Taking A Break -- February 2, 2023

It never quits. There is so much to blog. But at some point, I need to relax.

Apparently this is just part 1:

If so, here is part 2:

I like this particular video / arrangement because I get such a kick out of sharing information about the various instruments with Sophia.

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The Book Page

With the James Bond medley in the background, I enjoy paging through and catching up on some Italian cooking hints in the Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking: 30th Anniversary Edition, Marcella Hazan. 

The preferred tomato for pasta sauce: the plum tomato. 

Salmon foam looks easy, delicious and very intriguing. I'm sure I've had it before; I just don't recall. Most likely I had it on a ferry from Norway to Denmark when I was in eighth grade.

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Reminiscing

Our living space continues to shrink around us. We live in a one-bedroom apartment -- which is how it's advertised but it's not quite accurate -- the one-bedroom apartment also has a small windowless den which my wife uses as her art room. She really needs a much larger studio but it is what it is.

In the big scheme of things, this is really how I've lived throughout my life.

After graduating from high school, I lived in a college dormitory room for four years. Then my first two years in medical school, a two-bedroom apartment with a fellow student on the north side of Los Angeles.

Non-stop from 1979 through 2007 I pretty much lived in a "call room" in whatever hospital I was assigned. 

Some call rooms, that I recall:

• Los Angeles County Hospital; for two years; I remember doing "histories and physicals" in my sleep. A most grueling two years, but one I still cherish.
  
• then, Travis AFB, CA: three years again, often in the call room down the hall from the emergency room or the call room upstairs on the pediatrics unit. I remember the night the pediatric intern -- a really, really close friend -- working the emergency room -- called me for advice after a six-month-old infant was inadvertently given an adult dose of epinephrine -- don't ask; everything worked out fine.
• Grand Forks AFB, ND: the call room here was on the in-patient unit. I still remember the two-year child that I cared for, for two years, often in the emergency room in the middle of the night who ultimately died of an under-developed heart; she should have had a heart transplant; I let her down, I suppose, but at the time not even the cardiologists knew. Responding to an in-flight emergency when an SR-71 landed was eventful, to say the least, but pales in comparison to the memories of that wonderful little two-year old.
• Thirteen years in fixed hospitals, field hospitals, tents, while overseas: Germany, England, Turkey, Morocco, the Gambia, northern Iraq. Most memorable, perhaps, several of us sorting out ann incredibly sick young pregnant woman in Turkey -- we were near the end of the medical chain and it took our internal medicine doc, family practice doc, flight surgeon (me), and all the support personnel to make the malarial diagnosis, stabilize her and get her on an an air-evac to Ramstein, Germany. She did fine. Again, another night -- all night -- in and out of the call room.
• In northern Iraq, the young Kurdish woman with, ultimately, fatal burns from a kerosene fire; all I had were pain medications -- but she would not have survived even in a burn unit in in east Texas. Another "call" room in a "bomb shelter" of some sort -- interestingly I have no memories of where I actually slept that week -- I was at the makeshift "bedside" of that patient titrating IV anesthetic medication.
  
• At the end of thirteen years overseas, I was at the pinnacle of my career though I still had nearly a decade left to serve. As a high-ranking officer I was given a five-star billet in which to live for a couple of weeks during the transition back to the states. My family had already returned to the states -- I did not realize how depressed I was at the time -- I was giving up the best job of my career -- commander of the flagship hospital of the Air Combat Command, Langley AFB, VA. I couldn't take the five-star room in billeting -- I slept on the couch in my office in the hospital, for about two weeks. No one knew. I read Hunter S Thompson's Hell's Angels. Again, two weeks in a small office, 24/7. Hunter S Thompson kept me going. I was in my element -- 24/7 in the hospital for two weeks, immediately available for anything. No family distractions. Just "work." I loved it, and I knew it was all coming to an end.
  
• Back in the states, I was pretty much done with clinical work and when I wasn't in my office at work, I spent most of my time in my office at home.
• The highlight during those years were temporary duty assignments to northern England as the only physician responsible 24/7 for a remote base there. Again, I was offered a very nice room on the economy, an English inn straight out of Lord of the Rings, but I took a room -- as a senior officer -- in a dormitory for single and unaccompanied enlisted men. Again, living 24/7 in a small call room.
• And now, I feel right at home in a small one-bedroom apartment -- which sometimes seems unnecessarily big -- in an easy chair next to the bed with a large-screen television and Amazon Fire TV stick, a 27-inch Apple desktop computer, a MacBook Air, a large iPad, and an iPhone, surrounded by the books I'm currently reading.
• I can't imagine living in a McMansion, although I sometimes fantasize about a party room on the second terrace overlooking a huge swimming pool on the first terrace, with the master bedroom on the third terrace overlooking the entire enchilada.

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The Last Thing On My Mind

In a faraway place, a long time ago, I had an intense platonic relationship with a most wonderful woman. 

The most important thing I ever said to her: if I ever say anything that can be interpreted two different ways, I only mean(t) it in a good way. 

It prevented a lot of "bad" moments. Link here.