December 11th, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in Humor
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This post originally appeared on my blog last Christmas season – for those of you who missed it, the amusing story is reprinted below:
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My sister Vicki lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan with her husband, three children and an alarmingly large and slobbery Saint Bernard named Gilbert. Several Christmases ago she decided to teach her then 5 year old son, Harrison, about Christmas tree decorating. She took him to a Christmas tree farm and helped him select a tree. They hauled it back to the house and my sister managed, with no help whatsoever from Gilbert, to set it up in a nice corner of the living room. The tip of the tree reached the ceiling and its full figured branches spread from icy window to window.
Vicki and Harrison spent hours and hours winding lights, tinsel, ornaments, paper angels and popcorn strings around the tree. Little Harrison couldn’t wait to see the final product, with glittering lights and a magical star to top off their fine work. They decorated into the early evening, and the living room grew dark as the sun set over the snow covered neighborhood. At last it was time to plug in the tree lights.
As Vicki plugged in the lights for the first time, Gilbert roused himself from his resting place in front of the fireplace and shook off his drowsiness. Harrison held his breath in eager anticipation of the twinkling display that he had helped to create. My sister turned off all the overhead lights.
As the plug entered the outlet, the tree lit up with thousands of tiny glittering lights. Harrison
marveled at his glorious creation. “Mom, it’s the most beautiful tree in the world!”
My sister sat down on the couch and hugged her son tightly in her lap as they relaxed and enjoyed the view. Suddenly, Harrison’s eyes fixated on one of the branches.
“Mom… look! There’s an icicle on the tree!!”
My sister squinted and followed the direction of Harrison’s pointing finger.
Sure enough, there was a glassy, 5 inch long, icicle-appearing object perched in a tree branch in the middle of the tree.
Harrison’s raised his voice with glee: “Mom! It’s a Christmas MIRACLE!!”
The little boy broke free of his mom’s grasp and ran up to the tree to inspect the icicle at close range. As he reached out his hand to clasp it, his look of amazement turned to horror. The icicle was in fact a long
string of dog drool that had flicked off of Gilbert when he shook himself out of his sleep.
“Ewww!!!” Harrison screamed.
My sister slowly realized what had happened and started laughing uncontrollably. Gilbert wanted to get in on the fun and began barking and running in circles. He became tangled up in the extension cord and pulled the tree right out of the tree stand. At that moment, Vicki’s husband returned from shopping with the other 2 children. As he turned on the lights he found my sister trapped under an unraveling Christmas tree, a hysterical child frantically wiping his hands on paper towel, and a barking, drooling Gilbert in the midst.
“What happened here?!” he shouted, attempting to rescue Vicki from underneath the tree.
“It’s a Christmas miracle” was her muffled cry.
And this story will be in our family for a long time to come.
December 6th, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in Humor
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You know those people who still have their Christmas lights up in April? Yeah, that’s always annoyed me… But I’m afraid that I’ve recently been reminded of the old Muslim proverb: “Don’t point fingers because three will be pointing back at you.”
My exasperation level has reached a creschendo and I think I’m going to have to take matters into my own hands. My husband has been keeping rotting organic material on our balcony, and it is a source of growing embarrassment.
Exhibit A
Exhibit A: Rosemary bush from Christmas ’07. This little bush was purchased by my husband in an effort to bring the “holiday spirit” to our household last year. I had previously argued that killing trees was not part of the true meaning of Christmas and that I didn’t relish the idea of sweeping up pine needles for months. Besides, we don’t have kids, so why get a tree at all? So he got me a rosemary bush and decorated it with items from my jewelry box. It was amusing at the time. But the bush is still alive (albeit barely) and on our balcony in time for Christmas ’08.
Exhibit B
Exhibit B: A pumpkin that was carved by my husband in late October, 2008. He found the vegetable at our local farmer’s market and asked me to participate in creating a Jack-O-Lantern. He insisted that my “considerable artistic talent” could be applied to the pumpkin with great effect. I responded that since our balcony faces a series of rooftop fume hoods, I doubted that the proud display of such an effort would be appreciated by more than the local rodent population. So hubby carved the pumpkin himself (using a simple stencil) and placed his work directly in front of my office window. It made me chuckle, but little did I know that he planned to allow the pumpkin to “degrade naturally to fertilize the bamboo” after it had served its holiday purpose.
I suppose that these two balcony dwellers serve as a reminder of my own “Grinchly” ways. Nonetheless, I’m coming to the end of my rope and am poised with garbage bag in hand to start the 2008 holidays with a clean slate. Would you agree that it’s time to remove the exhibits? With whom do you relate more: the organic-matter-hording husband, or the curmudgeonly wife?
November 30th, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in True Stories
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The successful “Engage with Grace” campaign resulted in ~95 bloggers promoting end-of-life care discussions with family members over Thanksgiving. Paul Levy called it the first “medical blog rally on the Internet.” I wonder how many readers took the challenge?
