I'm fine, how are you?

Writing a weekly column comes with its own particular set of challenges, not the least of which is trying to decide what to write about or what stuff is best left private.

Complicating things is that when your column doesn’t run in a newspaper or magazine like it might have 20 years ago but gets delivered directly to subscribers, who can unsubscribe anytime for any reason, I find myself spending perhaps too much time thinking about my topics, and what might or might not offend someone, what readers will or won’t find amusing, and the overall quality of each column. And, as you may have noticed, I don’t frequently write columns that are of a highly personal nature. But every now and then, something happens and it overwhelms everything else in your life to the point where ignoring it wouldn’t make any sense at all.

Last week, for instance, I wasn’t feeling well. Truth be told, I hadn’t been feeling great for many months. It started with some abdominal pain while I was in the Bahamas back in late January that continued intermittently, but without obvious triggers, throughout the summer. And then last week, it escalated to the point where I felt like I better go to the hospital. I had been to my primary care physician’s office a few times but they’re not great at diagnosing broad symptoms. Instead, they tend to start with the obvious things and try to eliminate them. I was there just over a week ago for the second time with the same complaint and they prescribed a medicine for reflux, which I thought was odd because I didn’t have heartburn or symptoms that I would normally associate with reflux but, then again, I’m no doctor. I wouldn’t go to my mechanic and then, after he told me I needed new brakes, I’d skip it and go to the car wash instead. So I got some prescription Prilosec and crossed my fingers.

Since I hadn’t been feeling well, I was behind on getting my column out, and then when I found myself laid up in a hospital bed with time on my hands while I waited for an opening in the operating room, I wrote a brief column to explain why.

Within minutes of the column going out, I got a notification that one of my readers had unsubscribed, which honestly isn’t a big deal because it comes with the territory. But when someone unsubscribes, there’s no reason stated or a follow-up questionnaire sent out to try to understand why, so I’m left to guess. And when you’re in the ER with time on your hands and you’re medicated, well… let the guessing begin.

For starters, the speed with which he unsubscribed was fairly horrifying. I immediately re-read what I had written because I thought in my drug-induced stupor, perhaps I had written a love letter to Epstein or something equally alarming. But I have no idea what he reacted to. Maybe the next time I have a medical emergency and decide to write about it, I really just need to make it a lot funnier. Like, instead of saying, “Oh, sorry I’m late with my column this week but my gallbladder had other plans…” I should also throw in the story about how one time when I was a kid, we had chocolate shakes and hotdogs for dinner and the shakes were so thick that I couldn’t really drink it so I tipped my cup all the way up and slapped the bottom of it and then the entire contents came rushing out, covering my entire face and plugging my nostrils, and while I was slowly choking out at the dinner table, the rest of my family was literally howling with laughter.

If we had smart phones back then, the video of me gasping and yelling “I can’t breathe!” with my face covered by a chocolate shake would’ve racked up millions of views and I would’ve ended up on “Good Morning, America” and half a dozen other crappy TV shows, where the hosts would’ve reassured their audiences that I was okay before running the clip 2 or 3 times while everyone laughed hysterically. If I could’ve somehow also managed to get hit in the nuts while covered with a chocolate shake and gotten it all on video, I wouldn’t have had to work a day in my life.

In fairness to the guy who unsubscribed, he might have originally signed up after reading one of my columns that called out the current president for being the absolute morally bankrupt scumbag that he is, and the reader was expecting more of the same. It wasn’t that he lacked sympathy or empathy, I just let him down with my little woe-is-me act. Maybe he found it triggering and it reminded him of his own medical emergency or that of someone he loved and lost. Or maybe he thought it was just horribly lame, poorly written drivel and there’s already so much truly bad content everywhere that my column is now his new barometer. Sorry I let you down, mystery reader.

But after writing briefly about it last week, it doesn’t feel like it would make a lot of sense to not mention it this week and just go back to writing about the things that normally occupy my mind, like trying to figure out why I can’t find a 30-ounce jar of mayonnaise when it’s right there at the front of the main shelf in the refrigerator and my eyesight is fine. Or why the words tomb, comb and bomb don’t rhyme but no one seems to be the least bit bothered by it.

On the other hand, if I do write more about my experience in the hospital, will others unsubscribe? Or, will it become my most-read column ever and I’ll get a whole bunch of new subscribers? I’m pretty sure predicting the weather is easier and even then, TV forecasters are wrong all the time but they don’t ever seem to lose any viewers. And I can’t remember even one time where the local weatherman said, “Looks like I really screwed the pooch on yesterday’s forecast… sorry about that! Let’s hope I get it right today.”

Basically, I’m fine as far as I know. I’m home, my belly hurts, it’s swollen and red (which is never a great look) and I have 4 holes in me that didn’t exist last week. Hopefully, I’ll be good as new in no time and, if not, I’ll probably tell you about it.

What you should know is, that if you’ve never been wheeled into an operating room to be greeted by a team of 8 or 10 people all basically standing at attention, who quickly go right to work, it’s a remarkable thing to see. Their knowledge, expertise, precision, professionalism and skills are truly awe-inspiring. And while I’d prefer not to have been there, I was profoundly humbled by the experience and am eternally grateful for the work they do.
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