Helpless

For men of a certain age what I am about to share will sound familiar. Or, maybe not. Maybe it’s just me demonstrating my penchant for selective incompetence. Although I have developed many fine skills over the years, there are certain things involving the care and maintenance of my health where I seem cursed. I taught myself how to play the classical guitar when I was fourteen. On three occasions in my life I have broken 80 on the golf course. I have run a successful business for three decades. I have written four novels. And yet…when it comes to keeping up with all things medical, I am a colossal failure. In the last thirty days alone I have discovered that I had been taking a medicine that the doctor had told me to discontinue, I have lost an entire bottle of meds and had to have an exception made from the insurance company to have it replaced, and finally yesterday completely botched getting a shingles vaccine!!

So, it is shingles vaccine season around here since Pam got hers last week. This week was my turn. Pam sent me a text suggesting that it was…easy. “Just go to the app”, she says, “and click vaccines. My reply might sound pathetic to some of you, but considering my track record, not unpredictable. “Are you sure I can do this?” I asked. What I was hoping for was something along the lines of, “Oh, never mind, I’ll do it!!” But no, there was a glitch in the app that would not allow anyone else but me do the honors. So, I forged ahead on my own, giant, gangly opposable thumbs doing their best. After several false starts I managed to secure a 3:00 appointment for yesterday afternoon. I actually picked up on the instruction found in the fine print that asked me to remember to show up 5 minutes prior to my scheduled appointment and check in via the app from the parking lot before entering the store. At this point I was feeling quite confident.

I presented myself to Emma, the purple-haired technician who is somewhere in the midst of transitioning between the sexes and who happens to be the only competent employee in the Pharmacy at my CVS. I gave he/her my name with a surprising amount of confidence. But then Emma says that there is no record of my appointment. I smugly handed her my cell phone with the confirmation of said appointment on the display. She looked at me with all the empathy of a DMV clerk and said, “Mr. Dunnevant, your appointment is with the CVS inside the Target on Broad Street.”

“There’s a CVS inside the Target on Broad Street??” I asked. 

“Yes Sir,” Emma replied.

“But why would I set an appointment there when this is the pharmacy I’ve used for 30 years?”

“Did you set the appointment using the app?”

“Yes…” I mumbled, a sinking feeling stirring somewhere in my intestines.

“Yeah, well, sometimes the app brings up the wrong location as the default instead of sending you to the one you normally use. You have to be careful when using it.”

So, once again my uncanny knack of screwing up all things medical strikes again. Instead of being 5 minutes early, now I had to fight broad street traffic and find this stealth CVS inside of Target. I walk in ten minutes late and the whole thing is over in five minutes. When I informed Pam of my travails she texted this reply…

“Dang…you are helpless without me!!!”

Speaking of shingles…I have already had them, several years ago, I’m told. Although I have no memory of it. When I told Pam this she looked at me like I had two heads. “What do you mean you don’t remember having shingles?” But it’s the truth…I have no memory of it at all. It couldn’t have been but so bad, right? Now, I can remember the starting lineup for the New York Mets in game six of the 1969 World Series, but having shingles? total blank. She tells me it was on my back. Maybe thats why I don’t remember because I never saw it. Whatever the reason, this is par for the course. 

And she is right…I am helpless without her.

Time For What’s Next

On December 31, 2024 I will be retiring from the investment business after 42 years. I made the decision over a year ago and am now making that decision public. I will be selling my business to Blaire Greenwood and Allison Lane of Greenwood Financial Group, people who happen to be two of my dearest friends in this world. I’ve known them both since they were annoying toddlers. Now they are annoying grownups who I love dearly. Knowing that they will be the ones taking care of my clients in the future has made the decision to retire much easier to make.

So, why now? Lots of reasons, really. First of all, it’s very hard to do anything for 42 years, but even harder to stop doing it. It becomes ingrained into who you are. But my line of work is the sort that you can’t do just a little of. You have to be all in, all the time. The business is fast moving, constantly changing—an ever evolving and chaotic enterprise. The regulatory regime that has risen up around the business has become oppressive, keeping up with the mountains of compliance edicts have become a full time endeavor in and of itself. There isn’t a place for part-timers. At the end of the day, I would just rather be at the lake in Maine.

