The Winter of My Discontent

When I first moved to New Hampshire I was told to get my affairs in order, I would likely die this winter by snow storm. Inevitably at some point during the six months of continuous freezing maelstrom that is a Northern New England winter I would perish in a snow bank, in front of a snow plow, underneath a snow mobile, or inside a giant snow ball. The towns would all freeze over and the wilds would be no refuge. Especially seeing as how they would both be packed with blood thirsty snow men living in snow forts bent on righteous snow vengeance, the worst kind of vengeance.

Instead there was never more than a few inches of snow. Temperatures never got below zero. Only actually got to zero once the whole time. And my snot never froze to my face -- a true indicator of a good winter I am told. January was actually most notable for the amount of drizzle there was. It was an angry drizzle, no doubt, but just drizzle. I never got my chance to break a leg snow skiing, fall through the ice ice fishing, fall through the ice ice skating, fall through the ice snow shoeing, or even to build an army of eight foot tall snowman storm troopers a la Calvin and Hobbes. I was robbed. I was promised an icy death and all I got was a relatively temperate, boring waiting period between fall and spring.

Speaking of spring. It is now springing and I am told to anticipate the start of Mud Season where, from what I can gather, everything gets covered in mud. I'm not buying it, though. I come from a state where it rains mud! Unless I'm swept away in a river of brown goop sometime this April I will be unimpressed.

Not all was lost this winter. We did have enough time to build a tiny late season snowman -- err snowthing.

Part snowman. Part mothman. Trapped in two worlds, he is accepted in none. He will lead a life of tragic irony chasing the light that will one day be his demise. Coming to Lifetime this spring.

The Death of Paper Bird

Dartmouth Hitchcock Memorial Hospital is a classy hospital. Between the pianos, artwork, gardens, more pianos, and periodic impromptu classical guitar concerts some would say it's the classiest of hospitals. It's so classy in fact that the class spills over into the stairwells. And that's where I first met Paper Bird.

In most if all not all stairwells the walls are lined with murals on most if not all floors. They are idyllic paintings of the native wildlife and pastoral farms of New England. Some are beautiful, some are clearly done by volunteers. For the first few weeks of work I enjoyed looking at them while running around the clinics and wards, but I didn't pay them much attention as I usually had places to go and Lyme disease to stomp out. One day, however, while walking up the same daily flight of stairs I always hike upon arrival I noticed something was different. A bluejay seemed to be out of place. No longer perched atop a picnic table, it was now sitting comfortably on a nearby collection of pumpkins. Or maybe I was just crazy -- probably too much chronic brain Lyme. The next day, however, my suspicions were confirmed when while again walking into work I noted that the bluejay was no longer perched above the pumpkins but now sitting outside the picture frame entirely, resting immediately above the upper right border of the painting. Clearly I wasn't crazy, the bluejay was alive!

Shortly I found out that, no, the bluejay was in fact not alive, but rather made entirely of tape when I discovered him one day lying flat on the ground and being, well, composed entirely of tape. He had fallen from his roost atop the painting and was now resting face down on the floor, lying in his own filth. It was very sad; a dark day for Paper Bird. Thankfully the following morning he resurrected and for the next few months led a good life sticking to the various walls of the various murals, sometimes sitting on picnic table, sometimes atop one of the gratuitously placed pumpkins, once hanging upside down like a bat from a branch in a tree. It was always a pleasure seeing Paper Bird and where he'd be sitting that particular day. Life was good for the both of us. Then, one day, he disappeared.

Although no one knows where he disappeared off to -- some believe he flew off to paper bird heaven -- it is understood that he will not be coming back. By most paper bird standards he had a good life. The average life expectancy of a paper bird is only two and a half months and most paper birds are born into relative poverty forced to adorn pediatric clinic offices and elementary schools to earn a working wage. Paper Bird on the other hand got to, well, sit on pumpkins. I'll never forget his permanent paper smile or... I guess mostly just that. He was a paper bird, and for that we'll miss him. Goodbye Paper Bird!

Memorial services will be held in Auditorium D after the holiday break.

Would You Rather....?

Have diabetes or HIV?

The obvious answer to that for I'd say 99% of the country -- and 100% of San Antonio -- is diabetes. But on further thought I'm personally not so sure. One of my ID staff, however, is entirely sure that HIV is the far better way to go, and the more I think about it the less I think he may be crazy.

HIV, typically once a death sentence only a few years after diagnosis, is no longer the viral grim reaper it once us. Whereas everyone with rare exception would progress from HIV+ to full blown AIDS in an average of 8 to 10 years followed by a few years of progressive misery unto death today this happens in only the rarest of cases (at least in the United States.) Now we have medicines, and not only do we have medicines but we have combo pills, and not only do we have combo pills but we have once daily dosing, and not only do we have a single pill that you take only once a day but we have a single pill that has remarkably minimal side effects. For those prudent enough to take their medicines consistently the reward is an AIDS free life that, aside from a high frequency of medical visits and a slightly increased risk of developing a few chronic illnesses, is essentially indistinguishable from the HIV- life they may have otherwise had. People need not get AIDS any more and certainly need not die from it. Truly now it is in many ways simply one more chronic condition.

Diabetes, on the other hand, though curable is rarely cured. As the disease progresses the consequences accumulate as do the medical therapies. It may start painless, but as it progresses to heart disease, kidney failure, nerve damage, immunodeficiency, and vision loss the pain becomes irreversibly real. During this time often over years to decades the number of medicines progresses from one pill daily to a handful of pills throughout the day and finally to the routine injection of shots and pricking of fingers for samples of blood. The roads are different -- heart attack, dialysis, blindness, amputation, infection, and stroke -- but the destination is the same. People die from diabetes. Not all and not directly, but an appalling sum of morbidity and mortality every year is brought on in part or in whole from diseases which diabetes brings. People view it as only a chronic condition, some people almost taken as a given, but few such medical diseases will change your life as much as diabetes.

To say I'd prefer HIV over diabetes still sounds a bit brash, but I think it may nevertheless be the better choice of the two. Due to the stigma of the disease I imagine most people will always largely favor diabetes. Unfortunately this is probably a large part why we spends billions of dollars and lose thousands of quality adjusted life years annually to the latter. On a lighter note, though, would you rather live free or die? Share a bunk with Kathy Griffin or share a bunk with Carrot Top? Bare knuckle box an angry Michele Bachmann or an angry kangaroo?

Breaking News

We interrupt the previously scheduled post-election coverage of demonstrations in Iran in order to provide you with this late breaking news:

Michael Jackson is still dead!

Initially thought to have died on June 25th, 2009, a repeat autopsy was undertaken today to confirm that the legendary singer-song writer is still in fact deceased. He is. Further memorials and tributes are likely in light of this breaking revelation. Many have called for an official day of mourning to be followed by a national day of remembrance and a week long world wide candle light vigil. A stirring audio-visual tribute is scheduled for every multimedia awards show to take place for the rest of the year.

We will return to your regularly scheduled program once we have sufficiently beaten this story into the ground.