This Doodle’s A Lover, Not A Fighter

I’m a labradoodle and folks call me Cooper.

I’m eight months old give or take a few, Sir.

I like my friends, how I like to kick it

At doggie day care, that’s my Monday ticket.

With Emma down the block I can strut my stuff

She’s a hot little doodle, I never get enough.

Through the yard we run, playing games of tag

Rolling through the grass as we zig and we zag.

All through the hood they all know my name

With a proud little bark, my presence I proclaim.

Give me a treat I’ll remember you’re a friend

And to you my good graces I’ll forever extend.

But my folks took me somewhere a few days ago.

“He’s getting so bored, with the old status quo.”

It was called a dog park and it was really creepy,

Supposed to be fun but I view it bloody bleakly.

Went through all these gates like being sent to prison

A place to enjoy that park surely isn’t.

With those cussing curs and a big growling hound,

I felt that the whole concept was certainly unsound.

I ran and I hid from my persecutors

I thought to my self “don’t want to do this.”

I got under a bench where the mutts couldn’t see me

Thought of me and Emma and something steamy.

My folks caught a glimpse of my predicament

They quickly saw that I was just sick of it.

They hustled me out to our waiting cool auto

And she said to him “Yeah, I thought so.” “

We never should have come here, it just doesn’t work,

Our Cooper is best when he sticks to his turf.

So if ever again I hear you suggest it,

The answer is no, don’t try to contest it!”

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The Michael Collins Almost Made It Award

Michael Collins died this week. Michael Collins, the man who came SO close. Michael Collins, Apollo 11’s Third Man. The man circling the moon in his cute little orbiter while Neil (One Giant Step) Armstrong and Edwin (You Can Call Me Buzz) Aldrin got to play on the moon!

So close and yet so far–how many times in your life have you been there? The job you were the “best candidate” for, but somehow didn’t get (remember me, Resurrection Medical Center?) The game show you were chosen to be on, but from whom you never got the final call (I am talking to YOU, Family Feud.) The Mega-Millions Super-Duper Jackpot you were only ONE NUMBER AWAY FROM (okay-that person never was and never will be me.)

In the late astronauts honor it’s time for the Michael Collins Almost Made It Award. And here are the nominees.

His Royal Highness Prince Charles Philip Arthur George, Prince of Wales: inching ever closer to the throne, but will he ever get there?
Actor Phil Bruns. Who is he? Mr. Bruns played Morty Seinfeld (Jerry’s Dad) on exactly one episode of Seinfeld, only to be replaced in future episodes by Barney Martin. Poor Phil, he never made it to Del Boca Vista.
Stu Sutcliffe and Pete Best. The almost Beatles. ‘Nuff said.
A long line of “Miss America” runner-ups. The only exception, Suzette Charles, who received the 1984 crown when Vanessa Williams was stripped of her title.
Zeppo Marx. Would you recognize him if he passed you on the street?
Vicente Yanez Pinzor, captain of the sailing ship Nina that accompanied Christopher Columbus way back in 1492. No cities named after him! No statues to be torn down, either.
Rosalind Franklin–her work paved the way for discovering the structure of DNA–but it is James Watson and Francis Crick who get credit for the “double helix.”
Richard Burton was nominated for an acting Oscar 7 times without a win. He’s a near-misser even for the record on that –Peter O’Toole, and now Glenn Close beat him out with 8 losses each.
How about Al Gore. Eight years as VEEP, one heartbeat or one impeachment conviction away from the presidency, and then to ultimately win the popular vote for the highest office but be bounced by the Supreme Court. You can’t get much closer to being the most powerful man in the world than that.
Garth Brooks. Although I guess it’s not too bad to be the second best-selling musical act of all time with 156 MILLION units sold. That’s a mere 27 million units behind the Beatles (but about 155.999 million units more than Stu Sutcliffe and Pete Best.)

So there you have it, also-rans and almost haves. Who would you choose for the Michael Collins Memorial Award?

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Jeopardy! Needs Me. You just have to let them know.

C’mon people I need your help. I don’t think I can do this without you.

LeVar Burton has been added to the list of celebrities who have been, or will be, guest hosts of Jeopardy! How did he get there? A petition with over 240,000 signatures convinced the powers-that-be to give him a shout-out.