2023 wasn’t my best health year. Had a scare or two that required several tests and medications, and also caused me to ask myself some questions like, “why the heck are you still working?!” My cardiologist informed me that the way that the human body handles stress at age 66 is far different than the way it handles that same stress at 36. He suggested politely that maybe my body was trying to tell me something. I have listened.

It’s ironic that I have made a living helping other people prepare for retirement but now that it’s my turn I feel apprehension. It’s not the money part that brings anxiety. It’s more like how do you replace a 42 year career? The answer is that you don’t. You transition to something less consuming, less burdensome, more relaxing. You find ways to embrace your new freedom. I’m confident that I will, mostly because I’m absolutely sure that this is the right decision for me. That doesn’t mean it will be easy. It also doesn’t mean that it isn’t a little scary.

Here’s the part about retirement that I don’t like. First of all, I hate the word. To retire from something is to withdraw, to quit, to disengage. All of those words sound like surrender to me, like giving up. That’s not me, it’s not who I am. But, there it is, staring you in the face. You spend four decades building something with your bare hands, making something valuable out of nothing, then you realize you can’t do it anymore. You turn over the duties and responsibilities to others, younger people with more energy, more drive. There’s no other way to spin it…you’re quitting. But quitting isn’t always bad, right? I mean, after the first bowl you quit eating ice cream. No matter how much you might want a second bowl, you quit because eating a second bowl would make you a pig and you would regret it the next morning when you step on the scale.

The worst part about this notion of “retirement” is the idea that naturally flows from it…that your best days are behind you. Suppose retirement really means that you have already done the best work of your life? That there are no more dragons to slay? If I ever get to the point where I believe that there is nothing great left for me to accomplish, I’m going to be in trouble. The task on the morning of January 1st, 2025 will be to find it.

I will not miss the constant, never ending, relentless pressure of the equity markets. I will not miss the sometimes crushing burden of responsibility that comes with being a trusted advisor to nearly 300 people. But, I will miss the people I work with, their friendship, the feeling of camaraderie, being part of the shared struggle.  I will miss my clients, many of whom I consider like friends and family. But, it is time. Time for what’s next.

A Morning at the Hospital

Hospitals hold a special place in our hearts. They are at once a place of life and death. They are places filled with highly skilled doctors, nurses and technicians who have the power to perform miracles, to literally rescue us from the grip of death. But they also stand aside helplessly when their skills can’t overcome the relentless power of disease. These talented men and women break the wonderful news to us that we have given birth to beautiful healthy babies. They also tell anguished wives and husbands that there was nothing they could do. No wonder they keep making television shows about hospitals. It’s the place where our stories begin and end.

My hospital story wasn’t nearly so dramatic. I arrived at 6:00 am and left at 10:00am, but those four hours produced quite a few life long memories. The first one concerned an elderly black man who was rolled in to the registration office by a van driver. The man was quite old and obviously didn’t know where he was. The conversation between the driver and the admissions clerk played out for all to hear. The old man was from a nearby nursing home. The driver’s only job was to deliver him for an unknown procedure. There was no family with him, no friends, just a confused old man who could hardly speak above a whisper. I watched this unfold with my wife sitting close beside me, knowing that there were literally dozens of people out in the world praying for me, people from all over the place who know and love me. The old man had no one. It was one of the saddest things I had ever witnessed. To be old and sick is one thing and plenty bad enough. But to be old, sick and alone is far worse and about as tragic as the end of life gets. Even as I sit here writing this ten hours later I can’t get the man out of my head.

Eventually I was wheeled back into a room where a cheerful, smiling nurse spent 45 minutes getting me prepared for my Cardiac catheterization. This involved lots of patches, wires and needles and she never stopped talking while she worked, telling me every detail about what it was she was up to. It was kind of like a radio play-by-play man at a baseball game. I found the information soothing, if not very helpful by way of explanation, it was the sound of her voice that was the important part. She exuded confidence. Confidence is good, especially when one of things she was up to involved shaving particularly private sections of the human anatomy. That’s another peculiar thing about hospitals. There is absolutely no place or reason for modesty.

I was then whisked around several hallways and one elevator ride to an extremely cold operating room where three cheerful women sat about setting me up for my procedure, all the while completely ignoring me. Their ongoing banter concerned the status of a friend’s recent disastrous first date with some guy he had met on Grindr. One of them managed to introduce herself to me with the line, “Mr. Dunnevant, I will be your bartender today.” She smiled and I think I did too, but shortly after this brief exchange my level of consciousness started waffling back and forth between detached and dead to the world. Time ceased to exist in this nebulous state of semi-awareness. I saw a gigantic screen with circles and streaks of white. I heard the murmur of voices speaking some unknown tongue. I saw an image of the old black man slumped in his wheelchair, then the muffled voice of the doctor, his mask-covered face close to mine telling me that everything went well. 

