10 Things I've learned this week

#10.  In a fight between your finger and a table saw, the saw always wins.

#9. Never question an emergency room doctor.  Because even though you can see that there's a small section of the wound that didn't get sutured, and you can tell this because the interior flesh of your finger is bulging out, the fact is "He went to school for this. He knows what he's doing."

#8.  Never go back to the emergency room a couple days later and in the section on the form that asks "Why are you here?" reply "Previous injury not sutured completely." It makes you seem ungrateful.

#7. When you're in the hallway getting the blood pressure check and your original doctor nonchalantly walks by and asks "How is it?", it's a rhetorical question. You're not really supposed to answer. He'll look at it for half a second and pronounce that "It looks great!  It looks much better than I expected." Then he'll rush off.

#6. Once you're in a room, a woman will enter and ask you to sign papers agreeing that the hospital can bill your insurance company for your treatment today. This is not the time to argue that you shouldn't have to pay again. If you do, you will not get treated.

#5. As the woman leaves and says "Someone will be in with your follow-up instructions," don't say something like "Um, I haven't seen the doctor yet." She will look at you like you're high. What do you think that was in the hallway? A social visit? To cover her disdain, she will reply "The P.A. will be seeing you," because at this point, you are no longer worthy of the doctor and are wasting everyone's time.

#4.  When the Physician's Assistant arrives with additional prescriptions and follow up instructions, never argue with her to actually make her look at your injury. After all, the doctor saved your finger. What are you complaining about? When she does look at it, don't insist that the thing she's calling "new growth" is actually a piece of gauze that's stuck to the bulging flesh.  Don't tell her that if she put a little fluid on it, it will come off.  She'll look at you and scoff "What kind of fluid?" And when you reply uncertainly "Uh, saline? Or hydrogen peroxide?" she'll roll her eyes and walk out because she has to go to another room to get those things.

#3. When the P.A. returns, she will bring the doctor, and now he will be irritated. He will tell you your finger looks great. He will tell you not to worry about the bulge. He will tell you that if it's not sutured in the first 24 hours, it can't be done so it's too late to do anything about it. This is not the time to mention that you'd said something about it the first time you were there. This will only make your doctor angry.

#2. When a cross doctor asks you "Do you want me to cut it off?" he's pretty sure you'll say "no."  After all, it's still flesh, he's got no anesthetic, he doesn't like you anymore and he's moving toward your finger with some surgical scissors saying "All I can do is cut it off. You want me to cut it off?" This is done specifically to make your realize that you need to get the hell out of there.

And the #1 thing I've learned this week:

#1. Finger bulges are hot. They are the new craze.  All the cool kids have them. Stay tuned as I'll soon be having a contest to name mine.

We all have to be Steve now

I'm rarely brought to tears at the death of a person I've never met. And yet this week, I've found myself tearful at several different moments over the death of Steve Jobs. 

So much has already been written about him and I don't plan to pile on with another litany of all the great things he did. From what I understand, he was very difficult to live with at times. But yesterday morning, I thought that if I'd been able to, I'd have given a year of my life to extend his for another month. And I would have done this for no other reason than, on my deathbed, I'd have been certain that I'd done at least one thing that had a remote possibility of changing the world.

Now you can argue that everything we do changes the world in some way by changing the lives of those around us. But compared to Steve Jobs, we ordinary folk operate on a minute scale. And I realize that the best thing I ever accomplish will never have the kind of effect that even his smallest achievement did. But dammit, I have to try. 

So today, let's all be geniuses. Let's be difficult and crazy and fly in the face of conventional wisdom and try to do something they say can't be done. And tomorrow, let's get up and do it again. To do anything less would be an insult to his memory.

Because the sad fact is, as of now, it's all up to us.