Today Is Mrs. Apron's Day

No, it's not her birthday, or the commemoration of her elementary school graduation.

It's her Brainaversery.

Her sixth one, actually.

It's hard for me to believe that we were only dating for a very short time when she was admitted to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania for neurosurgery. I was petrified, but how can my fear compare to what must have been going on in her brain (externally and internally) as she faced, well, the biggest uncertainty of all.

To mark the occasion, I get her some kind of gift. Some years, it's antiquarian-- like the book of 19th century neurosurgery and neurology lithographs. Some years, it's childish, like the "Operation: Brain Surgery" game (n.b. it's totally lame-- got nothing on the original), and some years it's funny, like last year's custom-made, bright yellow t-shirt that reads "I Had Brain Surgery: What's Your Excuse?"

This year it's, um, different. And it's coming from Russia. That should tell you something.

When I think about my wife's brain surgery, when I allow myself to go back to June 22nd, 2004, well-- sometimes I don't know why I allow myself to go back at all. I suppose it's good for me. People might say that. Maybe others might say it's unhealthy-- and I understand that. But, don't worry, I don't allow myself to go back very often. Sometimes I wonder how often my wife goes back-- but we don't talk about it very much.

Maybe when she's combing her hair in the morning and the teeth of the comb descend briefly into the divot in her skull-- not observable to the public, but very much there-- maybe she goes back then. Maybe she goes back every time I have to tell her there's cereal and milk on the left side of her mouth, because she can no longer feel. Maybe she goes back at the breakfast table. Or maybe it's when we see a musical or an opera and she hears the orchestras in which she will not play again, because of the loss of her embouchure, and the loss of dexterity in her fingers. Maybe she goes back at the theatre.

Maybe.

The times when I go back are usually unrelated to these instances-- it comes over me unexpectedly and, annoyingly, usually when we're in the midst of a blissful cuddle on the couch or reading together or in the car. Sometimes, I say nothing. Others, I'm dumb enough to turn to her and say, "I can't believe I let them do that to you-- I can't believe I let them take you away from me."

I walked down the hallway next to her gurney, holding her hand as the astronaut/alien people in blue hats and gowns and booties walked alongside us, pushing her towards her destiny. I went to the elevators, as far as they would let me. And then I heard the ding, saw the doors whoosh open, and they wheeled her in, the doors shut, and that was that. I don't remember how long I stood there, looking at those closed elevator doors. But I remember feeling an overwhleming desire to throw up, to cry, to scream, to break something, to force the elevator doors open and throw myself down the shaft, to suck my thumb, to pull out all of my hair, to sleep. I don't think I slept, or had slept-- really slept-- for at least four days.

"You have to forgive yourself. You saved my life," my wife says to me when I get like that-- remembering.

I forced her to go to the doctor back in 2004, and I forced her by saying "please." She was having tongue seizures, and she hid them from the world-- but not from me. I knew enough to know that it was very, very serious-- and not in the way that my various rashes and moles are "serious." I directed her to my ancient general practitioner, the man who used to make house calls to see my freshly made-up great-grandmother.

"This sounds serious. I'm referring you to a neurologist," he said to her. The MRI confirmed an arteriovenous malformation-- an abnormal connection of arteries and veins that resembles spaghetti, only not as delicious. The AVM was causing her seizures and was threatening to rupture, which would have been, quite simply, a disaster. My wife had this AVM since birth but, as it grew, her symptoms grew more sinister, making it critical to have it removed.

"You can wait till the summer," the vascular neurosurgeon said to us at our preliminary meeting, "but no longer than that."

I would be lying to you if I said that I remembered every detail of her stay at HUP. I don't. And maybe that's because I don't want to. But I remember a lot. I remember the little x's and o's they drew on her forehead on June 21st, after her first embolization, and how I joked that her head looked like a child's board game. I didn't feel like joking, but it was better than throwing up.

I remember going to the hospital cafeteria with my parents and staring at my salad for half-an-hour before giving up on it.

I remember going in to see her post-surgery. She was swollen up and looked like a Cabbage Patch doll.

I remember sitting on her hospital bed, by her knees, and I remember her pushing herself up with her right hand—her left one was basically useless at that point—and she shoved herself up against me in a pathetic, beautiful, terrible, amazing hug, her right arm flung around my neck like a mink stole.