Then it was back to the prep room and my play-by-play nurse who spent the next two hours interrupting my sleep every fifteen minutes to make some kind of adjustment to the small incision on my wrist. The next thing I know she’s wheeling me out to the circular driveway where Pam is waiting for me in my red Cadillac.

The outcome was very good. There were no blockages, no need for stents. I can now officially stop worrying about my heart, a huge blessing for which I am extremely grateful. I come out of this experience grateful for a great many things—healthcare workers, nurses, doctors, and the miracle of modern medicine. And yes…for hospitals.

But the last thing I will think about before I fall asleep tonight will be that old black man in the wheelchair. I need to give him a name. I feel like he needs to be known, that somebody needs to give a damn about him. His name will be…Emmett. It was all a terrible miscommunication. His family—wife, sons and daughters were told the wrong hospital. They showed up at St. Mary’s. As soon as the mistake was caught, they all showed up in the waiting room and gathered around him before he went for his treatment. 

That’s the story I choose to believe, and when I pray for him tonight I will also pray for his family.

Book Club

I checked out my very first chapter book from the library at Claiborne Elementary School in New Orleans, Louisiana as a third grader. It was a biography of Mickey Mantle called The Commerce Comet. I have been reading books ever since. I wrote my first story when I was a sixth grader at John M. Gandy Middle School. It featured a frustrated student at that very same school who one day received the gift of flight during a terribly boring lesson on punctuation. I have been writing stories of one kind or another ever since and wishing I had paid closer attention during the whole punctuation thing. However, after having lived a life so immersed in literature, last night I attended my very first book club meeting. I had no idea what to expect and consequently felt no small amount of anxiety as I walked through the front door of the Wythe Trace Book Club, made even worse since the featured book up for discussion was A Life of Dreams and I was the guest of honor. Pam was with me serving as my interpreter in case I said something stupid, and for moral support. Everything is a bit better when she is with me.

I was greeted by the host with a warm hug and the happy sound of 16 ladies enjoying each other’s company along with a wide and varied selection of wine. I had heard that wine played a key roll in these affairs and I was not misinformed. After a while the host made the announcement that dinner was ready. Cheeseburger sliders and salad along with two items taken from the book—pound cake and Doritos! So cool.

Eventually everyone gathered in the living room with chairs lined up all around the room. The host started by asking me what my inspirations were for writing this particular story. As soon as I opened my mouth to answer I felt oddly relaxed, all the anxiety having mysteriously disappeared. Then she pulled up the discussion guide questions that I wrote for the book back in April before the publication date. I had looked back over them earlier in the day as a refresher and discovered that even I didn’t know how to answer half of them! But I reminded myself—with the help of my daughter—that once fiction gets released into the world it no longer belongs to the writer…it belongs to the readers. Well…the royalties come to me, but you know what I mean!

What followed was a spirited and very smart discussion of A Life of Dreams. These ladies weren’t amateurs. They were serious and thoughtful readers who kept coming up with observations and insights that had never occurred to me when I was writing this 13 years ago. Their enthusiasm for the story and its characters was an amazing thing to witness and quite gratifying for this writer. On our walk back home Pam said she was proud of me and that I seemed so relaxed and confident. For once I believed her. I was relaxed and confident. But it was easy to be with such a fun and engaging group.

So, a shout out to the Wythe Trace Book Club and Wine Bar Extravaganza. Thanks so much for the invitation.

My Appointment

The handsome man enters the examining room with two students in tow. He introduces them as such and asks if I object to their presence. I say “no” while wondering why a couple of high school students would be shadowing a Cardiologist around. Wait, they are med school students? No way. They look like babies. Speaking of which, I look again at the handsome Doctor and ask him how old he is, a legitimate question to ask someone who will be soon tinkering around with your heart. He vaguely replies, “mid-thirties”, which means he’s probably 31…younger than my son. This is a good thing, I’m thinking. Steady hands. He’s Indian. I have trouble pronouncing his name. All the nurses in the office tell me he is the best, that I will be in very talented hands. I believe them.

