Dear everyone,
We had a party/cookout last weekend. We planned this about a month ahead of time,
and I invited my pathology colleagues, of which about ½ showed up, including:
Roland and Julie Marshall, Jami and Carolyn Walloch, Andrea Blumstein and her
11 year old daughter, Ivy, and Joe and Kim Pyle. No shows included Cathy Li (she had to go to
the hospital for a frozen), V. Patel, John Hamilton, and Rasheed Hammadeh (in
North Carolina to do a Pathology inspection on a large private practice out
there). Barbara Krueger and her friend
Mike were also present.
The weekend before, while Cindy was in Albany, I washed all
of the plastic patio furniture (tables and chairs - - they are stained a
permanent light gray, but they are in great condition considering they are over
20 years old), as well as the teak table, which appeared to be growing moss or
lichen or some such. Nature is
tenacious!
We had a pretty good menu which included roquemole, Italian breaded
steak, grilled eggplant (Japanese eggplant, sliced lengthwise in ½ inch strips,
brushed with olive oil, and then lightly salted /spiced – grill immediately),
arugula/nectarine/praline salad, Israeli couscous with olive and green pepper
salad, and for dessert, baked coconut custard and fruit salad. Ivy was the star of the show, regaling us all
with stories from Camp Lake of the Woods.
We also drank a fair amount of Two Brothers Beer. We got very lucky with the weather, as
forecasts had predicted rain. It was
fairly hot and humid, but the rain held off, and as the evening descended the temperature
did too. Luckily this shindig wasn’t
planned for Sunday, when we had a torrential downpour just around 6 PM.
Work as about the same as usual. Somehow I got five days of frozen section /on
call out of eight (Monday, Thursday, Friday – Weekend, Monday and Wednesday),
but we will have a new pathologist starting the coming week, Amy Kwak, who will
be overlapping Dr. Patel prior to his retirement at the end of the December, so
I expect the service schedule to be a little looser. Also, I am taking about 8 days off to go on
our Greece trip to meet up with Lucas. I
did have a couple of gratifying cases lately, one was a lung biopsy of a
gentleman with granuloma (usually a sign of past or present infection like TB
or fungus), but I saw a lot of lymphocytes, and I was smart enough to triage
the case to Cathy Li, our hematopathologist, who was able to diagnosis a
lymphoma. The second was a muscle biopsy
I struggled with, and eventually came up with a fairly esoteric diagnosis. I called the patient’s neurologist, who
informed me I had seen a muscle biopsy from this man in 2014. I looked up the old case, and found that I had
given the patient the exact same diagnosis three years prior. I may not be accurate, but at least I am
precise.
I have read a few interesting books lately: Tastes
Like Chicken, non-fiction about the growth of the US chicken industry, and
how it has eclipsed other protein producers (beef, pork) due to its efficiency
and ease at of industrialization. Also
interesting was the story of the kosher Jewish mafia in New York in the 19-teens
and twenties, and the fight for monopoly in New York. Also good was the Night
Ocean, a meta-fictional book about H.P Lovecraft, the ‘golden age’ (1940-50s)
of Science Fiction, and the nature of identity.
A last good book was recommended by Aaron Brown, the Traitor
Baru Cormorant, which reminded me a bit of K J Parker (i.e. a lot of the
book is about taxes, loans and economics, not so much swords, horses and etc.).
Next weekend is an aikido instructor seminar, and the following
two weekends we will be in Greece, so no letters for a while, although I guess
you can expect a long one afterwards with lots of pictures.
I don’t feel the need to mention politics other than to
shake my head over the collapse of the Republican attempt to repeal the ACA (7
years of complaining, but no constructive changes), and the usual shenanigans
of Mr. T: twittering Jeff Sessions, firing Reince Priebus, transgender in the
military, and horrible Boy scout speech - - all-in-all a quiet week for the ol’
Orange-in-chief.
Love, H.
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