Recently, I attended a class about how we want to change our lives after cancer. For some of us, cancer is way in the past. For others of us, like me, it was more recent, and not definitively in the past. In this blog entry, and in future ones, if the entry is the result of a writing assignment, I'll put in what the assignment was.
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Discuss ourselves from an occupational viewpoint describing an “Ah” moment, an “Aha” moment, and a “Ha ha” moment. Add a metaphor for value—what’s it worth to me?
Hello, I’m Henry, an old, retired, fat guy.
1. Ah I was three. My mother told me I was going to be a doctor when I grew up. She might have told me that previously. She certainly told me that plenty of times subsequently. But my actual memories go back no farther than the age of three.
2. Aha I looked in a microscope in seventh grade science class at a slide that had some grass from the schoolyard in a mild salt solution, and I saw a paramecium swim by. My textbook had said that I’d see that, but somehow, I never really believed that what they said in the textbooks was actually so until that day. I thought, “Doctors get to look in microscopes.”
3. Ha ha I took an interest test at B’nai B’rith when I was in high school to see what I’d like to be when I grew up. My father sent me there. My mother already knew what I'd like to be when I grew up.
I flunked the test. You might ask, how can you flunk an interest test? Well, I'll tell you. The test result said that I’d like to be a rabbi. Now you know the old joke, “What kind of job is that for a nice Jewish boy?” In my case, I decided that I’d have to believe in G-d to be a rabbi. And while it’s true that I’d had some textbooks in Hebrew school that said there was such a thing as G-d, I hadn’t seen him (her?) swimming through a saline slide under a microscope.
They gave all of us that same interest test during my first registration week at college. I was much more careful about how I answered the questions, and I passed. The test ended up saying that I’d like to be a doctor.
4. Ah I had another Ah moment when I came down with cancer. Everyone who comes down with cancer probably has this one. I had to assess my previous priorities. I ended up essentially retiring the day after I got my cancer diagnosis. After going through all the mishegoss (Yiddish for crazy stuff) you have to go through when you get diagnosed with cancer, surgery, chemo, experimental treatments, I got too short of breath to do ER shifts anyway.
I decided I was going to travel with my wife and hang out with my kids and grandchildren a lot. Then, my wife, Carolyn, died. I never expected to outlive her. It’s been 3 ½ years since I got my cancer diagnosis, and I can't travel with my wife anymore.
I suppose I should be trying to do more than just working on becoming an old retired skinny guy. I’m thinking about it. Some people are smart enough to write songs that lots of people want to listen to, or novels that lots of people want to read. I'm not. But there's another kind of writer.
All some writers do is have some experiences and then sit down at their computer and write about themselves. I have enough energy, and enough IQ points, at least when I'm well rested, for that.
Metaphor for value. It turns out it's not money. It's nachas. No, that's not a kind of corn chip, it's a Yiddish word for good stuff that happens in your family.
If I can figure out how to put some pictures in here, maybe I'll put some in. I know it's possible because I have some other blogs around here someplace that have pictures in them. So you'd think I'd just automatically know how to put pictures in this one. Well, I don't, but I'll figure it out. Henry
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