Unctuous Self-righteousness

[Conversation at the editor's office]

"Frank glad you could make it in. This is showing some real progress."
"Thanks Gene, I think that suggestion to 'make it more punchy' was what I needed for, . .."
"I do have one concern with maintaining believability here Frank. It's about this charity event you have your heroine hosting."
"You don't think people will believe a celebrity surrounded by a world of undereducated film stars, group think and empty emotions would latch on to a story of a woman widowed by a cruel war?"
"No, there's no problem with that. It's a nice touch. The problem is that I don't think we're writing an absurdist dramedy here. You can't have her baring reporters from a fund raiser for 'Reporters without Borders.' Our target audience wants to suspend disbelief for a few hours, .. ."

Modern Medicine

My 12 year old came down with some stomach flu symptoms last Sunday night. She was still sick Monday with more or less the same symptoms. I tried to get her to get up and take a shower but she said she couldn't. I have thought that my children are gifted dramatists so it really didn't concern me at that point. When she did take a shower Tuesday and started calling out "Daddy" is when the correct parental concern finally kicked in, unfortunately. She had pain in her lower abdomen which was asymmetric and suddenly the light went on. But we had delayed so long that her upper intestine was in spasms and her appendix had ruptured. For some reason the hospital didn't operate until Wednesday night. She will be there for about a week, they expect. She is on a morphine and an antibiotic drip. I can't help thinking that in an age not long ago we would have had once less child after a lingering, painful, feverish end.

And that is a trap of anxiety. What could have happened in other circumstances is one way to learn lessons from experience but it is not very helpful to make a stick out of it and beat yourself up. There are certainly lessons to be learned from the incident but the fact is in another day and time that her fate would likely have been sealed at the first sign of sickness.

Over all I am grateful for modern medicine and decent health insurance.