My cat Nigel has still not quite warmed back up to me, casting suspicious glances as if I was some itinerant boarder or perhaps a thief inclined to filch the family silver.
*
My sister Barbara, the responsible sibling, the rock that has kept my crazy family functioning for years beyond count, is quite ill. She has just come home from the hospital after emergency surgery for a perforated intestine. She will recuperate for months and is unfortunately forced to wear an appliance, hopefully only temporarily. She is understandably quite depressed. (Liz, if you are reading this, do not spill to our mother!)
She tells me that she thought that she had the perfect diet, living on salads and whole grains and healthy food but is now advised that the diet was all wrong and that she will have to now go low fiber and processed. My brother Buzz is on a similar diet and I wonder if I am genetically predisposed to have similar problems.
Barbara mentioned that her hospital stay was rather hellish. They kept trying to give her narcotics, and she only wanted an aspirin. They wanted to keep her "pain free" at a time when no pain existed. She thinks that the belief is that narcotized patients and pliant patients are easier for doctors and nurses to deal with and control. I know what she is talking about from my own lengthy hospital experience and tend to agree with her.
*
I was sitting at the blackjack table. My dealer was a pretty ethiopian girl. I mentioned my genetic roots in Somalia 22,400 years ago and she asked me if I really believed all that? When I tried to broach the source of her skepticism she told me that she did not believe in science, she only believed in religion. It is hard to counter a person like this and I cut short our conversation but I had a nagging impulse to tell her that many of my fellow American citizens and politicians apparently shared her views on the subject.
No comments:
Post a Comment