One of the odder sights in contemporary Americana can be seen via an easy car cruise along the streets of suburban New England during late winter, say any time during February, depending on weather patterns. Generally, days start to warm but nights remain frosty. Under these conditions, trees start to think about sprouting new growth. To do so, nutrient-rich stores of last autumn’s sugars and starches need to be translocated from the roots to the shoots. In certain species—sugar maple and Norway maple especially—it happens that sap flows daily during warm weather, running by the liter on nice days. Tapping and collecting that sap allows the production of maple syrup and sugar by a simple process of concentration by boiling.
Nowadays, enterprising cooperatives and companies “lease” almost every accessible tree in suburbia. The trees are tapped, polyethylene surgical tubing is run from tree to tree and from tree to collection points. Every day the harvest is poured off and taken to the boiling house. For a few weeks, New England looks like a network of silvery blood vessels, tubing draped everywhere:
At about 2 a.m. on Saturday night (that is, Sunday morning), my infrastructure and physiology started to emulate a New England spring. I started to drip copious amounts of blood from vessels and bodily openings for which such leakage is totally inappropriate. Interestingly, since my throat is sectioned off from my gut via a big slab of brisket, I can taste and smell my mouth filling with blood, which now (24 hours later) occurs about every half hour. So I have to pack a big handful of paper towels and spit the fresh blood to clear things out. Then I cough and blow the blood from my airway out the tracheotomy tube. Then I pull the tube and empty the blood with which it is filled. This now has to happen on around that same 30 minute schedule.
Good thing I’m going to see the doctors tomorrow. One’s a radiologist, of course, not a hematologist. He’s going to give me some thoughts on possible treatment options and non-options. In the afternoon, I go see the hematologist to figure out what’s the deal with all this blood.
OK. It’s now today, which is tomorrow relative to the stuff immediately above that I wrote yesterday. Let’s start with the hematology.
After a long day at the hospital, seeing 3 doctors in succession, being scoped in my nasal passages and mouth and throat several times, it devolves that the bleeding was simply a result of the anticoagulant chemicals. We figured that out by experiment. Stopped taking the warfarin and injectables yesterday, stopped bleeding today. So, given that I’m still at risk from the pulmonary embolism, we’re back to the rat poison.
Now. The discussion with the radiologist was short and bitter, although complicated. I’ll devote the next entry to what he said and what it means. I will give you the brief version here, though, so you’re prepared. He said “It’s time for you to start having fun. Fuck everything else.”
As you might expect, there’s a lot of portent here. Meantime, part of what I do for fun is write. I’m recovered enough that my weekly column at the AEHS home page is back up and running. This week’s column is about transmissible cancers in Tasmanian devils, so don’t miss it. You can go to the AEHS Foundation home page, http://www.aehsfoundation.org/ , go down to the lower left on the page, and click through to the column. Or you can go directly there via http://www.aehsfoundation.org/peoplesystems.aspx .
In any case, my doctor’s message is good for everyone. Have fun! We all only have so much time.
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