Early Adapter

I’ve always been and early adapter, it’s part of my DNA that came to the surface way back when I was the first person in our office to purchase a Sony Walkman.

At the time I used to travel for the company and my only entertainment was the books that I used to read. I wouldn’t change a thing because in my downtime while on the road I very fortunate to read John le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honorable Schoolboy and Smiley’s People which started a relationship that has lasted nearly 40 years. I’ve been buying John le Carré’s books since my early 20’s and I continue doing it today.

John le Carré’s writes in a style that I really do enjoy, he challenges the mind. Nothing is easy when you’re reading one of his books, the plot twists and turns so much that I often find myself going back and looking for the clues that have passed before my eyes. I discovered John le Carré quite by accident, I was leaving Heathrow Airport for a trip to Norway that was going to take 7 weeks. In the kiosk “best sellers” shelf they had Tinker Soldier Tailor Spy and below as often happens another two books of his. At the time I had no idea that the story continue through all three books and was delighted to discover that I’d started reading the first book of the series just by chance.

I’ve loved these books since then, I’ve actually been back and read them again and again, recently I was watching the BBC TV Shows based on the books and this prompted me to read them again. I’ve bought the books in paperback, hardback and now electronically, while the paperback and cheap hardback versions have faded and disintegrated my new digital copy should be with me for the rest of my life. I’ve just checked http://www.johnlecarre.com/books/the-smiley-novels and can confirm that I have all of these books in my possession.

When I was travelling for periods involving multiple weeks my mom used to write letters to me at the hotel. Like any doting son I never replied, I'd have to find paper, an envelop and stamps, who had the time to do that? Strange as that is I did enjoy reading news from back home. It's hard for the newer generations to imagine being so out of touch, email, texting, FaceTime, FaceBook and even the cost of phone calls has changed the world. My company limited expenses for international phone calls and so I would call wife number one instead of my parents.

In my traveling days I was a prolific reader but recently I’ve become more and more selective on the time I dedicate to the written word. In my early days as a father I’d dropped out of the reading fraternity and become a member of the sleep when you can club. It was only when I lived in Nelson, New Zealand for 12 months that my joy of reading returned, I’d been talking to the features editor at the newspaper about authors and books when he gave me three books to read. A few weeks later we spend an hour or so discussing those books and the very next day the editor gave me a list of authors that I would enjoy, I really didn’t appreciate what he’d done for me at the time but looking back now he’d kick started my joy of reading again.

One of the best things about “discovering” new authors is that you often have a catalog of books that they’ve published previously, I can’t describe how quickly I got through John Grisham,  Patricia Cornwell,  David Baldacci, Nora Roberts and many other writers of so called pulp fiction or airport books. I’m a huge fan of Lee Child and his Jack Reacher series of books, I just love the way Lee Child is able to describe violence, he can describe the systematic breaking of bones in such a wonderful intriguing way that makes it seem like an everyday occurance.

After the Sony Walkman I bought a portable CD player but the battery life on that product didn’t compare to my trusty cassette player, fortunately I hooked up the portable CD player to my home audio and so my money wasn’t totally wasted. In my time I’ve bought David Bowie’s Honkey Dorey album on vinyl, 8 track, cassette tape, CD and then .mp3 (at least that's the theory), when the thin white duke died part of the fortune that he left from his family came directly from my bank account.

About a year ago I was working in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil when a friend of 35 years called me on Skype, he’d just bought a new PC and signed up for Skype. He was by nature a late adopter, he bought his first car in his early 30's.

We caught up for a while, to save time I skipped my stories on wife 11 through 22 and then he asked me to open my bag, life on screen in front of the lap top camera. He wanted to see what gadgets I was carrying around, sad to say that I had an iPad, an iPod Classic, two iPod Shuffles, a digital camera, an iPhone 6S+, a kindle and my work PC. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to answer his question about why I needed two iPod Shuffles.

Life has moved on, these days I don’t travel so much and now my technology is more home based. I’m an owner of two Nest thermostats, two Nest protects, a Hue lighting system, 3 AppleTV’s, 2 Mac Minis, two Harmony hubs, a Tivo Roamio, a Tivo Mini, a Slingbox and now the device that’s proving to be the glue that ties everything together an Amazon Echo. Now I can ask Alexa to turn on my lights, turn up or down the temperature, turn on my video, sound and Tivo or the Apple TV – it’s amazing. However for the first two hours of taking the Amazon Echo out of the box I was thinking that I’d wasted $175, less than 48 hours later it’s the best thing since sliced bread!

