Synchronicity

On Monday, 2013-09-16, while engaging in small talk with James in Medical Walk-In, the topic of earwax came up.  While removing earwax is one of the few ways in which I make a concrete difference in clinic, I was not sure that it was actually the right thing to do.  After all, earwax probably is there for a reason, and removing it may do more harm than good.

I wondered if animals have earwax and if they are better off with it.  I wondered if whales have earwax.

Soon after,  James noted that the New Scientist had an article on whale earwax that very day!

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24206-whales-record-major-life-events-in-their-earwax.html#.UqQ20Y14mHk


Recently, I have had to visit North Shore and Rusk.  When I studied at NYU, I rotated through North Shore, and Rusk was attached to the main campus.

After Hurricane Sandy, Rusk moved to the Hospital of Joint Diseases at 17th Street and 2nd Avenue, just 2 streets away from the old Stuyvesant High School, giving me a chance to visit the old school for perhaps the first time in 20 years.

Before my last visit to Rusk, I thought it might be fun to meet some old friends near the old school and sent an email in the afternoon on 2013-12-03.  That night, Vanessa called me to ask for a contribution to an endowment for Stuyvesant.  The next evening, I met up with four old friends and took a picture in front of the old school.

I told my friends that my father was ill nearby, but I was not looking for sympathy.  Of the four old friends, one lost a mother and one lost a father about 20 years ago.  One's parents were divorced even longer than that.  Only one friend still had an intact family as far as I knew.

Andy informed (or reminded) me that Angela (with the same last name as Vanessa) from NYU a class after ours, was a Rehabilitation Medicine physician at Rusk.  Too bad for the sake of synchronicity and irony that she was not the attending physician taking care of my father.

Marathon, broken resolution, and fantasy football

Ironically, it was in preparing for the marathon on 10-20 that I broke my new year's resolution not to block a toilet.  Technically, the toilet was already blocked up, presumably because of low water pressure from so much use of water by the runners before the race, but I added even more toilet paper to the bowl.

After the triumph of the marathon, I lost my fantasy football match for the week by less than 2 points after a Trent Richardson fumble (-2 points) that set up a field goal for my opponents kicker (+3 points) in the fourth quarter of the Sunday night game.

In the 5 weeks since the marathon, I have not exercised and have gained 7 pounds.  My fantasy football team has straight matches to improve to 7-5.

This reminds me of what happened after I triumphantly returned from 4 days of Shotokan Karate special training.  I rear-ended a car on Massachusetts Avenue.