly diminished, and it isn't just "a black holiday." It's a day celebrating a great man whose influence made America vastly better than it would likely have been without him. We all owe a debt of gratitude to him.

Reading on the small screen

Although I've started a few different entries since my last published one, I just haven't been able to put anything together--after a good month of Holidailies, I guess I just ran out of steam. Tonight, to start a new week, I'm going to get a blog entry written, however inconsequential it may prove to be.

A friend recently asked for advice about whether to get a Kindle or a Nook--for those who don't know, these are two different eBook readers: the former being Amazon's reader and the latter coming from Barnes and Noble. I didn't have much to tell her, but I have been using the Kindle app for my iPod Touch (and for those who don't know, an "app" is basically a little program for the iPod, iPhone, or iPad that mimics roughly the function of another device (such as a Kindle) or a computer program or website).

Surprisingly, I've rather liked it. Don't get me wrong: I'm staunchly neo-Luddite in my preference for dead-tree books over digital ones. I don't envision myself ever snuggling up on the couch or a comfy chair or in bed with my iPod Touch to read a book. However, I have found that an e-reader on my new favorite portable device is a nice thing to have.

First, it should be noted that in the past when I've carried a dead-tree book around to anywhere, whether she's expressed it or not, my wife has been vaguely embarrassed by me. Somehow, it is less embarrassing of me to be engrossed in a small electronic device, presumably because many other people are doing it too. So the first thing the e-reader on my iPod has going for it is that it fosters marital bliss (or its rough equivalent), because I do like to have something to read when time might otherwise be "wasted" while waiting.

And those are precisely the times when I pull up an e-book to read--stolen moments. It's not unusual for me to read a bit of a book that way while taking the dog for a walk or any number of other such occasions. And while I've looked a bit eccentric when I've done the same thing with an actual book, no one bats an eye at someone engrossed in an electronic screen. Added bonus: not only can I still read after if would be too dark to read an actual book, it's actually easier at that point than when it's sunny.

Not surprisingly, you can't fit a lot of words onto a 2-inch-by-3-inch (or whatever it is) screen, but that's actually a positive thing, the way I'm using it, because with a normal book I more or less have to stop at the top of a left-hand page if I'm not at a chapter break. I finish the paragraph that's carried over the the previous page and then stop--it's how I've done it since elementary school, so I always know where to look to start up again. With the Kindle app on my iPod, a "page" is a couple short paragraphs, one modest paragraph, or a portion of a longer paragraph, which means, practically speaking, that it's a lot easier for me to stop and start.

I like the fact that anywhere there's wi-fi, I can download a new book, either paying for something I want enough to pay for (haven't done it yet) or getting public domain books for free. I recently read A Christmas Carol that way and have started War and Peace. I also got through the preview of a book that I have since acquired in dead-tree form (for most every book Amazon sells in e-format, they let you download a sample before you buy).

And that, my friends, is my limited experience with an e-reader of any sort. What experience do you have (or lack)? How do you feel about e-readers?

Rethinking AP classes and tests

A recent article in the New York Times explored the way that The College Board is "Rethinking Advanced Placement." The focus of the article was on AP Biology and AP US History, but the overall philosophy of the change is moving from an emphasis on memorization to an emphasis on the skills and processes of the discipline. For my part, I think this is a needed change to keep--or finally make--the tests relevant to colleges.

I would compare this to the two English tests, the AP English Language and Composition (usually taken junior year) and AP English Literature and Composition. I have a fair bit of experience with both and can say that both do a relatively good job of testing skills rather than, for instance, particular works. Although I spent a couple years teaching an AP English Language and Composition course, what it really amounted to was tracking the juniors who were the stronger readers and writers into a separate class, not a year of cramming for the test. One school at which I taught didn't have any specialized course, just a couple nights going over the format of the test for any juniors who wanted to take it. I make a point of all this because the nature of the test allowed for students who were good readers and writers, who could analyze others' arguments and make their own, to do well.

