Sad News

Last week I received an email and a phone calll from Tom Shives, my former professor at Mayo who is still a friend and mentor.  "Danny," whose real name is Jared W., had a recurrence of his osteosarcoma a few months ago.  He had to have the leg amputated above the knee.  He underwent more chemotherapy but this time, the cancer did not respond.

Jared  died on July 31, 2007, two weeks after his seventeenth birthday.  He had developed uncontrollable metastatic disease.  This news saddens me more than I can express.

I have spoken with Jared's family and they have indicated that any correspondence or donations to the family can be sent to the attention of Ms. Adeline Smoker, P.O. Box 322, Frazer MT 59225. 

Two nine volt batteries.  For six or more, they cost 64 cents each.  Yet, those two missing batteries created incalculable loss.

Everyone is asleep in that Bronx apartment building when, according to fire officials, a cord to a space heater catches fire and ignites bedclothes.  The residents of that room run into the hallway to alert other residents, but make the fatal mistake of leaving the door open, thus allowing the flames to spread. 

And the smoke detectors:  They sit, stuck to ceilings or walls or wherever smoke detectors stick, waiting.  What they wait for is a battery so that the burgeoning smoke will cause them to sound their alarm.  Sixty four cents.  Five minutes of time for installation.  Ten lives.  Instead of an immediate call to 911, residents try to put out the fire themselves.  One resident calls her husband first.  After the 911 call, it takes firefighters just over three minutes to arrive.

People toss children from windowsinto the arms of neighbors.  Jump themselves.  Fire escapes are not required in buildings of this size.  The only escape route is the blazing mahogany staircase.  Almost 150 firefighters  battle for two hours to get the fire under control.

One man, a taxi driver,  drives his cab when the fire starts.  It kills his entire family; a wife and three small children. 

In a matter of hours, this man's reasons for living are gone.  How does one make sense of this?  A series of human choices and errors which, alone, might not cause such tragedy.  Yet, strung together in this sequence, the consequences are tragic.  

On this scale the impact of choice is magnified.  But what about the small choices we make each day? To drive through the changing traffic light?  To ignore the crack in the windshield?  To leave the teapot on the stove for just one minute? To wait another day to return that phone call?

 Some of us have the luxury of a comfortable life.  We can attend to small things as they come up.  Others are so overwhelmed by the pressure to survive, they cut corners with these "little" things.  But how do any of us know when those minutiae will pile up and cause one great tragedy? 

We don't.  

What can be done is for us to make our days and lives meaningful to ourselves and to others.  We can help people.  We can keep our minds and our eyes open.  This is the only lesson (besides my having checked my smoke detector) I can glean from this awful incident.

If you would like to make a donation to the victims of the Highbridge Bronx fire victims, call 212-222-3882, or visit  AfricanServices.org

These are some of the victims of the Bronx fire.

All photographs are from the NY Times Website and are copyrighted by the New York Times. 

click to enlargeMaya was married this weekend.  her folks live in Golden, Colorado, near the grave of Buffalo Bill.  Elevation at their home is almost eight thousand feet.  This means there's 20% less oxygen in the air.  So sea level people like me need to breathe in 20% more to feel normal.  I found my heart racing after I ran up a flight of stairs!

Maya is my best friend from my residency program.  She was the first person I met when I went to Rochester, MN for my interview.  Two years ahead of me in training, she left for fellowship in San Diego after my third year.  Now, she's a well-known Pediatric Orthopedic surgeon who works at Children's Hospital of San Diego.  

She met her husband, Dan, at a Christmas party a few years ago.  It was practically "love at first sight."  He's a terrific man and has an extraordinary 11-year old daughter, Haley.  Here are some photos from the weekend and the wedding. Maya wore the same dress (remade of course) worn by her great grandmother, grandmother and mother.  The dress is more than 100 years old!  Each time it has been remade slightly since each woman had a different shape.  The material had aged to a beautiful gold color.

Maya's parents, Kitty and Rock, have a home in the woods which overlooks beautiful, snow-capped mountains.  Numerous bird feeders set around the perimeter of the house attract all sorts of birds.  It is mating season for the hummingbirds, so we saw scores of them, dive bombing all over the place.  Also, the neighboring herd of Bison had just delivered some babies.  All things bode well for this marriage.

Congratulations, Maya and Dan!  I am honored to have been a part of your wedding and I wish you the very best.

Namaste.

  This weekend, we celebrated Jonna's birthday with an "adults only" dinner out.  While this is the norm for me, the three couples at the table all have children between the ages of 13 months and 3 years.  For them, this is an oasis from diapers, Dora and Disney.  Wine flowed as did our conversation.

A: "And what is with those new Burger King commercials?  Where the guy wakes up and there's that freaky King guy in the bed with him?  I don't know about you, but I wouldn't take a sandwich from that guy!"