I remember the next day, going in to see her. I was wearing a bowtie. I sat on her bed in the same place, by her knees, and she lay there in a taciturn haze. She opened her eyes slightly, and she motioned lazily with her right hand, like she wanted to tell me a secret. I bent down slightly, and she motioned again for me to come closer. I leaned in close, and I smelled her matted blood and disinfectant and gore and skin and hair and breath. She motioned again, and I got even closer, and, instead of a secret, she tugged on a corner my tie, untying it with a twisted grin.

I remember her mother playing harp by her bedside.

I remember sleeping in her hospital bed, and I remember Hunan, the young medical resident who came in at 3:00am or whenever it was to do a neuro status check on her and his smile when he saw us cuddled up together.

“That’s the best way to recover,” he said, “with your husband.”

We didn’t tell him that we weren’t married yet—just in case it was against the rules.

Inside the O.R.

There's a great scene in the bail-bondsman/white-collar-criminal buddy movie "Midnight Run," starring Robert DeNiro and Charles Grodin. And, no, I'm not talking about the scene on the freight train where Grodin asks DeNiro if he's ever "had sex with an animal."

It's a scene where Grodin and DeNiro discuss the finer points of "living in denial." DeNiro is eating a piece of disgustingly greasy fried chicken while Grodin stares at him in deadpan disgust. Grodin goes on to elucidate all the various reasons why eating fried chicken isn't good for you.

"I'm aware of that," responds DeNiro.

"Oh, so you're aware of all your behavior and still you continue to do things that aren't good for you."

"That's right."

"Well that's living in denial," Grodin's slightly pedantic character accurately surmises, a smug smile spreading across his thin lips.

This, in very short order, is how I feel about my relationship with "The Today Show."

If you've been one of the happy, frequently returning customers of this blog you know that I struggle dearly with my "Today Show" habit, and that it is inextricably linked to early morning cuddle sessions with my wife before she has to depart for work. On Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, we wolf down breakfast so that we can watch "The Today Show" together on the sofa from 7:06-8:00. On Wednesdays and Fridays, our sessions are abbreviated, and we are able to watch until 7:31. All married couples get into routines. Some couples' routines revolve around night clubbing or seal clubbing, ours revolve around "The Today Show," antiquing, the occasional breakfast sandwich, Skip-Bo, and Victorian operetta.

I suppose I'm living in denial where my relationship with "The Today Show" is concerned. I know very well that it isn't good for me, and yet I continue my behavior in spite of this knowledge. And, really, it isn't good for me. It isn't good for anyone, frankly.

Why could it possibly be good for anyone to have to sit through a meticulous recounting of the tawdry details of the death of some perpetually intoxicated lesbian heiress who wasn't talented or attractive in any way? Why do I, in suburban Pennsylvania need to know about some kidnapped and I'm sure by now very dead toddler in Arkansas or whatever?

And why do I have to see some 81-year-old motherfucker getting his head cracked open by neurosurgeons in an operating room at Mt. Siani Hospital?

At eight-o-fucking-clock in the morning?

I mean, if you think that's good for you in any way, shape, or form, then you're living in denial, too.

It's all part of the series "Inside the O.R." with Dr. Nancy Snyderman, who just happens to be my least favorite post-menopausal woman in the world after-- whodathunkit-- Meredith Vieira! Dr. Snyderman is the Today Show's "Chief Medical Editor" though I'm not quite sure exactly what it is that she "edits" or what exactly she is "Chief" of. If she's the Chief Medical Editor, does that then infer that there are "Assistant-Chief Editors" or "Deputy-Chief Editors" working under her? Her title kind of reminds me of our supervisors at the private ambulance company I used to work for. They made more money than us, and wore white shirts instead of blue shirts, which was fine, but they had little gold ranking bars on their collars-- like in the military. But this wasn't the military, and they had no official rank. So I used to bust my supervisor's balls by calling him "Lieutenant" or, if I was feeling very frisky, "Two Bars."

I wonder if interns at "The Today Show" call Dr. Snyderman "Chief" and then snicker under their breath.

Anyway, Snyderman has a cloying, sychophantic presentation on the air, an obnoxious, self-important, authoratative air. She speaks and doles out opinions that are presented as categoric on everything, from Swine Flu to breast cancer, but, according to her bio, she's an Ear-Nose-and-Throat Specialist. After graduating medical school, she joined the surgery staff at the University of Arkansas and "began her broadcasting career shortly after."

