HinesSight

How a doctor's waiting room suddenly turned pleasant

Almost always, in my experience, a doctor's waiting room has a funereal feel to it. Just about everybody sitting in the chairs is there because they've got some sort of medical issue, which isn't exactly a cause for joy.

And if people were feeling good when they entered the waiting room, generally they soon understand why it's got the word waiting in its name. 

But yesterday was different. Here's why.

My wife had gone with me to an appointment I had at a clinic here in Salem. We arrived a few minutes early for my 1:50 pm appointment.

After checking in, we sat down in a waiting area that, at first glance, worried me. Almost every chair was filled, which indicated that, per usual, my doctor was behind schedule.

There were just two empty chairs adjacent to each other, so we sat down in them. Per usual, the area was completely quiet. No one was talking. I'd brought some magazines, so I started to read one. My wife took out her iPhone and perused what it had to offer.

I'd noticed that a woman to our right was sitting with her head in her hands. After we'd been there for about ten minutes, she let out a sigh. 

My wife, who was sitting next to her, said, "Have you been waiting long?" 

Turns out, she had. "I made the mistake of getting here half an hour early," she said. Then she described how she'd been having kidney pain.

That kicked off a lively discussion about a topic dear to the heart of everybody in a waiting room: waiting. I told a story about a professor I had in graduate school who would only wait for 20 minutes to see a doctor. Then he'd walk out and bill the doctor for his wasted time.

A man sitting next to me said, "But then he'd never get medical care, right?"

I had to agree that my professor probably had embellished his story, and that I wasn't recommending billing a doctor for time spent in a waiting room, since I don't think the professor ever had gotten paid.

"Sure sounded like you were recommending this," the man said with a laugh. "OK, I guess I was," I responded.

And so it went. Once the conversational ice had been broken, the four of us, two strangers plus my wife and me, passed the time pleasantly. 

It made a huge difference to my mood.

I don't like seeing a doctor, and I especially don't like having to wait 45 minutes, like I did yesterday. But my wife's simple act of speaking to the woman, who clearly wasn't enjoying herself prior to that, changed the atmosphere in the waiting room completely.

Instead of being patients with medical problems having to passively wait for our names to be called and then ushered into an examination room, we became people with quite a bit in common.

Like a distaste for waiting. And a love of dogs, along with other subjects I've forgotten.

Just remembered another thing I said -- how another clinic I went to a few times had a whiteboard with the doctor's names on it, which, sort of like an airport waiting area, indicated whether the doctor was on time and, if not, how many minutes behind schedule the doctor was.

Great idea. Shows a lot of respect for the patients. Or rather, people, in the waiting area.

The Unwinding of the Miracle -- a marvelous book about cancer and courage

At age 37, Julie Yip-Williams was diagnosed with terminal metastatic colon cancer, a very rare disease for someone her age. It took me a long time to finish reading the book she wrote about her journey from diagnosis to death, The Unwinding of the Miracle.

I'm not sure why. Maybe because... i have a fear of death; I have my own chronic medical problem, albeit much milder and not fatal;  her blunt honesty was both appealing and appalling, given that I, or anyone, could fall prey to a fatal diagnosis at any time.

At any rate, after I finished the book, it's been sitting on my desk for months, waiting for me to feel the spirit to write about it. Today was the day.

I highly recommend the book. It's a public diary, really, of how Yip-Williams looked upon the ups and downs of her battle against cancer from 2013 to 2018.

In the prologue, she writes:

Hello, welcome.

My name is Julie Yip-Williams. I am grateful and deeply honored that you are here. This story begins at the ending. Which means that if you are here, then I am not. But it's okay.

Here's some excerpts from the book that will give you a feel for how she approached her battle with cancer. She was an amazing woman who lived an amazing life. And was generous enough to leave behind an amazing book.

Being alone reinforced something I had been feeling -- and denying -- for quite some time now. As terrifying as it is, battling cancer is an individual journey, and the individuality of it is what I must come to embrace.

Sure, there are parents, siblings, cousins, friends, lovers, children, co-workers, and many other people who fill our lives, and sometimes their presence and chatter can make us forget that our journey is solely our own to make of as we will. 