K:  "I know!  And is this supposed to mean that the Burger King is G-A-Y?"

L:  "Wait a minute.  Did you just spell the word 'gay?'"

K (sheepishly):  "Guess so."

L (looking around the restaurant): "What a relief.  At least you didn't offend any of the gay people in this restaurant who can't spell."

K (looking at her husband): "Well, we don't want the kids to repeat words when they don't know what they mean."

Hmmm.  So it's better to spell words and avoid explanation around children.  Teach them early on to avoid sensitive or controversial topics.  Of course it makes sense to spell things like "ice cream" and "doctor," so as not to create unnecessary angst, but when we begin to censor ourselves, it's time for a check up.

A scene from the 1985 brat pack classic film Saint Elmo's Fire comes to mind.  The Rob Lowe character is having dinner with the family of the geeky Mare Winningham character.  Whenever a "taboo" word, such as cancer, is uttered, it's whispered.  The ice is broken when Rob Lowe is asked where he and Mare met.  His response:  prison.

Does spoken language have such power so as to scare us out of saying certain things?  If these are all just words, then  why are we afraid to have them pass our lips? What will happen if our two year old says the word "gay?"  Are we better off if we teach that two year old the meaning(s) of that word?

Or do we think our children won't understand?  More importantly, will our explanations or definitions reveal our lack of understanding?  For instance, why do parents so dread having "the talk" with their children about sexuality? Are parents afraid their knowledge will be inadequate?

I so vividly remember the way my mother explained things to me.  She didn't seem anxious or nervous at all. That conversation was brought on when I was in the third grade and somebody in school found what they called "a rubber" in the girls' bathroom.

In those days, we eight year olds did not have the TV and movie exposure that exists now.  I had no idea what they were talking about.  So I did the natural thing;  I asked my mom.  It was an ambush.  She had no prep time.

Me:  "Mom..."

Mom (doing a hundred things at her desk):  "Yes?"

Me:  "What's a rubber?"

Mom (looking up):  "Why do you want to know?"

Me:  "Well, somebody found one in the girls' bathroom at school today.  The teacher thought it was a balloon but other kids were calling it a rubber.  And I don't know what that is."

Mom (swiveling in her chair to face me):  "OK.  Well, when a man and a woman want to have a baby, they have sexual intercourse.  This means the man puts his penis inside of the woman's vagina and his sperm mixes with her eggs and they can make a baby that way."

Me:  "OK."

Mom: " And, although it may seem gross to you, sexual intercourse is something that people do because it feels good, even when they don't want to make a baby.  When people love each other, they have sex for pleasure and to show their love."

Me (processing this):  "OK."

Mom:  "So, when people want to have sex for pleasure, the man can put a rubber sleeve over his penis so that his sperm will be caught in it before it can mix with the eggs.  That way, the couple can keep themselves from getting pregnant."  

Me:  "So the sleeve is called a rubber?"

Mom:  "Well, it's real name is a 'condom.'  But the slang term for it is a 'rubber.' Does that make sense to you?"

Me:  "Yes."

Mom:  "But you need to know that sometimes the rubber can break and the woman can get pregnant when they aren't planning to be pregnant.  So it's not 100%."

Me:  "OK."

Mom:  "Do you have any other questions or have you got it?"

Me:  "Got it."

I am sure my mother was nervous and uncomfortable when she had to explain this to me on the spot.  But once she did, I understood.  And I won't need to spell the word "r-u-b-b-e-r" instead of saying it.

When Czar Alexander commissioned Carl Faberge to decorate an egg as his Easter gift to the Empress Marie, in his wildest dreams he would not have imagined what my family does each year at Easter time. 

Easter morning for us means "egg fights."  When my father was a young boy, he and his friends would gather, each holding his respective egg competitor.  The boys would then knock the eggs against one another (round side to round side or pointy side to pointy side).  The egg that broke was the loser and would be forfeit to the owner of the winning egg.  The winning boy would go home with several gems.  Competition was fierce.  Dad tells us he would treat his egg with wax in order to gain advantage.

For as long as I can remember, we've held these contests every Easter.  No longer do we give up our eggs to the winner, but there is surely a sense of competitiveness at the table and beforehand.  We sneak to the refrigerator prior to the day and test eggs with our teeth.  By the time breakfast arrives, we've already chosen our eggs.

Several years ago, during our pre-Easter coloring session, someone cut a photo from a newspaper and glued it to his egg.  This launched yet another tradition.  Instead of simply coloring or decorating our eggs, we now create an egg community each year.  We use feathers, pom-pons, pipe cleaners, eyes, pens, paint and other materials to create characters for the Easter table.  The new recruits are then photographed and placed in our egg archives.

Here are some of our eggs from this year.  Happy Easter!