Clear Directions

When you’re tackling healthcare issues you get lots of directions on the road to recovery from many sources; not all of them clear.  Often time directions from really bright people are confusing; it might make perfect sense to them, but not you.   In addition, directions from people close to you get garbled when they pepper you with too many of them, even if they’re small items.  Regardless of these directions, you ultimately are the final decision maker who has to decide on the best road for you and live with it since you won’t be turning back.

My father had a mechanical engineering degree which he used occasionally before going to law school.  I’m glad he went into law; his grasp of physics made me weak.  Being a mechanical engineer you’d think he ruled over physics, but that didn’t apply to cutting down trees.  Instead,  he’d have my brothers or me cut down the trees near our house.  One Saturday he told me to cut down this dead elm which was half way up the bank from the lake.  He was behind me directing where, when, and how to fall the tree while scanning his physics diagram.  I said, “you’d better move over to the side before I cut this.”  Waving the diagram at me he said, “just do as I say and cut the tree down like I told you.”  Well, the tree fell onto the top of the bank, flipped up, caught Dad in the chin, and knocked him down the bank. Every complex plan works on paper, but not always in real time.  High School Sophmore 1, Mechanical Engineer  0.

Speaking of men following directions, men are genetically designed with a filter which shuts off domestic duty directions after hitting a certain level.  It doesn’t matter how many minor directions are already in there or what critical ones are pending; once the duty tank fills up nothing else gets in.  Diane calls me The Lima Bean since in her mind that’s my brain’s limited capacity in taking directions.  Outside of household chores, however, I can manage a ton of decisions all at once (ie. buying and selling hospitals, organizing an overseas land deal, remembering all the lines from Blazing Saddles, etc.)  but verbally direct me to pick up three items at the grocery store and I might hit two of them and then bring home the wrong substitute for the third one.   Likewise, years ago Diane called me during work and told me to pick up my three sons and a friend of theirs from Little League practice.  I picked up my three boys, but left their friend by himself at the ballpark.  I don’t care what you say, delivering 3 out of 4 positive outcomes in anything is a solid result.  One person can only absorb so much.

After battling cancer for 35 years my body now resembles an old boat; it looks okay on the outside from a distance, but inside its a mix of missing and broken parts tied together with bubble gum and bandwire.  It’s a hot mess and hard to treat, but I’ve still outlasted four oncologists going on four decades.  Whenever I meet a new physician who is reviewing my history the typical comment out loud is “Wow.”   Its weird being a medical celebrity,  so I know how Kim Kardashian feels some days.  As for medical direction, I could gather twenty Harvard trained doctors together in a room and ask them their recommended treatment plan for me and I would get at least five different directions.  Whose direction do you use?  In turn, I have no problem asking them to predict my 5 year survival chances, but I never get a straight answer.  Scientifically they say there isn’t enough data on long term survivors like me to make an accurate predication.  My response always is, “okay, what does your gut tell you?”  Whether its Sloan Kettering, Moffitt, or the University of Miami, when pressed academic doctors give me the same unscientific answer, “you’re chances of surviving are high since you’ve survived all these years; you’re a survivor.”  I take some comfort in the vagueness, but in the scheme of things I’d like to have clearer directions for the road ahead of me.  Although if that’s all I get; then I’ll take it.  That’s important to remember for yourself, since the road you choose to take may not be perfectly clear either, but it’s yours to take nonetheless.  As Robert Frost said about roads, “I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.”  Slainte.