In other words, by and large the same things that the test looks for are the things that college professors--and good high school English programs--look for from their students.

Years ago now, I read James Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me, which examined high school American history texts and courses, and one of Lowen's assertions was that high school history (largely "social studies") programs do little to prepare students for university history programs. In fact, college professors in history have to spend their time at the introductory level unteaching students, because the study of history is not a collection of facts but a toolbox of skills to utilize the sources from which we learn about history and to make and interact with arguments about not only what happened but also why it happened, how it happens, and the like (if I seem vague, I'll confess that it's because I have only a layman's view of what historians actually do).

Although it is perhaps not as profound of a gap, the same thing seems to exist in the sciences, where learning science in high school is often a rather different enterprise than the practice of science at the university level (to say nothing of doing science as a profession). AP classes purport to be doing college-level work, but in some disciplines it seems that the AP tests have more or less prevented that from happening.

I believe that one of the effects of this rethinking of many AP tests could be that it puts a greater burden on high school departments as opposed to the teachers of AP classes. Again, I go back to my experience at the school where students were, essentially, prepared to take the AP Language and Composition test not by a class but by their overall experience in the discipline over the course of three years. We trusted that students, at each grade level and by each teacher, were achieving the same goal that our department chair set before us: make them better readers and writers. And by doing that, we prepared them not only for tests but for college and beyond. The alternative is that one teacher tries to teach the skills and processes of the discipline in just one year (or, on a block schedule, one semester)--I'm sure it can be done, but I should think by far fewer students than could achieve a similar level of competence through a couple years of poor to mediocre classes followed by one "AP" class. Now, if all we want from our students is to memorize a boatload of "facts," that can more or less be done in a year (which is not to say that it's easy to do so--or particularly worthwhile).

Sunday Evening Meme -- 9 things for Jan 9

I started a different post, but I ran out of steam, so I'm grabbing a meme from another blog.

1. Where did you grow up? Where do you consider home?
I grew up in northern Ohio. There's a part of me that still probably sees that as home or at least home-like, just because I know the geography of the people and places better than anywhere else. But my real home is with my wife and child and dog, in Indiana.

2. If you could paint your car any color with no loss in value, what color would it be?
I could care less. I happy with it in gray.

3. What do you think comes after death?
I'm no medical professional, but I'm pretty sure it's rigor mortis. Also--and I know this--your features get kind of blackened because your cells have used up all the oxygen in the blood that's no longer pumping. Long-term, entropy takes over and you decompose.

4. Name a TV show that should NOT be renewed for another season.
Beats me. I like all of the few TV shows that I watch. And although I liked it, Heroes did deserve to be canceled.

5. If you could have a free subscription to any online service, which would you like to have?
The on-line version of The Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Close second: Oxford English Dictionary.

6. Where did you think you’d be at the age you are now?
Really, I had only the foggiest idea. Thirty-three seemed awfully far away until I got here. At one point in my life, I thought I'd be a published author. At another, I might have hoped to have been making a living as a composer.

7. What did you want to be when you grew up?
When I was probably 6 or 7, I wanted to be a truck driver, because my dad was. Then, early in elementary school, I wanted to be a school bus driver, because everyone seemed to like the bus driver. Late in elementary school and into high school, I wanted to be a writer. I was going to write fantasy and science fiction. Now, I'd like to be gainfully unemployed when I grow up.

8. If you were to suddenly become famous, and were forced to change names, what would you choose as your stage name?
Because I'd considered being a writer, I've thought about this, but the best I came up with was Nolan Richardson. Then I discovered that a basketball coach already had that name, so I guess that's out. I'm not really sure why I would be "forced" to change names, anyway.

9. What is the first book that you can remember reading by yourself as a child?
I have no idea. There was so much reading going on, first by my parents and my grandmother to me and then eventually by me on my own that there's no way I could say for sure. Really, no idea. I think, though, that it was around the fifth grade that I read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and that experience marked a turning point in my life, so I'll take the opportunity of this question to mention it.