But the truth is that we each enter and leave this life alone, that the experience of birth and death and all the living in between is ultimately a solitary one.

********************************

The sense that we ever had control over any of this seems nothing but a mockery now, a cruel illusion. And also, a lesson: we control nothing. 

Well, that's not exactly true. We control how good we are to people. We control how honest we are with ourselves and others. We control the effort we have put into living. We control how we respond to impossible news. And when the time comes, we control the terms of our surrender.

********************************

It is as John Donne wrote in his "no man is an island" meditation: "Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind." 

Yes, I suppose my death will diminish you, but I also understand now that my living and fighting makes you greater than you are. We human are resilient little bugs.

And indeed, anyone who chooses to live and fight and show by example the power of the human spirit that we all share, and its determination to persevere against the brutalities of what life can bring, strengthens us all with a sense of the tremendous potential and fortitude that lie within each of us, a potential that is realized only when truly tested.

So I fight for myself, for my family, for the message that my war against cancer conveys to all of you, to all of humanity, about the incredible strength of which we are all capable. 

And by that same token, I urge all of you who face your own challenges that make you want to fall into the darkness to fight, too, because you, too, are part of humanity, and your fight matters and gives me and others strength when we falter.

********************************

A brave and strong person pulls herself out of the abyss with the help of those who have more strength, hope, and faith than she and goes about the business of living even though she doesn't necessarily want to.

A brave and strong person goes back to doing more research as she tries to figure out what to do next. She does all this knowing that there will be another abyss and many more moments and hours and days of darkness before she succumbs to the inevitable.

********************************

It took me two solid years of living with metastatic cancer to realize an important truth: barring some physical pain or other impediment brought on by cancer or its treatment, it isn't cancer that denies me my dreams; it isn't cancer that would prevent me from going on vacation or buying a new home or doing anything else that I long to do.

Rather, it is a paralyzed mind succumbing to the fear and unpredictability of cancer that would deny me my dreams. In its paralysis, it groups into one category all dreams that are truly gone (such as having another biological child) with dreams that can be reshaped and redefined, or even new dreams that are derivative of a cancer diagnosis.

In its paralysis, the mind cannot form contingency plans; it cannot be brave and bold and forward thinking; it cannot accept what is without running from what will be. 

In one of the many ironies that have come with having an incurable prognosis it is as if by accepting the inevitability of my death from this disease, I have freed myself from that paralysis.

Similarly, I can move forward now with some degree of certainty; I can plan for myself and my family, for as much as I emphasize living in the here and now, living and loving those whom we love by necessity requires some degree of planning, of thinking about what might be, of dreaming for them if not necessarily for ourselves.

I rejoice in my liberation, in my own courage to move forward, in the rebirth of a dream I once thought was forever lost to me.

Live while you live, my friends.

********************************

I am being brutally honest, as part of my commitment to give voice to all those I know who feel as I do, and to depict the dark side of cancer and debunk the overly sweet pink-ribbon facade of positivity and fanciful hope and rah-rah-rah nonsense spewed by cancer patients and others, which I have come to absolutely loathe.

I believe, as I have always believed, that in honesty -- a brutal yet kind and thoughtful honesty -- we ultimately find not vulnerability, shame, and disgrace, but liberation, healing, and wholeness. I hope my family and friends do not take offense at this honesty.

********************************

Usually, as expressive as I am in writing, I have the same compunction to verbally unload my heartaches to those closest to me in life (besides Josh), because I know that for me the process of verbalization is healing. But not now.

I didn't and still don't want to talk to people who have my disease, at least not anyone who is in a better position than I am, and I imagine anyone who is in a worse position doesn't want to talk to me. My self-imposed reclusiveness and isolationism is partly because of the jealousy and the hate.

I cannot imagine anyone saying anything to me that would be remotely helpful or comforting. I don't want to hear about the promise of immunotherapy. I don't want words of sympathy. I don't want sage words of advice about how to live the remainder of my life. I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to answer any questions. I don't want to have to be forced to explain anything to anyone.

Whatever explanations I give and whatever information I divulge must be on my terms and at my initiation, not because someone asked or because I was forced into some social interaction.

