Thought That Came Unbidden

Boston had hoped for its first repeat titles since 1915-16, but for the second time in three years its season ended thanks to a Tim Wakefield knuckleball that went over a left-field wall.

The White Sox lost in the ’19 and ’59 Series and the ’83, ’93 and 2000 playoffs. With the three-game sweep, they are the first team to advance to the second round of the playoffs, where they will play the winner of the Angels-Yankees series that was tied 1-1 heading into Friday night.

The Red Sox were knocked out of the playoffs before Curt Schilling even got a chance to pitch. The star of the 2004 postseason was scheduled to start Saturday in Game 4.

– Easy as 1-2-3: Konerko, White Sox sweep aside World Series champs, Sports Illustrated

If we keep going at this rate with teams that haven’t won the World Series in a while it’ll only be a decade before it’s the Cubs’ turn.

Now they tell us that yes, it was an aneurysm (hence the bleeding on the brain instead of the typical restricted blood flow you’d see from a clot which would cause a stroke), and that he’s probably had a small one previous to this. I get the feeling they’re guessing; then again, I sort of get that feeling with doctors most of the time.

He’s doing much better, though. He’s off the ventilator, and oxygen, completely; he’s conscious and coherent; he’s answering questions but he’s not talking very much; he’s still him, which means right now he’s pretty steamed.

I’d like to share some things I’ve learned in the past few days:

1. The quality of cafeteria food is directly proportional to how upset you are: If you think someone you love is dying, you’ll eat almost anything. The better you feel the more picky you are about your food.
2. Hospital food always sucks: Period. There are no exceptions to this rule.
3. The hospital’s gift shop should be for the convience of the patients: Here is what should be in a hospital gift shop:
   • Reading/entertainment material: books, magazines, simple crossword puzzle books, word search books, crayons, markers, and coloring books
   • Stuffed animals: because no matter how old you are it might help to have a friend when you’re sick or injured and scared
   • Things a patient can use: clean socks, writing pad and pens, decks of cards, eye glasses case, something you can clean eye glasses with, basic toiletry items like denture cleaner

   Ceramic plates, christmas decorations, and golf tees are of no use to anyone in a hospital

4. What the patient wants is the most important thing: My uncle’s requested that he have no visitors save my aunt. Totally understandable; there are maybe three people in the world I’d let see me in a hospital gown. Some of his “friends” don’t seem to get it (sidebar: a kindness done with the expectation of added privilege is not a kindness; it’s blackmail)

We’ll see how it goes from here.

If you’re ever going to have something that looks like a stroke, have it in Florida: there are a ton of old people there and the doctors seem to know what they’re doing.

The doctors don’t see standard evidence of a stroke. They don’t see a clot. And they don’t see a brain tumor which is what killed my grandmother. He’s not talking but he opens his eyes and pays attention to you when you do talk to him, and he can move all his limbs, albeit not as well on the left side as on the right.

I’ll see him on Saturday (my mother doesn’t fly and I’m going down with her).

My aunt Linda tells me this all started with a bang: he was reversing out of a parking space and kept reversing…right into a fire hydrant. He’s gonna be sorry he was unconscious and missed that.

My uncle Chuck had a stroke.

They still don’t have any idea what the damage is.

In my hierarchy of shitty things, there are only two things that are worse than this.

He can’t go yet. We weren’t done.

I don’t know when I’ll be back.

Apocalyptic sects believe that there are certain events that will signal the coming of the end time, the final judgement and the call home of virtuous souls. Generally accepted wisdom in Judeo-Christian circles is that there will be seven of these types of signs.

Any baseball fan knows that the seventh sign of the coming apocalypse is a Cubs vs. Red Sox world series. Given that we had half a sign last year when that team from Boston won the world series, I shouldn’t be surprised that we’ve had another: three female contestants on Jeopardy at the same time. It sort of makes me wish that Steven Levitt had written about sex discrimination on Jeopardy instead of race discrimination on The Weakest Link