I first mentioned my desire to host Jeopardy in 2018, when rumors of Alex Trebek’s potential retirement first surfaced. Like all of you, I was saddened when we learned that instead of retirement, it would be fatal pancreatic cancer that would end Alex’s reign. But just as Walter Cronkite transitioned to Dan Rather, Johnny Carson to Jay Leno, and Willard Scott to Al Roker, our TV idols eventually get replaced. And I want in.

So let’s see. Do I stack up against the “celebrities” that have been filling in for the last few months?

Like Ken Jennings (first guest host), I am a former Jeopardy! Contestant. No, I didn’t win a gazillion episodes and two gazillion dollars, but just being there is what matters, right?
Like Mehmet Oz (March) and Sanjay Gupta (June) I am a doctor. I can pronounce all the Latin medical terms such as medulla oblongata that may crop up. And I know what they mean.
Like Mayim Bialik (host May 31-June 11) I am Jewish. Not really that important, but it does allow me to use the space laser if any contestant should get out of hand.
As a kid hanging out at Wrigley Field, I got an autograph from Jack Buck, the father of Joe Buck, who will be hosting in August. That’s just one degree of separation, so close enough for me.
With my white hair, I have the same distinguished, intelligentsia look as Anderson Cooper (current guest host.) Got to keep the show on the high-brow side.

I know there are a whole bunch of other guest hosts that I can’t quite compare to: Robin Roberts, Aaron Rodgers, Savanna Guthrie. But isn’t it time to give the little guy a break?

So someone out there–start a petition, write me a slogan, push my cause. I want to be a guest host too!

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This Morning’s Drive-Hell Ride at 85

My hands are gripping the steering wheel as if it is the only thing keeping my anchored to the ground. My knuckles are white. I can feel my eye balls bulge; my heart is palpitating in fear. My morning experiment has turned into a joy ride from hell.

I have described my drive down the tollway to the lab many times before, cruising in the left lane, at a speed I feel comfortable with, in control of my current ride. I will pass some cars, others will pass me–but it all feels balanced and I am relaxed and feel safe.

But construction season is in full bloom, and lane re-configurations are sprouting like dandelions. Suddenly this morning my left lane has split from the three right lanes and has become a single lane of speeding adrenaline.

The morning mist limits visibility and leaves the tarmac slick. The left shoulder widens and then narrows, pincering me between concrete barricades to my right and my left. There is no room for the slightest mistake, the slightest bit of over or understeering.

I feel like Tiger Woods barreling towards a crack-up. I want to slow down–hell, I want to stop. But a glance in my rear-view mirror confirms that the headlights of the car behind me are bearing down on my tail. I see the driver’s face, relentless. If I reduce speed, can she? Would she?

As if this is not enough of a horror show, my audiobook is rattling my nerves further as it describes a teen boy contemplating a swan dive into a quarry pond from a cliff 180 feet high. Will he risk his neck to impress the bikini-clad classmate below? Or will he wind up like a previous diver, with a smashed jaw and every tooth broken? Just what I need to hear.

I am reminded of my freezing in panic when I climbed the Mayan pyramids at Chichen Itza. This time if I freeze, there won’t be a friendly traveling companion to get me moving again. I am on my own. And I am scared.

At last, I see the “Merge Ahead” sign. I meld into the other traffic, moving to the right lane where I can slow down, loosen my grip in the wheel, and let my blood pressure drop into a normal range.

Three minutes later I am at the lab, in my office, putting on my mask. The day has begun.

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Assault Weapons Jar My Ride

“Lady Bird wanted the highways clear of billboards and junkyards, and filled with green landscaping and wildflowers.”

As I accelerate through my twice-daily commute along Interstate 294, I get a sense that Mrs. LBJ wasn’t particularly successful in her drive to beautify America. The billboards she fought against are the mile markers of my journey. Most times the giant messages pass into my subconsciousness where I keep my mental records.

I know where to expect a Blue Cross/Blue Shield “through it all.” I have counted as Brian Uhrlacher’s hair restoration billboard postings outnumber the total tackles in his Bear’s career. A big red arrow points the way to mortgage refinancing savings, while Wintrust is trying really hard to out-hometown the other guys. And the ~~strip~~ gentlemen’s clubs advertise what they have always advertised.

As a sign of the times I know who is pushing rapid COVID-19 testing, and who wants me to learn all about marijuana, both medicinal and recreational. Preferably not indulged in while zooming past construction zones and road shoulder stalls.

