Suspense Variety Hour

Opening lines, what are they for?

Second paragraphs, do they have much impact?

Third paragraphs, who reads them?

How many words, phrases and/or sentences make up a paragraph?

Plenty.

Impact!

What you don't say says it all.

A backlog of thanks to send out: Ruth, Patricia, Lesley, Matt, Bryan and Dr. Mathews.  Have I already thanked Andrea?  Every smiling face, every serious face, every person I haven't mentioned by name - thank you, too.  Anonymous blood donors, campus security, volunteers, valet parking and fellow patients' family and friends deserve thanks and a thoughtful word or two.

Ultimately, life is a mystery.  We may recreate/rearrange living organisms.  We may find new elements.  In fact, we will continue to find something new about life.  Always another mystery to solve.

Tonight, while listening to my family and friends describe their medical experiences, I thought about a film I hadn't seen in years, starring William Hurt, about a doctor experiencing the business of medicine from the patient's perspective.

History does not stop and neither does the business of medicine.  From birth to death, our bodies change.  Some changes we qualify as good and some we qualify as bad.

For that very reason, I accept that life happens to me everyday, allthetime, everywhere.  A festering spider bite.  A swollen mosquito bite.  A broken bone.  Lost skin elasticity.  Strengthened muscles through exercise.  Lower heartbeat rate through cardiovascular workouts.

Because I accept life, I let myself feel all that my body experiences and what the bodies around me experience.  I note/observe, analyse and enhance the feelings/experiences.

Life is too short to pass up the pain.  Of course, I won't go so far as to say I enjoy pain.  I get no pleasure from pain.

But you know all that.  On to something new...

If you ain't from around here, you probably never heard of Lewis Grizzard and his comedy routines like I Haven't Understood Anything Since 1962.

Some people strike a particular chord and the reverberations verberate in persnickety ways.  For instance, contrast the characters played by William Hurt and Eddie Murphy versus the character of Lewis Grizzard.

Pleasantries are not part of this blog entry because I'm feeling the pain and tiredness of a group of buildings full of people.

I don't watch a lot of serialised television shows but a lot of people do.  They get to know how the body works through dramadies and comidramas produced, written, directed and acted by members of the stageplay business.

"I'm not a real doctor.  I just play one on TV."

There's a distinct difference between a person who attempts to capture the nuances of emotions written into a scripted character and a person trained in a medical specialty who's analysing a body's test results in realtime.

As a hospital patient's spouse, I have placed myself inside and outside the medical business for the past week.

I've observed the realtime behaviours of a general practitioner, gastroenterologists, nephrologists, hematologists, nurse practitioners, physician's assistant, nurses and med techs, to identify medical personnel by their given titles.

At the same time, I've consulted with friends and family members who have the same or similar titles, layering their observations between the local medical advice/observations associated with this week's hospital stay and medical information (both fictional and nonfictional) I have read, watched and heard.

Regardless of titles, our bodies have limits.

All while casually keeping up with world news.

Life.

I don't want to look at the Book of the Future because I will find the information I don't want to find.

Instead, the last I looked, the Lakers were up 51-31 over the Celtics.  A change of fortune in the second half was probably not in the fortune read to the Celtics players in the locker room.  No matter.  There's room and time for a seventh game.

Sometimes when you're up 10 or 15 seconds, debris falls on the track and the racecars get bunched up again.

Sometimes the futbol is not what it used to be but both sides have to get used to the new ball.

However, this isn't entertainment.  It's life.  It's happiness, accepting whatever happens next, the future a mystery or a well-known fact.

Suspenseful.

Ready to feel whatever emotion comes my way, secure in the belief that life is why I'm here, fully integrated into never-ending world events, both small and large.

The sole reason I'm here is because my species is adaptable.  How we came about and for how many of for whom/Whom or What/what I can/should/will be thankful is a mystery I willingly accept.

The wisdom of middle age is worth more than my weight in dodo feathers.  You know, like learning to accept mysteries and mistakes while quietly and patiently nudging people along for the sake of a patient, having fun the whole time, knowing pain is an integral part of life.