That’s my reality,

Jobsonian

Dehydration is a dangerous thing

One autumn or should I say fall my youngest daughter and her boyfriend Lee came over to visit me for a vacation, At the time my daughter Emma was 17 years of age and her boyfriend was a grand old age of 20. From the moment they walked out of baggage claim I could see that my daughter was in love, no longer was she my baby but now she was a young woman who was totally devoted to the man holding her hand.

In my younger days visits to my parents with my girlfriend always resulted in separate rooms, of course each night there would be some movement between allocated bedrooms and I've no doubt that my parents knew but turned a blind eye. The very first time my eventual first wife and I visited my parents my dad had gone to the trouble of taking his bedroom door off the hinges so that he could see me moving around. Although it seemed a good idea on paper he didn't anticipate that rather than me walking to my girlfriends room it was my girlfriend that came to visit me. This caused a problem because my parents didn't know what to say to her.

For our next visit my parents door remained closed, perhaps what they didn't see they didn't know about. So fast forward nearly half a century and I was facing the same dilemma regarding the sleeping arrangements. It was my intention to allocate separate bedrooms but the moment I saw them together I realized that this strategy was just plain dumb. From somewhere I found the maturity to allow them to decide on their own sleeping arrangements and it's no shock to the reader for me to disclose that they decided to save washing two sets of sheets they would share the same bed.

The amazing thing was that this turned out to be one of the best decisions I'd ever made. We had a fantastic time together, it was the best visit ever, no lies, no secrecy, just perfect. I took 14 days vacation from work and we did all the tourist things in Atlanta and even went to a UGA football game on the Saturday.

We partied at a fraternity house, Emma and Lee were in their element talking and drinking with my friends children. At this time Lee had been drinking alcohol legally for two years and perhaps longer than that because they don't have I.D. issues in England. I also knew that Emma could handle adult beverages much better than myself. Most often I prefer the role of designated driver.

I was fortunate to get the chance of a ticket for the football game and since my daughter and Lee were having such a great time they told me to go and sit with my friends at the game. They continued to party and when I returned to the fraternity house all seemed well. However things took a dramatic turn for the worst when Lee suddenly slumped in a chair and was totally unresponsive. Not only had Lee been drinking all of the time but also standing in the sun so that he'd look nice and tanned when he returned to dreary old England.

Fortunately Lee was breathing but he was totally out of it. The wife of one of my friends is a nurse and she told me that I should take Lee directly to hospital because he was in a very serious condition. To an Englishman he'd had a few beers and sat in the sun but she knew from experience that Lee was seriously dehydrated.

We packed our stuff and drove directly to the hospital ER, I rushed in and told them that I had a 20 year old boy who had been drinking and was unresponsive. The staff rushed out and bundled him into a wheel chair while my daughter was crying enough tears to fill a small swimming pool. By this time Lee was white, OK I know the Caucasian Englishman is known for being white but he was looking like a Madame Tussaud's waxwork model who'd just returned from the grave.

Lee was given his own room and his vitals were taken, my daughter sobbed in the corner of the room while the doctor examined his young patient. I asked if Lee was going to make it, I know that seems bad but I really did think that he was about to die. Hearing me asked this question my daughter increased her wailing and sobbing twice fold. Fortunately the doctor laughed and said that he'd be sending Lee home in a couple of hours, I didn't believe him, I thought the doctor was just trying to placate my daughter.

The cure was to attach a saline drip to each arm and infuse several bags of liquid to get Lee hydrated. Outside the room I asked the doctor if he got a lot students suffering this kind of trauma and he told me that he always treated a lot of dehydrated patients on game day but it was mostly old men like me trying to recapture their college youth.

After one hour of drips Lee wakes up and starts talking, he has no idea where he is and what has happened. He feels great and wants to leave but the doctor insisted that he received another hour of treatment before Lee could leave.

So two hours after arriving in complete vegetative state Lee walks out to the car without a care in the world. As we drive home I hear him snoring softly in the back seat. When we get home Lee is feeling well enough to help me empty the car, he doesn't even have a headache. Deep down I'm so relieved because at one point I thought that I'd have to make the phone call to his parents to say that Lee wouldn't be coming home!