How the hell does that happen?

In any event, this new series, "Inside the O.R." shines the spotlight on the media-hungry Snyderman (she appears on "The Today Show," "NBC Nightly News," "Dateline NBC," MSNBC, msnbc.com and hosts "Dr. Nancy" weekdays at noon, which leaves me to wonder how she's "on staff at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital and how tricky it must be to get an appointment in between all her various television and internet engagements) as she turns the camera on poor sick people having operations all week.

Monday was the cardiac surgery "for a person whose heart isn't working very well."

Tuesday was the C-section "for a baby who is just too big to come out the normal way."

Today? Fucking brain surgery, "and the subject is AWAKE!"

I can't wait till tomorrow. Maybe they'll be amputating some poverty-stricken diabetic's gangrene-ridden foot! Too bad they haven't yet invented Smellovision! Perhaps Friday, for the grand finale, they can surgically close Dr. Nancy Snyderman's mouth.

I'd watch that.

I'm sorry, but surgery is, I don't know, kind of private. I realize that, in this modern society, there is very little that is private anymore-- with celebrities and amateurs alike making weird sex tapes of themselves and people being able to see through your windows using Google Earth, but can't we just let these poor motherfuckers get operated on in private? Yeah, I know, they signed the release forms so they're just as guilty as "The Today Show" people who shoved the papers, and probably the money, in front of them, but what does this say about us as a society?

And, let's face it, the only reason the cameras are in there in the first place is because, secretly, it's the hope of "The Today Show" executives that something will go wrong-- because, let's face it, that's good fucking television. That's why auto races are filmed, for Christ's sake-- every drunk, trailer-trash person who cares enough to watch it is already there, peeing on someone else's R.V. The rest of us just want to see wreckage. The only reason film crews gathered to film the first take-off of the Airbus A380 in 2007 is because they were all hoping it would crash, and that they would have that beautiful bean footage.

Because, basically, we're all perverts who can't wait to see someone flatline in a New York O.R. while we're eating our "Smart Start" just before work.

And, even though we know it's true, that's living in denial.

Oh, Jeez-- More Seize, Please!

Read about neurosurgeons, seizures, and the inevitable path towards brain surgery at

Mrs. Apron's blog!

Happy Friday, M.F.ers!

Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3...

At the goodwife's blog, read all about how she received her diagnosis, got poked and prodded and got totally schooled on what an EEG is.

A new Masonic Apron post tonight? We'll see!

P.S. - Some of you might have thought recently that I hate you and your blogs because I'm not reading or commenting on them like I used to.

Um, not true. My summer work schedule is completely different and I barely have time to keep up my own blogski, let alone chitterchatter on yours. So, um, to those of you who love me anyway, you're hot!

Saying "Please"

Please visit Mrs. Apron's blog for her latest, beautiful entry about the beginnings of our lives together, and the series of events that began her trek towards brain surgery.

You'll be glad you went.

I'll be back later tonight with a blog post of my own. Smoochies!

How We Met

As part of my wife's Brainaversary series, she has decided to take a brief interlude to elucidate how she and I met.

It's a touching story involving little touching. At least, at the beginning.

Enjoy this tale of romance, told here in 3-D.

A Brainaversary

Long before she was Mrs. Apron, the woman who was to become my wife had her head cut open like a baked potato to correct an arteriovenous malformation (AVM).

I ask you to please join her over at her place to celebrate this most auspicious occasion.

Thank you.

Hero Worship

A long time ago, I wrote a post about my heroes. It was on the Pudd'nhead Nathan blog, and I could go trolling through the forever closed (to you) archives and search insanely to dig it up like a rabid terrier, but I'm far too lazy for that.

I'd much rather reinvent the wheel. That's how I roll.

Whoa-- Annoying Pun Alert: sounded.

The recent and regrettable Air France Flight 447 crash has reminded me of two of my heroes, one of whom perished in an incident aboard a plane, one of whom prevented an air disaster. Thinking about these two men fills me with admiration and pride, and it has motivated me to consider some other heroes of mine.

All boys have heroes. When we're little boys, we make our parents buy us posters of them that we put up in our bedrooms so that, when we fall asleep, we can dream about one day becoming a fraction of what they were. When we grow older, we blog about them. And we know that we will never attain even a fraction of their greatness, because we're older, wiser, and fatter than we were as children. Well, you are. I'm still 98% lean body tissue, in spite of a steady diet of cheese and hog ass.