Perhaps isolation, at least emotionally if not physically, is what happens as you get closer to death, as you understand more powerfully than ever before that this journey to the end is one that must be made absolutely alone. It feels as if whatever comfort there is will be found within, not without, from private conversations with my innermost self and, when I can muster belief, the gods.

********************************

In those moments of utter and complete emotional pain, I wanted the irrational and the impossible. I wanted to travel back in time to warn the little girl and the teenager I once was of her fate so she could change it. I wanted the unknowable; I wanted time to be circular rather than linear; I wanted the afterlife to hold the promise of second and third and fourth chances, the opportunity to live this life again and again and again until I could get it all right, until Josh and I could live out all our dreams together.

But most of all, I wanted to simply live out this life, also an impossibility, it seems. I never pray for myself, because I think to do so is supremely arrogant and selfish.

Why would God -- if there is indeed a God and if he does in fact intervene in our lives --spare my life and not the life of an innocent child who deserves to live more than I? I would never dare to suggest to an almighty being that I am somehow more special than others. 

But in those desperately painful moments, I prayed to a God I'm not sure even exists that I be spared from this cancer. 

********************************

We live every day not in the shadow of greatness and grandeur but within the confines of our small but seemingly enormous lives. It is a natural way to be; after all, we must live our lives.

And then things happen that jerk us out of our complacency and make us feel small and powerless again. But I have learned that in that powerlessness comes truth, and in truth comes a life lived consciously.

When the time comes, I will happily and with a great sign of relief climb into my bed knowing that i will never need to get up again. I will surround myself with family and friends, as my grandmother did.

I will eagerly greet the end of this miracle, and the beginning of another.

Why my wife and I are hooked on The Morning Show

Since my male ego is so small, a fact I'm tremendously proud about, I readily admit that my wife was right. Laurel kept saying, we should start watching The Morning Show, and I kept responding, but the reviews I've read haven't been very positive.

Well, we've been firing up Apple TV+ almost every night since taking our first plunge into The Morning Show, and now we're both enthralled by this compelling drama. 

Rotten Tomatoes has it right. Critics aren't wild about the series. But viewers love it.

Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon are indeed great in their roles. So are the supporting actors. Plus, the writing is excellent, with compelling scenes that are truly can't-look-away television.

What I like most about The Morning Show is the moral ambiguity. 

Just as in the larger real life drama featuring each of us, there's no clear-cut heroes and villains. At first it seems like there could be, since the co-host of The Morning Show is guilty of sexual misconduct that causes him to be fired, leaving Aniston to deal with a replacement played by Witherspoon.

However, as later episodes demonstrate, every main character, and some of the minor ones, are a blend of positive and negative qualities.

Or perhaps better put, their good and bad qualities shade into each other in such a complex fashion, it's impossible to see these people as anything other than decidedly human beings who are doing their best, even though sometimes they're accused of being the worst.

Watching The Morning Show thus has been therapeutic for me. I've become a bit less critical of my own shortcomings, and hopefully this will transfer over to how I see other people who fail to live up to my expectations. 

Life is tough.

It's tough for the high-paid, good-looking, well-known people who put on The Morning Show, a mix of news and entertainment, and it's tough for almost everybody else also. I love how Aniston and Witherspoon peel away the facade of their TV personas, revealing the realities that lie beneath their on-camera selves.

Jumping into the world of present-day politics, this goes a long way toward explaining why I dislike Donald Trump so much. He rarely, if ever, displays vulnerability, admits he was wrong, or acknowledges uncertainty about what to do. So when Aniston's character does all of those things, it's marvelously refreshing.

Yes, we had to fork out $5 a month to upgrade from Apple TV to Apple TV+. But that money has bought us a lot of viewing pleasure. Here's the official trailer, though it doesn't capture how good The Morning Show really is.

 

Why not buying an Arcimoto FUV still seems like a good decision

It's been almost a year since I wrote my last blog post about the Arcimoto FUV, a three-wheeled electric motorcycle that has some of the attributes of a car (notably, a roof). All of my Arcimoto posts, including this one, can be found here.

In February 2019 I laid out the reasons I wasn't getting a FUV (Fun Utility Vehicle) in "Why I'm not buying one of the first 100 Arcimoto FUVs." 

