I used to have a magazine cartoon affixed to my fridge. It depicted two simply drawn figures and two black dots. One figure, pointing, says to the other: "It's very important that you keep these two buttons straight: the one on the left fires five hundred intercontinental ballistic missiles at the Soviet Union, and the one on the right lights up the Christmas tree on the White House lawn."

Just so my recent imprisonment in the ER. Some minor symptoms that surfaced over the weekend moved me to call the "advice nurse" yesterday morning, and she in turn told me to come in for a consultation at 3:00 pm. The doctor saw me on time, for a wonder, poked and prodded a bit and said "Hold on. I want to talk to someone," returned after fifteen minutes and said he wanted me to check into the ER "just to be on the safe side." And so my saga began. I'll spare you the blow-by-blow. Late last night a couple of nice surgeons came down and explained that my discomfort derived from a trifling condition that could either be resolved by opening me up, which they offered to do that very night, or by waiting and monitoring the situation, in which case there's a better-than even chance it will clear itself up over the next few weeks. The reason for all the hoo-hah was that I had manifested upon initial examination some signs of a rare-ish variation on the condition that has been known to trigger a sequence of necrosis, gangrene, organ failure, septic shock, and death over the course of half a day.

Since I'd won the toss, I elected not to undergo the discretionary surgery on the grounds that absent a compelling contrary reason, one should seize every opportunity not to have one's flesh rent by a sharp blade. I've always been your "ignore the symptom and it will go away" kinda guy, and I'm happy to have this philosophy borne out and even tacitly endorsed for once. There's an off-chance (diminishing with time) that the Bad Variant could develop, but I am assured that in that event the symptoms will be impossible to overlook, and that I will not be even remotely tempted to stoicism ("More like 'begging for death,' huh?" I asked. "Something like that" said the older surgeon).

I'm certainly glad to have had my trusty Mac laptop with its magic "MiFi" card with me while I was being held otherwise incommunicado. I was able to get word out via email to a friend to call my spouse, who was becoming concerned when I had not returned from work or called after three hours. As Michael Gambon's character in The Singing Detective laments, "Why is it when you lose your health the entire medical profession takes it as axiomatic you've also lost your mind?"

cordially,

In my case it's not a buildup, but a breakdown, a structural failure that's allowing adjacent precincts that have formerly conducted business via Swiss-based "special interest" offices with rigorous trade and passport controls in place to experiment with open borders. I really ought to have gone with the extended warranty package, but I frankly couldn't afford it back in 1952.

cordially,