This month I have noticed a new billboard, a new advertisement asking for an investment of my time and thought as I thunder past. It must be about 650 sq. ft. in size, rising just to the right of the southbound lanes. And it features a silhouette image of a firearm. I am not an expert, but whizzing past, it sure looks like an assault rifle.

I assume the billboard is advertising a gun store, or a shooting range, or some other gun-related enterprise. I don’t care what it is for. It disturbs me and I despise it. I don’t get upset seeing reminders of the health plan I no longer belong to, the hair I can’t grow, or the pot and women that I don’t indulge in–but seeing weapons of mass destruction on my very favorite tollway? It brings tears to my eyes.

In the indeterminate future I will retire. I will not drive past this billboard. Better yet, I can wish the billboard, and the death it portrays, will go away. If only my wishes would come true.

Lady Bird Johnson could have told you rifles don’t beautify highways. She could also have told you how one changed her life.

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It Takes More Than My Microscope For Me To Give You A Diagnosis Of Prostate Cancer

Microscopic appearance of prostate cancer (left) with special stain (right.)

When I talk to folks, or blog to you all about making diagnosis, what I usually chat about is the time spent looking down the twin ocular barrels of my Olympus BX43 binocular microscope. After all, that is when my eyes and brain are most engaged in looking at the prostate tissue and forming a diagnostic impression. But in fact, that microscope time is probably less than half the time I spend on the hundreds of pieces of prostate tissue I see every day.

In the morning, while our crack anatomic pathology team is busy grossing, processing, embedding, cutting, staining, and cover-slipping prostate tissue to prepare beautiful slides for me, I am getting my paperwork rolling. I download a spreadsheet of all my cases for the day, using it to create individualized worksheets for each case. That lets me know the age of each patient, the name of the urologist doing the biopsy, and how many parts I can expect with each case. Basic stuff.

I then take my worksheets and progress to our online medical record (I love those online records!) Here I can get information on the patient’s past prostate history. Has he been biopsied before? What did we find? I can look at the most recent PSA blood test, and also look at a timeline of all the past PSAs to see how the values have changed over time. In addition, many patients have a “targeted biopsy,” aimed at “regions of interest” in an MRI of the prostate. I can read the radiologist’s report and learn just how suspicious those ROIs are.

All this information is running through my head when I look at the slides. Although it is a pathology maxim that “the truth is in the glass” the other data can guide me as I am making decisions on what I see. Oh, and while I am looking at that glass I am recording my findings on my worksheet, leafing through textbooks or websites for help on difficult cases, ordering the special stains I need, and filling out billing sheets. Sometimes it feels like my head is bouncing back and forth like a ping-pong ball, with a glance through the ‘scope as I am turning left and right.

Once I have handled the last slide of the afternoon I drop the worksheets with our administrative team. It is their job to transfer all my codes into our Lab Information System to create a nicely formatted report.

Next morning, I review the reports and add any information I have garnered from the special stains I ordered the day before. It is almost time to electronically sign the reports, and whisk them via the magic of interfaces to the performing urologist. But before that can happen, especially in malignant cases, there is one essential review step.

Nobody wants to call a benign biopsy malignant. So before a cancer case is signed out, we have it reviewed by at least one additional member of our pathology staff. In the oldest days that would be done at a multi-headed microscope. In the more recent old days (i.e. pre-Covid) we would review cases on a video screen in my office. Since the pandemic, we have avoided congregating and now place our slides on a tray and pass them to another pathologist for review in their own offices. A log sheet ensures all cases are seen and diagnoses are concurred with. Only then are the cases signed and distributed.

Am I done at that point? Almost! Since UroPartners has a very vibrant Cancer Registry, my final step is to mark the parameters of each cancer (grade, number of positive cores, length of involvement, other findings) on a sheet for our Tumor Registrar. This data allows our group to have an ongoing understanding of the patients that pass through our doors and to follow large cohorts of patient data. This has fueled numerous scientific papers and advancements in prostate cancer treatment.

My microscope may be my best friend, but it has lots of help in making sure our patients have the correct diagnosis in a timely manner. And that is always my goal.

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The above is the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of UroPartners LLC.

