Expectant Amy

What you see in that remarkable photograph (which was taken today) is an ultrasound depiction of my granddaughter Amy’s womb. Two fetuses can be clearly identified. And happily, the heartbeats of both were heard and recorded. Until now, she and her husband Kevin have had tragic misfortune with their past pregnancies. All three miscarried at exactly eight weeks. But happily, with the assistance of very advanced technology, she is once again pregnant and fervently hoping to carry this gestation to term.

Having Amy’s permission, I will endeavor to provide our readers with a description of some of the technical procedures that were followed: After several weeks of medication to stimulate her ovaries to produce follicles, she was then given a dose of Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG) in order to initiate ovulation. Those follicles were collected trans-vaginally by Reproductive Endocrinologists who employed orthoscopy for visualization. Of the 18 collected, 13 were subsequently fertilized. But only 10 embryos survived the trip to the genetic laboratory in California. All 10 of those embryos were subjected to a pre-implantation chromosomal scan. Seven were found to have the kind of chromosomal flaws that might have predisposed them to self-abort. The remaining 3 were approved for implantation into Amy’s womb. In the meantime, to keep her womb "fertile" Amy’s menstrual cycle had to be suspended with specific hormones. Amazingly, this whole extraordinary implantation process is going forward as planned and the prognosis is very positive.

The only current discordant note is that Amy is having bouts of nausea and occasional vomiting, which is not unusual during early pregnancy. It will pass and she will soon begin to blossom with joy and anticipation. These two eager parents to be, can use all the comfort and support we can give them. It is good to know that their families and all of their friends are passionately rooting for them. But it is also good to know that God is watching closely and blessing them daily.

I am obliged to conclude with this ironic reflection: While so much is being disputed, here and abroad, about preserving a woman's "reproductive right" to abort, Amy's and Kevin's travails resonate with an extraordinary contrapuntal effect.

Grrr

Memory, memory, wherefore art thou?

As often happens, more frequently as we get older, we meet old acquaintances whose names escape us. This happened to me today in the Pro Shop of our Golf Club. My old friend and I walked and talked and exchanged many reminiscences, but at no time did either of us mention the other’s name.

When I got home, I was hell-bent determined to retrieve his name from this shriveling ganglion I still refer to as my brain. I knew his name was in there, somewhere. But I couldn't beat a viable path to the particular circuitry that contained it.

I turned on my computer and opened an archived file that listed a roster of members who played in one of our Senior tournaments. I scrolled slowly down the list and Eureka! When my friend’s name appeared, my recognition was instantaneous!

This vignette illustrates that forgetfulness can sometimes be only a problem with retrieval. The information we want has not been obliterated, it has simply become elusive. With age and extensive use, our reverberating memory circuits may lose their voltage. But how reassuring it is to know that we can often rely on other "mental" resources to find what we've lost.

A functional analogy can be drawn between our brains and the disk in a computer’s hard drive. Whereas data can be quickly retrieved while the disk and the brain are relatively virginal, they both react more slowly when they become crowded with information. Defragmentation can help a disk to recover its speed and efficiency, but we do not yet have a way to defragment or optimize our brains. Grrr!

Happy tidings!

On June 18, 2005, at 19:19 E.D.T. Patrick Thomas Gabriele took his first extra-uterine breath. He liked it so much, he decided to stay on this side of the amniotic waters. He weighed in at 9 pounds and 2 ounces and he is already 20 inches long from the tips of his toes to the top of his head. PT is the first child born to Jennifer and Paul Gabriele.

Not yet known to this little lad is that he is now a member of a rather large, extended family. It will take him some time before he becomes accurately oriented as to where he is situated on the family tree. But he’ll have lots of fun, finding out. Suffice it to say, PT has a multitude of cousins, aunts, uncles and assorted relatives. He also has several grandparents and even two pairs of doddering great-grandparents.

Each of us is delighted that Patrick Thomas Gabriele is now safely among us. May he live a long, happy, healthy and excitingly adventurous life and may Jennifer, Paul and others in our family, continue to procreate.

6/24/2005 Jennifer, Paul and Patrick visited us this evening. It was a truly happy experience for Lenore and me. For the first time in many, many years, I once again held a baby in my arms. For Lenore, more accustomed to handling infants, it was as natural as it could possibly be. Paul and Jennifer are ecstatic and they exude a remarkable degree of confidence and competence, considering it's not yet a week since they became parents. As I read the tea-leaves, the future for this family is incandescently bright.

To view other PTG photos, left click on the following hyperlink:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/BrowsePhotos.jsp?&collid=448027401106&page=1

Guardian Angel

EMT David Jacobsen, Command Security, Supervisor

As my wife, Lenore, lay screaming with pain after she fell on our dining room floor, I came within a whisker of committing a major clinical blunder ~ I tried to raise her to her feet. God be praised! I was unable to do so!

Within moments after calling 911, David Jacobsen was at the door. Sharp-eyed, he noted that her left foot was turned outwards. It made him suspect that she might have broken her left hip. We called for the Paramedics. Within no time flat, Lenore was professionally ambulanced to the emergency room of our local Hospital. X-rays revealed she had indeed fractured her hip. Had I actually succeeded in raising Lenore to her feet, I would surely have added a dislocation factor to her serious injury. David saved me from complicating it.

Many of us are blithely unaware that there are numerous people out there who are more than ready to quickly lend a helping and often life-saving hand. David Jacobsen is one of those guardian angels. Nobly motivated and intensively trained, he is fully prepared to contribute his paramedical expertise in any situation to which he has been summoned.

My wife and I are profoundly grateful and beholden to David and also to our condominium staff for its unrelenting efforts to keep our community more than just adequately served.

We're back!

We love our Mars Futon

Most of you who visit this site already know that Lenore has been home from Rehab since Friday May 20th.

As of today, I can now report that she has made and is continuing to make outstanding progress. We have visited her orthopedist and he has scheduled her for outpatient physiotherapy at a local facility. On the negative side, she is anemic. There was significant loss of blood at the time of the injury and during the reparative surgery. With monitoring by our Primary Care Physician we are attempting to overcome that condition as quickly as possible. Our flight of stairs has not been a problem and we have resumed doing an appreciable amount of outdoor walking nearly every day.

Because we thought she might have to stay on the ground floor of our residence, we replaced our cumbersome sofa-bed with a Futon (ours is a Chinese crimson-red). We love it! We cannot remember ever having purchased a piece of furniture that gives us as much service and delight as this remarkably beautiful and ingeniously engineered item. It has brightened up our den and it imparts to the room a warm and lively Chinese decor.

This is my first entry into Tarry here awhile, since two weeks ago. Some of you have remarked to me about it. I’ve been delinquent and I know it. But now that my head is beginning to feel a bit more aligned with my mind, I will revisit my priorities and endeavor to start posting again.

In the meantime, take another good look at that Futon pictured above. It is made to order for that very special nook that everyone has in their home (you’ll find it at the Futon Store in Google. Prepare to pay more, to have the young lady delivered with your package).