A Very Rewarding Visit With My Surgeon!

In previous posts (post #2) over the last few years, I have discussed a couple of visits (post #1) I have had with two of my doctors, a surgeon (post #3) and a cardiologist.  About six years ago, I discovered that I had a life threatening blockage of one of my carotid arteries and a surgical procedure was recommended which I finally accepted about four years after the original diagnosis.  During that four years, I engaged in a serious regimen of exercise, mild medication treatment, and a stringent change to my diet, all of which resulted in serious reductions in my blood pressure, weight, overall health risks, and even my opthalmic pressures in both eyes.  I had the surgery roughly two years ago and have been fine ever since.  Immediately after my original diagnosis by a local general practitioner who is friend of mine, I began to see these two specialist and have done so ever since.  About three months after the surgery, I was put on a program of one year follow up visits with both doctors and see each of them once a year and once a year only unless some future serious change in my health requires closer treatment.  

 

When I have any serious appointment for any reason, and especially for medical visits, I always carry whatever book I am reading to the visit since waiting room and even examination room waits can be longer than  just a few minutes.  I always read during those waits unless I sometimes become engaged in a positive conversation with another patient.  As I had said in two of the blog posts linked above, during those particular visits both of these doctors noticed what I was reading and engaged me in conversations about the books at those times.  This is not a very common practice among doctors and, right or wrong, I have always considered the fact that they did so to be a compliment to the quality of my reading material.  I never read what I call "light reading" or "drug store fiction", and neither do most doctors.  They are universally too busy.  But I learned long ago that nearly all doctors have been engaged, like me, in a lifetime habit of reading or most of them would never have become doctors in the first place.  This past Friday, September 13, 2024, I had my regular annual visit with my surgeon and went to the visit reading "The Road To Unfreedom" by Timothy Snyder whose works I have written about on more than one occasion on this blog, and about which I will most certainly write more in the future.  Snyder is one of the best historians, authors, and political thinkers in America today.  He is a professor of history at Yale University and holds an endowed chair there where such a guaranteed lifetime position would be one of the most competitive jobs in education in the world.  Snyder writes in about a half dozen languages, reads in about four or five more, is an incredibly diligent researcher, and an author any high level reader has to respect.  This particular book is the third of his works which I have read and I will write about it in the near future when I finish it.  

As my surgeon entered the examination room, he glanced at my book, asked me "what are you reading today?" and turned to my wife Candice to say, "he never lets me down when he recommends me books".  The first ten minutes or so of our conversation were about Timothy Snyder, his work, politics, and books in general.  Then for about two minutes, he said, "your ultrasounds are great. You're perfect.  Your arteries are perfect."  and we returned to our conversation about politics, literature, and travel since I had told him I had bought "Black Earth: The Holocaust As History And Warning" by Snyder at the El Paso Holocaust Museum in 2017.  When we finished our conversation and he was ready to move on to his next patient, he actually walked with me to the front desk to tell the staff when I needed to return and we ended our conversation there.  I won't see him for another year unless some catastrophe strikes and I need his medical expertise on short notice.  But I know in advance that I will carry whatever book I am reading then, hopefully a biography of Kamala Harrris, President of the United States, and we will discuss it and whatever we both have been reading shortly before the visit.  And he will continue to provide me the same excellent, potentially life saving medical expertise he always has.  Then both of us will go out to order whatever book the other has recommended.  That is the kind of doctor I wish all of you could benefit from on a regular basis.  

Since originally completing and posting this blog post, I have become engaged in a long and rewarding messaging exchange with one of my former high school teacher whom I have been in regular contact with over the last several years.  Our exchange this time was prompted by this blog post and she said during that exchange that We need you to stay around and get our country back on track.Those kinds of compliments about my writings on politics are what keep me writing on this blog and in other venues,  both because I know that if we don't save democracy in this election we may well lose it forever, and because I know that I am correct about this situation in America today and my writing just might change a few minds in the right direction. 

"Killers Of The Flower Moon" by David Grann, A Reflective Look Back On A Previous Reading

 

"Killers of the Flower Moon" spent a total of 5 weeks on the NY Times Best Sellers List, was a massive financial success, and has recently been turned into a major Hollywood movie.  It tells the story of a long string of murders of Osage Indians in the 1920's in Oklahoma on and around the Osage Reservation.  David Grann, the author, has had a long career as a major writer for several important American magazines including "The New Republic", "The Atlantic Monthly", and "The New York Times Magazine".  He has also published at least five major books most of which have been best sellers.  He is a prolific writer, a highly productive and successful writer, a truly commercial writer.  But, based on this book, which is a wonderful read, he is not now and not likely to ever become a "great writer".  This book is written in a compelling fashion intended to hold the average reader's attention to the very end.  It is well crafted for the commercial market but one should remember that the average American reader is poorly educated with less than a high school education, reads only about 15 minutes a day, and almost never reads a newspaper. Their ability to discriminate between good and lesser quality writing is almost nonexistent. The book will hold your attention and, in my opinion, it is well worth reading because it tells an important historical story about one of our many minority groups in this country, and actually led me to read further about the Osage tribe in fiction.  In addition to being the product of extensive research both in historical documents and interviews with living people, the book is copiously supported with genuine photographs of many of the principal people in the story, both victims and perpetrators.  

During the 1920's and, perhaps, both before and after that decade numerous members of the Osage tribe were murdered in order for their government appointed guardians to assume control of the vast amounts of money tribe members were collecting from the sale of oil drilling rights on the extensive acreage of the reservation.  During that time period, the Osage were collectively and individually among the richest people in America because the reservation land, which the government had assumed was worthless before designating it as the reservation, proved to be the richest oil field in the country at the time.  It became common practice for the Osage to be designated by courts to be incompetent to manage their own money and they were given guardians who were always white and nearly always corrupt.  In the long run, many of those court appointed guardians became the murderers and financial successors to their Osage wards.  The plot of the book is the story from murder to arrest and conviction of what seems to have been only a small percentage of those felonious guardians. The book also leaves little doubt that many more deaths of Osage tribe members were likely also uninvestigated murders.  This book is worth reading and any negative statements I have made about it are indictments of the overall book publishing industry and the average American just as much as they may be directly about the author and his writing style.  I can give him one unreserved commendation in that he is, or his staff are, tremendous researcher(s).