The reasons were: 

(1) My wife hates the idea of me buying one.
(2) No compelling reason to buy a FUV.
(3) I can buy a FUV later.
(4) The maximum range has dropped.
(5) Lack of long-term reviews.
(6) Questions remain unanswered.

(I explain each of them in the above-linked blog post.)

I'm still interested in Arcimoto, though. Ive been reading most of the posts, and some of the comments, on the Arcimoto FUV Club Facebook page. 

So here's an update on my thinking about the FUV.

What seems to be happening is that the early adopters eager to buy one of the first production Evergreen models are men, mostly, who are mechanically-inclined and willing to put up with considerable trouble and expense. 

For example, there's been considerable discussion about the best way to transport a FUV -- from the Eugene factory where they're built back home (the FUV only has a city range of about 100 miles, so you're not going to get very far at highway speeds), and/or afterward, in part because so far as I can tell, Arcimoto doesn't have a local servicing network, thus necessitating return of an FUV to the factory for upgrades, repairs, and such.

Tesla doesn't have dealers either. But I've been told by Tesla owners that if you need servicing or a repair, Tesla sends out a mobile unit that checks out the problem at your home.

Since Arcimoto is charging $1,000 to deliver a FUV, it makes sense that initial buyers on the West Coast are looking for ways to transport their FUV themselves.

However, I'm skeptical that large numbers of people are going to be willing to buy a vehicle that isn't sold through a local dealer, has a hefty delivery charge, can't be serviced in most locations, and costs about $20,000 with no federal electric vehicle tax credit. This skepticism affected my decision not to buy a FUV, because there's a big risk in being one of the first to purchase a vehicle with no long-term track record.

The January 2020 issue of Consumer Reports had a cautionary story, "Why It Pays to Wait" about the reliability of new or newly-redesigned vehicles. Here's how it starts out.

For car lovers, a dealership showroom can evoke that proverbial "kid in a candy store" feeling, as you ogle the high-sheen brand-new models, dripping with cutting-edge technology. Not to be a buzzkill, but we're here to advise you to resist, and instead consider a model that's several years into its redesign life.

Why? CR proprietary analysis shows that vehicles tend to be most reliable by the final year of any particular model run (typically five to seven years), after many of the bugs have been worked out, and least reliable in the first year of a redesign, when freshly configured and often touted as "all new." 

"It's tempting to want to be the first on your block to have the newest car, but that comes with reliability risks," says Jake Fisher, CR's senior director of auto testing. "Being patient can save you from years of frustration."

Thus those who buy one of the first Arcimoto FUVs should be aware that they're taking on a significant reliability risk. Indeed, on the FUV Club Facebook page I've read several accounts of people who drove off in their new FUV and almost instantly encountered a significant mechanical problem. 

I understand that this is the price some are willing to pay to be, as Consumer Reports said, the first on their block (or indeed, city) to have a FUV. I'm just saying that most people, which definitely includes me, want a reliable vehicle, even it it means not having a brand-new model.

Lastly, while I admire Arcimoto's commitment to making an electric vehicle, and thereby reducing carbon emissions, I haven't found any reason to back away from what I wrote about the FUV in the "No compelling reason to buy a FUV" part of my above-mentioned 2019 post.

I'm always looking for more fun. Though I haven't driven a FUV yet, I'm sure it's fun to zip around in. However, so is my VW GTI. And it is much more practical than a FUV.

I can go grocery shopping in the GTI and lock my car when I go from store to store. I can take our dog along. If it rains, I don't get wet. If it snows, I don't get cold. The FUV lacks the fun-factor of a motorcycle, while also lacking the features that make my GTI both considerably safer and more useable, given my daily transportation needs.

So I continue to see the Arcimoto FUV as a niche vehicle that will appeal to only a small number of people: those who live in cities; are OK with a limited electric range; have another vehicle for practical purposes like grocery shopping, carrying children around, and such; and possess enough mechanical ability to do their own maintenance and repairs.

That said, I'd be overjoyed if, a few years from now, I re-read this post and say to myself, "Wow, I sure was wrong," because I'd like to see the FUV become a big success. It just isn't right for me in its current incarnation.