Once we'd emptied the car we went inside the house and Lee brought me a bottle of water from the fridge. He smirked and told me to drink up because dehydration is a dangerous thing!

That's my reality,

Jobsonian

Blood is simply amazing

My dad used to give blood way back in the old days before aids, mad cow, email and color TV. He probably enjoyed all the attention of the nurses in their traditional uniform, he had a blood doonor book and was given a stamp after each donation while he enjoyed free biscuits and a cup of tea. Eventually he'd given enough blood to be awarded some kind of medal, I remember he was rather proud of himself that day.

As a young boy it was impossible for me to understand why he'd want to volunteer to have someone stick a needle in his arm. Of course we're not talking about the ultra thin needles of today but great big things that we now use as turkey basters at Thanksgiving.

In my long life I've been very fortunate to have been injected or as they say in the USA had a shot only a few times in my life. In fact it's easy for me to remember the early inoculations I had to endure, I'm certain that I'm not alone in my appreciation for the inventor of the vaccinations that you could take with a sugar cube.

Most of my needle experiences have been at the dentist where some kind of numbing drug has been injected. It was only very recently that I had the experience of having an IV line installed on the inside of my elbow.

When I was having issues with a tumor on my jaw I had my first IV line installed at the hospital and it proved to be very difficult for the nurses to find a vein. I'm not the type of guy that has veins popping out all over my body, only now and then do I see the blood circulating around. Interestingly it's always blue blood but sadly I've never enjoyed the privileges of being a member of the British Royal Family. Throughout my life I've had to book all my tickets using Ticketmaster or the equivalent and we "commoners" know how fair that process is, by the time I get to search for a seat the royal box is always full of chinless wonders.

I walked into the hospital with my super brave mask on, I really don't know where it came from but I figured that I was too old to scream and cry at the sight of a hypodermic needle. That was me 105 years ago, these days I'm as strong as any other athlete in their prime.

In the end one nurse tried three times and the other twice before the doctor decided that they'd give me some gas and stick me when I was under. At the time I was more than happy with that decision, if it wasn't for the distraction of some attractive nurses walking around I could have been a lot of pain. Of course the nurses outfits of yesteryear and Halloween are way more uplifting but every now and then you can find a stunning rear view of a female in scrubs. Perhaps that's a very sexist remark but I'm still a hot blooded male ;-)

Later in the process when the tumor was removed from my jaw and I needed implants to replace the teeth that had been extracted by the hospital surgeon. My local dentist couldn't place any implants in my upper jaw because my sinus's were too low and so I had to endure two surgical procedures to lift my left and right sinuses, fortunately my dentist put me under while this was going on.

The most amazing thing was that the dentist and later his nursing assistant were able to stick an IV in my arm at the first attempt, this was most impressive compared to the staff at the "world famous" teaching hospital. Once the sinuses were lifted and secured in place I returned several months later and the dentist installed my implants, this involved taking my blood and using a centrifuge that would separate some elements from my royal blood that they injected around the implant to promote growth. Science is amazing who discovered this process and what made them think it was a good idea? What do they do in Iran where all of their centrifuges are used for producing nuclear material for domestic use only?

When wife number 23 was receiving treatment for her cancer the doctors tested her blood weekly, it was an interesting marker for how she was doing. In the first couple of weeks she'd had a port fitted in chest so that they could infuse dangerous drug cocktails directly into a major artery and avoid burning her veins.

On a couple of occasions her blood white cell count was way too low and several pints of blood were infused into her increasingly frail body. Receiving blood from another person is a very difficult thing, there's a lot of cross checking and paperwork involved because of the dangers of receiving the wrong blood type. Each time my wife's blood was cross matched and a wrist band fitted that could not be removed before 48 hours had passed after the treatment was done.

After just a few weeks of her treatment I'd become accustomed to the environment of the infusion suit but we had to go to another facility to receive blood and once again there was lots and lots of patients being given what I hope were life saving chemicals. This suite was busier and more cramped but each "station" had an airplane like TV entertainment system available which proved to be very helpful trying to pass the time, receiving blood is a long and drawn out process with a bunch of potential risks.