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Seinfeld: The Vaccine

Setting: Jerry’s Apartment
Jerry: Did you get it?
George: I got it.
Jerry: Where did you get it?
George: I got it in my arm, where do you think I got it!
Jerry: No–I mean where did you go to get it?
George: I went to the Clinic.
Jerry: Oh, the Clinic.
George: What’s wrong with going to the Clinic.
Jerry: Oh nothing, you know it’s just…
George: Just what?
Jerry: They treat things there.
George: I didn’t go to get TREATED. I went for the vaccine!
Jerry: Who gave you the shot? A nurse?
George: I don’t know, she was wearing a white coat. I think she was a nurse. I don’t know. I didn’t ask. You know how I feel about authority figures. Especially in white coats.
Jerry: Yeah, you melt and you fantasize.
George: No fantasies! No fantasies! I was thinking about my health.
Jerry: So did she give you the “pinch?”
George: The “pinch?”
Jerry: Yeah. They lift up the skin on your arm jab the needle in there.
George: Now that you mention it, yes I got the “pinch.”
Jerry: Hmmm
George: What’s hmmm?
Jerry: I read that the “pinch” makes it less effective.
George: Oh great, so I went to the Clinic, waited two hours, and now I’m still gonna get the virus? You kill me Jerry, you just kill me.
Jerry: It won’t be me, George.
Buzzer rings
Elaine’s voice comes over the intercom: Let me up, Jerry.
Jerry pushes the door buzzer button and Elaine bursts into the room and does a happy dance.
Jerry: Look at that, I think she’s infected.
Elaine: I got it, I got it.
George: Did they give you the “pinch?”
Elaine: Hell no–they give you that you die anyway.
George sinks his head into his hands, mumbles.
Elaine: They gave it to me in my car, and then I had to sit in my car for another 30 minutes to show I wouldn’t pass out.
Jerry: Wasted time?
Elaine: No–the tech who gave me the shot was sort of sexy so I…
Jerry: Oh you…
Elaine: It was a good half-hour.
Knock on the door.
Newman’s voice from outside the door: Hello, Jerry.
Jerry swings the door open: Hello, Newman.
Newman to Elaine: I saw you there. And I saw that smile on your face. I know what you were doing.
Elaine: And what else did you see.
Newman: Nothing.
Elaine: And that’s all you are going to see…ever.
Kramer explodes into the room, carrying a metallic contraption.
Kramer: Have you seen the lines? It’s taking them waaay too long. But I’m going to do something about it.
Jerry: And what is that, dare I ask?
Kramer: I made this auto-shooter. It takes my shooter half the time that it takes a nurse to give the vaccine.
George: Is it battery operated?
Kramer: No, you have to plug it in. Let me show you.
Kramer pulls out a power cord, plugs into a wall outlet, sparks crackle, and the room goes dark.
Camera pans out to the whole building, and then the whole city, all going dark.
George: Why did she have to give me the “pinch?”

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What Keeps Me Up at Night? Can I Just Get it Through the Door.

Did you know me in the summer and fall of 2005? I was on my way out of Holy Family Medical Center and creating the UroPartners Lab. We were leasing an office suite in a commercial building with the goal of transforming it into a laboratory that would pass muster with the Illinois Department of Public Health and earn the stamp of approval of Medicare and the College of American Pathologists. I had a thorough knowledge of what was needed, a reasonable budget, a cracker-jack team I was bringing with me from Holy Family, and a business consultant to boot.

So why wasn’t it my finest hour? Why wasn’t I reveling in the White Sox World Series Championship season? Why did a trip to Milwaukee to see Paul McCartney seem like a trip to hell? Why couldn’t I sleep at night? I was worried about just one thing. What if we couldn’t fit the equipment through the door? Was I going to wind up with a lab in a parking lot?

Of course, that didn’t happen–everything worked out fine, and we have had a 5-star high-quality lab here inside the building for the last 16 years. But those nightmares had been haunting me again for the last few days…

A lab like ours needs a backup power system, particularly to make sure that our refrigerators and freezers containing patient samples and expensive reagents don’t degrade during a power failure. While I would love an inline generator, some investigation in the past has shown the cost to be more than we could bear. Instead, we installed a backup battery system that during a power failure can power red outlets throughout the lab that control the refrigerators, the freezers, and some incubators in microbiology as well. It has served us well, but after ten years of juice the company that installed and maintained the system, let’s call them Power Is Us, told us the unit was badly outdated, and we agreed to purchase a replacement.

PIU hired a freight company, NoWay, to pick up the new unit from the PIU Wisconsin plant and deliver it to the lab. This was to be a two-stage process, with the unit to be first taken to Badway’s warehouse near O’Hare, and then delivered to the lab on a subsequent day. Easy-peasy, right? After all, we are only 15 minutes away from NoWay’s warehouse.

