I see a surgeon about my hernia

I saw the surgeon today about my hernia, but he seemed more concerned about my swollen lymph nodes (Peggy asked me months ago to see a doctor about them). He seemed as eager to get me into surgery as I was to go, and he made special arrangements to reserve an operating room for Monday.

He suggested an open incision (instead of a laparoscopy), because it will enable him to attach the mesh better on such a thin person as I, and because I will run have less risk of chronic pain (a common side effect of hernia surgery).

I should be well enough by Peggy’s departure for France on February 14th to take care of my own needs, but I will be unable to exercise the dogs or wash their feet when they’ve been in the mud. The timing is no less bad for Peggy. I would not want her to stay home—unless the prognosis was grim—but I could hardly insist that she leave. Ironically, I have been worried for months about the trip, because it is, after all, a long way to France, and in winter at that. I think of all the things that could go wrong—closed airports, car wrecks, the flu, and a hundred more—and I know I will not rest easy until she is home.

Tomorrow is another doctor day. I see the anesthesiologist at 8:30, then have blood drawn, and then top the excitement off with an EKG. The surgeon said that the blood work will rule out some forms of cancer. Since I had expressed no great concern about having cancer when he said this, I concluded that he must be concerned.

Thoughts on diet

I’m down to 144 pounds—fourteen pounds lighter than at Thanksgiving. I only planned to drop to 150, but with my new diet the pounds keep disappearing.

I’ve inexplicably developed a taste for hot peppers. (Take it from one who knows: never touch your eyes or use the bathroom after handling a habanera.) I actually like to feel the heat climbing across my face and up my scalp. There’s definitely a high that goes with peppers.

More of Lowell’s advice about food…

Build your food pyramid atop a base of whole grains and beans.
Eat foods that are nutritious and low calorie.
Prepare your own meals from simple ingredients.
Learn to love cooking by cooking that which you love eating.
Eat only cold-pressed canola and extra virgin olive oil—even for things like piecrusts for which you normally use Crisco.
Reduce or eliminate meat, cheese, sugar, and butter.
A few times a week, eat fish that are low in mercury and rich in Omega-3s. Avoid farm-raised fish.
Don’t keep desserts or junk foods at home.
Remember that a little “sin” can undo a lot of hard won progress.
Drink only skim milk.
Dilute juice with water. Uncut juice will soon come to taste like sugar syrup.
Don’t buy foods that contain: enriched flour, artificial ingredients, added sweeteners, hydrogenated oils, or oils that you wouldn’t use at home.
Drink a glass of red wine a few times a week.
Buy un-processed foods, and observe how beautiful they are. Reflect that this is how food looked until a few decades ago.
Make every meal sacred. Instead of eating in front of the TV, eat against a backdrop of inspiring music.
Regard food as sacred. It will help you avoid foods that have been debased.
Avoid between meal snacks.
Consider fasting one day each week. It can be spiritually uplifting.
Consider only eating two meals a day.

By doing these things, I have come to prefer foods that are good for me. For a long time, I ate good foods at home, but pigged-out on junk at lodge. I eventually noticed that my favorite treats—like doughnuts—no longer tasted so good, so I would eat different kinds with the thought that the next one would taste better. I finally had to admit that I no longer crave doughnuts. I also decided that, if I pigged-out at lodge, and my weight was up the following day, I wouldn’t eat that day. This has helped me to at least moderate my consumption of treats that I still enjoy—like homemade lemon meringue pie.

People tell me that it is good to treat myself at times, which seems to imply that a treat is something unwholesome. My goal is to believe that a treat should taste good and be good for me. Inasmuch as I have tried to have the former without the latter, I have failed.

“Our whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an instant's truce between virtue and vice.” H.D. Thoreau

Letter to Guard

I had the following published in the Register Guard Monday.

“While browsing the new book section at the Eugene library last week, I came across the following instructional manuals: Street scene: how to draw graffiti-style and Moonshine! Recipes.... Whence this belief on the part of some librarians that they have a first amendment duty to instruct people in criminality? And what adolescent will continue to regard a crime as serious if the public library taught him how to do it? When I asked a librarian why they would carry such books, and was told that they carry books on every subject, I asked where I might find manuals on pimping, meth-making, and dogfighting. Clearly the library has some standard of discrimination.

"In a country that values free speech, some evil must be tolerated, but it need not be supported at public expense and endorsed by publicly owned institutions.”

John and Paul, and our trip to Lexington

I worked hard yesterday making final preparations for the Masons’ first meeting in the Odd Fellow Lodge. Tension with the building manager made everything more difficult. I’ve been hated before, but rarely by people I see all the time. I ask myself why it should be a problem. Well, maybe there’s no good reason. Maybe it will just take some getting used to. I did as I thought right, and I expected to be treated as I am being treated. I see this as a learning experience, the lesson being that it’s okay to be hated.

I’ve known people who fell overboard in this regard, militant atheists being a case in point. I had two friends in Mississippi who se bumper stickers made fun of Jesus. On one of our trips together, we drove to Lexington, Kentucky, for an American Atheist convention. I was sick with a cold and only wanted to lie in the back and sleep, but I kept being awakened by horns honking and people screaming profanities. John and Paul were laughing their heads off, while I was wondering if I would live to get home. You might think that they were bad-asses, but they were anything but. John was 68 and weighed 450 pounds; Paul was 85 and hardly weighed 120; and neither was armed with anything.

In Lexington, I asked Robin (Madelyn Murray O’Hair’s granddaughter how she could survive having such hatred directed at her. She said she had learned to not take it personally.

It was meant personally, but Robin had the right idea. Regarding vicious people as if they were vicious dogs, and dealing with them matter of factly instead of hatefully is surely the best policy. This might be what’s hard for me. What I want to do is to let the building manager have it with both barrels, but I’m determined to conduct myself with dignity, because I know I would only make a bad situation worse. Why stomp on what’s already broken?