So, listen, Mr DJ . . .

Music has always been an important part of my life. As a child in the 50s I think I looked forward to watching "Your Hit Parade" even more than my parents did. Rock n' Roll was liberating, and just enough dangerous to make it exciting, but the music that really grabbed me was the the Brazilian music of Gilberto and Jobim of the mid-60s, and the jazz they influenced of performers like Stan Getz. Later folk music took its hold on me. I would even take my guitar with me when I was in the hospital.

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Put your right foot in, take your right foot out . . .

One of the few ways I can still amaze my wife after almost thirty years, at least when I'm not irritating her by doing the very same thing, is by remembering little details of of a place and time. What really makes her shake her head is that I can tell you, draw a floor plan if I must, exactly how the ER was set up in 1954 when I would be passing through on my way up to the wards; but, except for a very few exceptional bleeds I will not be able to remember what was bleeding where to save my soul. It completely baffles my wife.


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Don't know much about history . . .

Over at "Bringing Generations Together" is very nice article in honor of Hemophilia Awareness Month. It's another reminder, to me at least, that you can't know where you are if you don't know where you've been. Give it a look.
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Number nine, number nine . . .

I think the one question that is guaranteed to drive me completely mad is:

On a scale of one to ten, ten being the worst pain you can imagine, how would you rate your pain right now?

I hate that bloody question. Mostly because I never know how to answer it. Is this pain a 6 or an 8? It hurts a lot, but nowhere near a couple of hemorrhages I have had. So do I say it's a 5 because it is only about half as bad as the bleed I had in my arm, or is it an 8 or 9 because it still hurts like hell. I think that for most people the worst pain they can imagine is pretty much the worst pain they have experienced, and when I was twelve I was pretty sure I had experienced the worst pain imaginable. As it turns out, I might have been wrong, but that is a story for another time.

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Going for a ride in the car, car . . .

As Chairman Kaga would say, if memory serves me correctly, out of the two hundred fifty some times I have been hospitalized (such an odd word—sounds like I was made into a hospital, but I digress) I have only been in an ambulance twice.

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I visited your house again . . .

My maternal grandfather was born on the 10th of August, 1874. I know nothing about his ancestors except for the names of his parents, but he was, as it turned out, a bleeder. I don't know if his family used the term 'hemophiliac,' or if they even knew the term, but by the time my mother was born in 1919 he had been diagnosed as having hemophilia.

There is a family story that when he was about five or so he was kicked by a horse or a mule. Like so many family legends it will often get bogged down at this point while various aunts argue the finer points of the animal's species. Horse or mule, the upshot of the episode was that the kick dislocated his hip. The treatment for this kind of injury was, I have been told, fairly basic. A couple of burly men take firm hold of the patient's torso while another pulls on the leg until the joint slips back together. Not an altogether pleasant way to spend an afternoon.


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All I want for Christmas are my two front teeth . . .

Until I was about ten or eleven it seems that every hemorrhage I had was either my knee, usually the left, or something to do with my face. On one trip to the doctor after using my nose and mouth to break a particularly hard fall he asked me, "Have you got something against your face, son?" When I was a toddler all my pictures for about an eighteen month period show a large, bruised lump in the middle of my forehead.

Cutting teeth always seems to be a very worrisome time for the parents of guys with hemophilia. (For the record, I detest the word hemophiliac—I know it just means a person who has hemophilia, but I hate the way it sounds) Anyway, in my family, and for many others I've talked to it has always been almost disappointingly uneventful. My younger brother and I seeped a tiny bit around a couple teeth for a couple days and that was about it. At last report my grandson did the same.



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They call the wind . . .

In a past post I mentioned I had two Hallowe'en stories I wanted to tell. Since Hallowe'en is over, and Thanksgiving is quickly approaching, I think I should probably get around to the second story. As for Hallowe'en here, it came and went with nary a 'boo.' We have had our fifth straight year (as opposed to all those sexually deviant ones, I guess) without a Trick or Treater, which is a good thing since I haven't bothered to buy candy for the last three. And before I move on, what is the correct spelling for one who goes Trick or Treating? Does it end with '-or' like actor, creator, and facilitator; or does it end with '-er' like singer, engineer, and teacher? Microsoft's dictionary detests both (which is enough to make me want to use both), and I don't find the term in my American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed) although it does list the past tense, or perhaps the passive voiced, 'trick or treated.'



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