Even though I wasn't the person with cancer I was living on my nerves, assisting a person with a serious illness is a very stressful thing to do. It seemed to me that the person who is ill concentrates on the treatments, the pain and staying alive. They are often "out of it" due to the chemicals involved in the treatment. but the care giver is on a roller coaster of emotions, looking for signs of improvement, dreaming of a full recovery and return to our normal life but also dropping like a stone at the first sign of an issue, a simple cough or clearing of the throat sends the carer into thinking that another "worst case scenario" was starting.

Wife 23 sits in the chair and the lines are set up ready for the blood, it arrives chilled and is allowed to get up to room temperature so that the patient doesn't get too cold. The blood is kept in thick plastic bags, clearly labeled and burgundy red, perhaps just like a good claret and certainly just as good for you.

As I watched the blood drip into my wife I couldn't help but wonder if the donor had any idea about the wonderful gift he'd given to a complete stranger, I hoped that they'd be happy to in the knowledge that wife "23a" was being given a tonic beyond compare and perhaps the spark that was needed towards a complete recovery. Blood really is the nectar of life, along with organs it's the ultimate gift to give!

It was the strangest moment for me, each drip would ignite a different thought in my mind, of course I knew that we need blood to live but to watch something so precious drip into my wife was so moving for me. Once again I felt selfish and disappointed in myself for not giving blood but then again thanks to my dad our family had blood in the bank so to speak.Over here in the USA I can't donate blood because of the risk of mad cow disease, what a wonderful excuse that has been for my non-social behavior!

The process of receiving blood takes a long, long time and is constantly monitored, temperature changes and reactions of any kind are evaluated at regular intervals. Before every infusion of blood we'd struggled to get from the parking lot to the infusion suite, we actually used one of the hospital wheelchairs but after the 8 hours of treatment my revitalized wife was able to walk out of the offices on her own two feet.

Blood is simply amazing!

That's my reality,

Jobsonian

I've got your back!

Wife “23a” had multiple personalities from “a through t”, I never met “23u” but I’ve no doubt that she was in there somewhere. 23a was a vibrant, super fit tennis player with a zest for life that was electrifying to be with, she was the most fun to be around and I consider myself very fortunate to have enjoyed many hours of in her company. I could look into “23a”s eyes and any hint of depression would be lifted, her ability to enjoy life was infectious and exhilarating. 23a could run about the tennis court for ever, she’d chase down any ball determined to get a racket on it, she’d leave the court never knowing the feeling of giving up a point. When out with friends or family "23a" was the personality that came out to shine.

Sadly “23b” wasn’t so much fun and when you saw “23t” she’d cause confusion and self-doubt in an instant, there was a very dark side to “23g” that was devious, selfish, untrustworthy and full of lies. Wife 23g was all about 23a and anyone else didn’t matter. However when I think of the total package I still have no regrets about meeting and eventually marrying wife “23”, it was the best roller coaster I’ve ever been on but I can only have those thoughts because of the way events conspired.

Unfortunately wife “23” was diagnosed with osteosarcoma cancer at the age of 59. The first she knew about her problem was when a tumor was discovered at the entrance to her left lung just after Thanksgiving. Eventually this turned into a life sentence and after a battle of 16 months she died of cancer related issues in a hospice bed.

In those last 16 months wife “23” managed to cram in so many different events that they can’t all be covered in this post, a book or even a trilogy of books. It was an amazing story of events and eventually I’ll be able to dissect the circumstances and hope to write a definitive document about her departure from this world.

There’s lots of things that happened that I don’t know about, things I don’t want to know about because wife “23” was taken over and dominated by her second son. To make matters worse he suffers from a diagnosed mental illness - acute separation anxiety, in short he missed his mom in the most extreme kind of way. Sadly “23g” surfaced for long dark periods at a time. The bright light in wife “23a”s eyes flickered and faded like a candle reaching the end of it's wick.

“23a” was a vibrant super fit tennis player with a zest for life that was electrifying to be with, she was the most fun to be around and I enjoyed many hours of being in her company. It wasn’t the cancer that took away “23a” but the treatment, specifically the chemotherapy, my wife became a victim of chemo brain.