I spent Thanksgiving with my sister (mom of 3) and brother-in-law in Michigan. After our dinner (with the kids tucked in for the night) we enjoyed a glass of wine and a game of Cranium (if you haven’t tried this game yet, you might want to pick one up in time for the next group of holidays – it’s like Pictionary, Charades, Trivial Pursuit, and American Idol wrapped into one). I looked for an opportunity to “pop the question” on end-of-life issues.
During a brief lull between rock song humming I casually inquired about whether or not my sister and brother-in-law had a living will. They said they hadn’t thought of it but agreed that it would be important to have one. We discussed various scenarios related to organ donation, end-of-life care, and cremation vs. burial preferences. Things degenerated a bit as I asked what their individual preferences might be for resuscitation under special circumstances (it was almost like a scene from Monty Python – “So, if you had no arms and no legs and you had a 10% chance of normal brain function recovery, would you like to be tube fed? How about if you had one leg and half an arm and a 5% chance of mental recovery? What about if you had 1/2 a liver, no spleen, and only one eye worked, but you COULD do math questions?”) We all had a good laugh at the black humor, but recognized that something important underlay the jesting. There is no doubt that we each had a 100% chance of dying at some point during our lives.
And then something unexpected happened – my brother-in-law looked me in the eye and said, “If anything happened to us, we’d really love it if you took our children and raised them as your own.”
I was very touched and happily agreed to do so. I replied with a wagging finger, “Now this doesn’t mean that you should take up helmet-free motorcycling…”
We all had a good chuckle and returned to Cranium, each feeling a little richer for the experience – we knew how we’d like to be cared for in case of critical illness, and I’d become the proud new godmother of 3.
November 4th, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in Opinion, True Stories
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Election anxiety has America on the edge of its seat. I anticipated long lines and a lot of drama, so I voted early to avoid the rush. That left me with nothing election-related to do today, so I decided to head over to my local pharmacy and get a flu shot instead.
Last year the flu vaccine was only 50% effective because experts did not correctly predict which viral strains would victimize Americans. This year I have my fingers crossed that the Brisbane and Florida strains included in the vaccine will do the trick. After all, Influenza is the single leading cause of vaccine-preventable disease in the U.S., with estimates between 15 million and 60 million cases in the US a year among all age groups. Influenza leads to 200,000 hospitalizations and about 36,000 deaths a year in the U.S., mostly in infants and the elderly. I’ll never forget the touching story of how one family lost their three and-a-half year-old daughter to the flu.
So I arrived at the pharmacy only to find a disorderly group of flu-shot seekers, pacing near the entrance to the retail clinic. About 20 minutes later a young woman with a clipboard and sign up sheets came out and started asking people what kind of insurance they had. When my turn came she informed me that my insurance plan was not participating, and suggested that I leave. I asked if I could pay out-of-pocket for the shot and she said that I could and gave me a consent form. More people arrived without any movement in the line, and I overheard one person commenting that the nearby polling booth wasn’t moving as slowly. Another customer decided to leave to go vote and then come back later for the shot.
Forty minutes later my name was called and I entered a small room littered with papers and syringe caps. I rolled up my right sleeve and asked the technician about his injection technique. I watched him carefully draw up half a cc of vaccine from a multiple-use bottle.
He then asked me how I was going to pay. I presented my credit card and he said that he only accepted cash or check. I said that I had no idea that credit cards weren’t accepted and he seemed surprised that I wasn’t aware of the retail clinic policy. A large envelope was leaning against his chair leg, full of $30 cash deposits for the shot. Read more »
October 30th, 2008 by Dr. Val Jones in Announcements
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Alright, well a little melodrama never hurt anyone did it? I’m trying really hard to listen to my readers and adjust my blogging themes/topics/approach accordingly. I actually have no idea what you like to read – health policy, touching stories, humor, research explained, expert interviews, celebrity health initiatives, health tips… etc. So I’m asking. What would you like me to blog about? Please vote in my poll on the right hand side of this page. (Or if you’re viewing this message in a reader, well please come on over to my blog and vote.)
So far (my poll has a N=11, not a very high statistical power) you readers seem to be saying that you like personal stories about the blogger (I guess that means you want me to tell you about my cat – well there she is, featured in the top left-hand corner. Her name is “Ona” and she has an insatiable appetite for grilled asparagus.)
But I have this sneaking suspicion that you don’t really want to hear about ME, you’d like to hear about healthcare and medicine from a fresh perspective. But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this should be a cat blog? Please do vote in my poll so you can water down the voices of those crazy people who are asking for more personal blogging. If you don’t… my only choice is to give the people what they want… and you may be doomed to read about kitties, etc. forever!
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Bizarre event of the day: I was voted as one the top 20 most influential health voices on Twitter. So go ahead and follow me there. My Twitter name is drval.