I did have a few requirements. One, I needed delivery to be between 8 am and noon, when we had a staff available to unload a couple of pallets worth of equipment and heavy batteries. And two, we don’t have a loading dock, so the delivery had to be with a lift-gate truck. All this was conveyed to NoWay, and the delivery date confirmed. And what happened?

Scheduled delivery date 1: No delivery “Our truck didn’t leave the yard until 11:30 so we knew we couldn’t get to you by 12:00.”
Scheduled delivery date 2: No delivery. At 4 pm, the last person in the lab is heading out the door when she gets a call. “We’ll be there a little later. We have until midnight, right?” Um, no. 12 pm means noon, not midnight!
Scheduled delivery date 3: No delivery. “Our driver didn’t think his truck would fit in your parking lot, so he just drove away.” (In fifteen years, no delivery truck has ever had a problem getting into our lot.)

So yeah, pretty frustrated by this point. The good news? PIU has agreed to deliver the unit to us themselves, take it off the palettes, and put it into place. It is what they did when they delivered the original system back in the day, and what I wanted them to do this time in the first place. A happy conclusion.

I’m sure I’ll get some sleep tonight.

The above are the opinions of the author and not of UroPartners LLC

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You Go On Trial Today

You go on trial today.
They’ll say you incited
Your lawyers will fight it,
The riot, disquiet
In the city on the hill

Your talk was disruptive
You always did want this
The power, the glory
Your own favorite story, your quarry
Four more years laudatory
We’d all pay the bill

You have your defenders
Your fantasy blenders
With lasers more flavors
Of loony tune lies about liberal invaders
Who’d brainwash us, gun quash us
Until America was finally still

Your lawyers will story
It was all allegory
No violence no turmoil
Was ever to recoil
It was all just for fun, just to say that you won
To build up your branding, your standing, the fees you’re demanding
For your book and your speeches, ’bout living hell of impeaches
So two is better than one
When the time has come to chill

Your lawyers talk about process
Can the law really want this
Too tardy, too late, to wipe out the slate
While Constitutional scholars are betting their dollars
That it’s all elementary, to impeach is the sentry
Protecting our nation from a monster’s creation
As he delivers a poison pill

For a change you are quiet, your tweets on a diet
You won’t testify,
Won’t look in the eyes
Of the Senators, those jurors
Who will hear of your furors
And of the pretense as you challenged Mike Pence
His hiding, your chiding, over ballots presiding
He stopped being your shill.

The result is not debatable
The numbers not inflatable
Two-thirds of the Senate is not going to get it, they’ll let it
Give you your acquittal, your wrist slapped a little.
But still it is worth it, the House didn’t shirk it
You go on trial today.

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Have You Ever Had a Dream Like This? Would it Frighten or Calm You?

The dreams in which I’m dying
are the best I’ve ever had.
Roland Orzabal, 19883

It may not have been the best dream I have ever had, but considering the subject matter, it was a strangely calm one.

I was in a large building, perhaps a factory, perhaps a school dorm. Somewhere with a large food hall, and a basement as well. Lots of people milling about, all of them relaxed and friendly. I ran into some elementary school companions, they seemed a bit surprised to see me. Apparently, I had blogged that I might not attend the event, yet there I was, a bit short of information but equal in enthusiasm with the others strolling the hallways.

Soon it became clear that we were saying our goodbyes, we were all there to die. Not gruesomely, but peacefully, at some all-encompassing, worldwide event that was to happen at precisely 2:15 a.m. Central Standard Time. The vibe was that of mass suicide, but our deaths would not require any action by any of us. It was all out of our hands. The strangest part-none of us seemed to care. We were just aware of time slipping away, slipping towards the end.

When I awoke the grandfather clock in the hallway was chiming three-quarters of an hour. Remembering the dream, I quietly turned to my bedside clock, taking pains not to rouse Barb beside me in bed, or Cooper in his crate in the next room. I was relieved to see it was now 3:45. 2:15 had passed without a ripple in the life force.

What brought on a dream in which humanity would quietly slip away in the night? Who can say what feeds our subconscious? But I know that after a day of reading newspapers, watching the TV news, and sitting through the Sunday political shows from Meet the Press to 60 Minutes, I had commented to Barb that we are doomed. If deadly, mutating COVID didn’t get us, then the inevitable violent revolution would.

But in my dream, the world ended with a whimper, not a bang. I’m just hoping it doesn’t end at all.

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