From the moment of her first infusion to the last seconds I spent with wife "23" I had only one brief fleeting moment with the girl of my dreams, she did a 3 second dance while holding on to her walking frame on the way to the bathroom. It’s a memory that is bitter sweet, a moment when wife “23a” was “back” and yet so sad that a once healthy, indestructible woman was reduced to shuffling along with a Zimmer frame. The chemotherapy had taken away her ability to feel the floor with her feet.

The diagnosis was devastating for everyone, my wife, her siblings, her 3 sons, her friends and of course her husband. The reactions of people around wife "23" was amazing and varid and now that I can look back and reflect on those terrible times unbelievable. Wife 23’s sons were like headless chickens bouncing around trying to find the instant cure for the loving mother that had been the one constant in their lives. Strange foods had to be eaten, wheat grass cocktails drunk and certain exercises performed. Of course these ideas seemed rational at the time, anything that gave hope was adopted with zeal but it was the really big guns of radiation and chemotherapy on which we pined the most hope.

The journey from 5 sets of tennis followed by a marathon and then several hours of chasing grandchildren around the block to being unable to walk 5 steps was swifter than the drop of a French guillotine blade. The “cure” started with a course of radiation and then trips to the chemotherapy suite for infusions of various mixes of highly toxic liquids.

Radiation proved to be spectacular because they managed to blast a hole through the tumor that was large enough for her left lung to become inflated and useful again. Within a few weeks she managed to start walking from the parking lots to the doctors offices without any help, sometimes arriving looking like the healthiest woman on earth. The radiation doctor was so excited at the results her team had achieved, she kept a copy of wife "23"s before an after radiation treatment scans. However deep inside her body things were not going well.

Although officially there’s no “side effects” to radiation, the treatment wasn’t without issues and the powerful rays that blasted the tumor also secretly burned a hole in my wife’s esophagus which caused any liquids or food digested to leak into the chest cavity. Of course we all know that cancer patients don’t eat but it was only towards the last 3 months that the medical team discovered that my wife had good reasons not to eat. Sadly attempts to repair the hole in the esophagus proved to be unsuccessful and so reluctantly a feeding tube was fitted.

Have no doubts that I have nothing but admiration for the medical team that took care of my wife, everyone involved was professional, knowledgeable, respectful and somehow even managed to be cheerful. The nurses and nurse practitioners were exceptional, particularly in the infusion suite, if I had the misfortune to become ill the first thing I'd so is up the exact same team to be in my corner.

The first time I walked into a chemotherapy suite and saw 30 chairs full of people receiving infusions it absolutely took my breath away, this was just one small clinic in Atlanta and I wondered how many people in the whole world endured this kind of treatment while trying to continue with their life. With each and every visit I started to appreciate my own good health more and more, at the same time I started to feel guilty, I was an intruder in a room full of very personal experiences. Each patient had their own individual story.

Visits from wife "23’s" children always ended with words of encouragement, “keep it up mom”, “you have to fight”, “I’m there for you” and the classic “I’ve got your back”!

The first time I heard someone tell wife "23" “I’ve got your back” I had the strangest reaction, what did this mean in reality, what good did this do and what help was this phrase to someone in the battle for their life. On the tennis courts it makes some kind of sense, like saying you be aggressive at the net and I’ll cover the back of the court but when someone is fighting for their life does the phrase have any value at all?

Come to think of it what is the battle or the fight for your life? Certainly the doctors can prescribe many interesting and expensive treatments, many of which have sickening side effects and involve a lot of pain. Even now I don’t know how I’d react to a cancer diagnosis, would I want to undergo treatment and cling to any kind of life or would I prefer to accept my fate and let the dreaded disease take its course.

Have no doubts that wife 23 "fought the good fight", she'd try to walk the extra step, take a few extra deep breaths into her spirometer, she'd even tell me to park one floor up so that she had to climb at least one ramp. It was amazing to see her accept any new instruction, medication or procedure with such a positive attitude. However in the end even with her kryptonite strong will to live wife "23" told bedside visitors that she just wanted to die.

One of the strongest memories I have is the time that wife "23a" passed out while waiting for an elevator to take us to another doctors office. It wasn't a tree falling tumble more like the wilting of an under watered flower in the hot afternoon Georgia sun. The process started at the legs and was slow enough for me to gently grab hold of her skeleton like body and ease her down to the floor. When she came back to life she managed to whisper the words "you've really got my back".

That's my reality,

Jobsonian