I know that a therapist would take a look at my list of heroes and draw some pretty sobering conclusions about what this particular group of individuals means about me as a person but, you know what? Therapists are gay.

The one I went to in college certainly was: snowflake sweaters and all.

So, without further ado and obfuscation, here are my heroes. I'll start with the two airplane-related ones, since that's kind of how this got started:

Stan Rogers

You might not think that a 6'4" leviathan with the middle name "Allison" who sported a bald head, and a beard minus a mustache could be anyone's hero, but you'd be a very naughty blog-reader to make such an assumption based on appearances. Stan Rogers is better judged by his voice, the likes of which you have probably never heard before, unless you're familiar with the music of his brother, Garnet, or his son, Nathan-- both men sound hauntingly like Stan. Listen to this recording of "The Flowers of Bermuda" and you'll hear a voice that commands respect, and you will willingly give it, again and again.

While alive, Stan enjoyed a respectable following, mostly amongst Canadians, but he was only approaching fame when he died in 1983 at age 33 aboard Air Canada Flight 797. A small fire broke out in the plane's rear lavatory in-flight and the pilots made a delayed decision to make an emergency landing. The NTSB found that their delayed decision contributed to the deaths of 23 passengers, who perished from smoke inhalation and burns during the evacuation process on the runway. It is widely believed that Stan would have survived the incident if he had not returned to the plane to help passengers exit safely. One survivor reported that Stan stood by the emergency exit calling out, "Follow my voice! Follow my voice!" to guide passengers to the exit through the blinding, choking smoke before he was overcome.

It is an honor to be one of the many, many fans who follow Stan's voice, even though years have passed since his untimely demise.

Alastair Atchison

If I had enough money to hire myself a private jet, you can bet your ass that this man would be my pilot on every flight-- puddle-jumper or trans-Atlantic. If I could have him chauffeur my car, I would. I would trust him with my family's life, and mine. I would sky-dive with him attached to me, I would parasail if he were my teacher and, if he put a bullet-proof vest on me told me to shoot myself in the stomach, I would do it. This man was Chesley Sullenberger before Facebook existed to make him the hero he deserves to be. If someone ever asked me to "Become a Fan of Alastair Atchison," even though I think those things totally suck, I'd do it.

On June 10th, 1990, British Airways Flight 5390 took off from England and was en-route to Spain when, at 17,300 feet, the windshield in front of the pilot blew out, sucking pilot Tim Lancaster halfway out the window. The only thing that prevented him from totally eating cloud was the fact that his knees got jammed underneath the instrument panel. To further complicate things, the cockpit door blew off its hinges and slammed against the instrument panel, preventing co-pilot Atchison from, um, doing... anything. Steward Nigel Ogden grabbed Lancaster's lower half and held on. Meanwhile, the top half of Lancaster's body was outside the airplane getting cooled in freezing temperatures while his head and torso were getting slammed repeatedly against the outside of the airplane. As freezing cold air and papers and tea were flying all around the cockpit, Atchison was trying to fly the fucking plane.

He repeatedly called in distress signals to Air Traffic Control, but they couldn't hear him over the wind. And he couldn't hear them. Finally, he somehow heard that he received clearance to land at Southampton Airport. He could barely see and had to be talked down the whole way by Air Traffic Control, but he did it. And, miraculously, pilot Tim Lancaster lived, suffering only frostbite, bruising, shock, and some relatively minor fractures. Six months later, was flying again.

Sullenberger: you ain't the first sky-angel, baby.

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

To call this guy a hero is like calling sitting on a machete "uncomfortable." Of course he's a fucking hero. Jesus. Professor at Bowdoin College. Fluent in 9 languages (including Syriac-- are you fluent in Syriac?) Volunteered to serve in the Civil War-- was given the colonelcy of the 20th Maine, but turned it down, preferring to "learn the business of war" before being a full colonel-- accepting the Lt. Colonel's position instead. Was wounded in battle 6 times. Had 6 horses shot out from under him. Saved the day at Gettysburg with valiant and uncommon tenacity, bravery and quick thinking. Commanded the ceremony at Appomattox Courthouse with grace, dignity and respect for the losing side, prompting General John B. Gordon of the Confederacy to remember Chamberlain as "one of the knightliest soldiers of the Federal Army." Went on to become President of Bowdoin College and Governor of Maine for four terms. AND he maintained his excellent looks well into old age.

Was this guy a fucking robot or what? Nope. Just a hero. You can share him with me.

Sam Clemens

The world knows him better as Mark Twain, but I more admire Sam Clemens. I've never read Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer, so I think I'd be kind of blowing smoke up your skirt if I said that I admired Mark Twain. Mark Twain was the guy in the white suit. I admire the guy who wore black suits. I don't so much admire the witty, charming, effervescent Mark Twain, who joked about everything from drunkenness to travelling in Egypt-- I admire Sam Clemens, the untameable social critic who railed against anti-Semitism, racism, inequality and slavery. I admire the man who stumbled upon a young African American male who wanted to go to Harvard Law School but couldn't afford it, and paid his way through law school. I admire the man who said,

"In many countries, we have chained the savage and starved him to death. In more than one country, we have hunted the savage and his little children and their mother with dogs and guns, through the woods for an afternoon's sport. In many countries we have taken the savage's land from him and made him our slave and lashed him every day and broken his pride and made death his only friend and worked him till he'd drop in his tracks.

There are many humorous things in the world, among them is the white man's notion that he is somehow less savage than the other savages."

And we bloggers like to think we "tell it like it is."

Winston J. Rawlins

Next time you get that mysterious 20something itch to bash "the police," I want you to think about the name Winston J. Rawlins.

On March 29th, 1982, Houston, Texas Police Officer Winston J. Rawlins pulled over a car for a minor traffic infraction. A gasoline truck was barreling down the road and its driver hit the brakes when it saw traffic backing up as a result of the traffic stop. As Officer Rawlins was talking to the motorist he had pulled over on the side of the road, he saw that the gasoline truck was heading straight toward them. Thinking only of the safety of others, he pushed the motorist out of the path of the truck, which ended up slamming into a gravel truck. Both trucks exploded in a hellacious fireball, and Officer Rawlins was killed.

He was 23.

23 is the age I was when I entered the police academy, the academy I left after two days. Rawlins had two years of policing under his belt by the time he died. When I think about what I was doing at his age, all I can do is shake my head. A lot of masturbating and head-up-my-ass-ness. About the only thing I did of value at age 23 was fall in love. Which brings me quite neatly to my last hero, the only female on this list.

My wife

My wife and I fell in love online. I was living in the Philadelphia area. She was living in Pittsburgh. After only knowing me for a few months, and after only a handful of cross-Commonwealth "weekend dates," she made the bold decision to move 311 miles away from Pittsburgh to give our burgeoning relationship its best possible shot. She could have insisted that we both move 150 miles, to make things fair, but then we'd be living in Altoona or some fucking hick-ass place, and I don't think either of us would have been thrilled with that. I admire and will be forever grateful for the heroism involved in making that decision to risk so much, for, um, a life with me.

Not long after moving here, through a series of unfortunate events that will have to wait for another blog entry, my wife was faced with what should be everyone's worst nightmare-- if people even think to have this be a nightmare: brain surgery. On June 22, 2004, neurosurgeons at the University of Pennsylvania hospital cut open Mrs. Apron's head like a baked potato and, for over nine hours, went poking and cutting and snipping away at her precious brain. When she woke up, her left arm looked like the claw machine you see in the waiting area of Friendly's restaurants and video arcades, and her mouth was downturned on one side. Time, PT, OT and swelling reduction has eased all those ailments, but I always know when my wife is about to cry, because the left side of her lip curls downward, and it cuts me like a scalpel, every time.

When she and I first discussed the options that her neurosurgeon presented us with, which were few, there was crying and holding and the inevitable asking of the unanswerable "why?" but that's to be expected. The dignity, humor, rationality and steadiness my wife exhibited in her terrifying odyssey towards the scariest of unknowns is truly just about all the heroism I can stand.

I told you it was kind of an unusual collection of peeps, but I think about them each and every day, and I'm prouder than proud to call them my heroes. I doubt anyone will ever call me their hero, but I have people who call me "son," "brother," "friend," and "husband." One day, a psychologically-troubled, near-sighted, allergy-besmirched young boy or girl will call me "Daddy." And I guess that will just have to do. I guess that will just have to do pretty nicely.