I had open heart surgery 21 years ago when I was 45 years old. This issue is unrelated to that and not nearly as serious. Still, if you have ever had your chest opened before, the thought of revisiting the scene of that jolting trauma is not something I look forward to. This time there will be no 7 inch scar, no horrifically painful recovery and hopefully no hospital stay. This time I will be in and out the same day. A friend of mine who recently had this same procedure said the bill was $200,000, about what my open heart surgery mitral valve repair and five days in the hospital cost back in the day. Thank God for Medicare. I’ll pay 300 bucks.

I’ll be glad when it’s over. I don’t like thinking about my heart. I much prefer that my heart would mind its own business and pump blood like it’s supposed to. When you start thinking too much about any internal organ it becomes hard to stop thinking about them. Every hiccup feels like a crisis. It’s stupid to think this way and a huge overreaction, but it is what it is. The irrational often overpowers the rational when it comes to visits to the Cardiologist.

But my young, handsome doctor with the tongue-twisting name seems to have everything well in hand. 

I just wish we were talking about my appendix instead of the heart.

Saturday Morning Rant

This morning I put on my curmudgeon hat, the one with the social critic feather sticking out of it. This might not be pretty. In my defense, I don’t feel that great, haven’t for several weeks now. That’s part of it, along with the natural post-Maine malaise that often greets me upon my return from the north. Here goes nothing…

People have gotten rude. Don’t misunderstand, there have always since the dawn of time been plenty of rude people, but these days rudeness seems to be everyone’s default setting. From road rage down to the disappearance of the most basic courtesies of daily life, boorish, self-absorbed behavior has become the norm. We seem to be drowning in a sea of people insisting on their rights, with no concern given to the responsibilities that have always gone with them. “I have first amendment rights to free speech!!” Yes, you do. But you also have a responsibility to exercise respect and discretion in the exercise of that right. In the often overlooked notes of Thomas Jefferson on this subject I believe he said, “But don’t be a prick about it.”

Of course, election years always bring out the worst in people when it comes to…well, just about everything. In 2024 partisans on both sides are convinced that our very survival as a species hangs in the balance. If you feel that way then rules of civility are the first thing to get thrown overboard I suppose. But when I hear some of the types of language being deployed in the service of politics these days all I hear is coarse and ugly words full of meanness and venom. 

Now, what I am about to say is for those of you who consider yourselves Christians. If you are not a Christian, you’re off the hook on this one! When I hear Christians constantly insisting on their “rights” it makes me nervous. Sure, we have fundamental rights like everyone else, but we have a higher obligation than  constitutionally guaranteed free speech, a concept that I should say is not found in scripture. Our “right” to free speech ends when the words we speak serve to drive people away from the Gospel of Christ. We are told that the number one identifying characteristic we should be known for is…love. The New Testament positively teems with admonitions to kindness and humility, exhortations to self control and patience and that almost forgotten word…forbearance. I see almost none of these traits on social media when the subject is politics. And love? Forget it…the stakes are too high.

No, they are not. If success on election day requires me to make enemies of those I disagree with, count me out.

But this rudeness thing isn’t just in politics. It’s everywhere now. All of us seem to be walking around just waiting to be offended, our sensitivities on a hair-trigger. Nobody knows how to take a joke anymore. Every disagreement gets conflated into an insult. The reason we have lost the ability to laugh at ourselves is because our self-regard is at all all-time high. In all of human history no people have been more enamored with themselves than 2024 Americans. We are all just so damned special. Well, I am here to let you all in on a little secret. I’m a pretty decent guy, I’ve done some cool things in my life, and I’ve had my share of success…however, beneath all of that lies a dude with a boatload of problems. The list of my foibles is a mile long. Every now and then I deserve to be humiliated, to tell the truth. When my mother was alive she could be counted on to disabuse me of any delusions of grandeur that I may have had. And as I’ve gotten older my sins have become easier for me to recognize. With age has come greater humility, still probably not enough. Once your own failings and mistakes become easier to see it makes it easier to cut other people some slack for theirs. The remedy for an over developed self-regard is…kindness. We all have to relearn kindness, that fundamental element of the ancient concept of manners.

I don’t get it right every day, far from it. But when I try to go out of my way to be kind to someone, everything begins to change. Before speaking I start to ask myself…Is what I’m about to say helpful? Is it absolutely necessary? Is it kind?” Maybe one day these filters will start working more consistently than they currently do, but I think they are pretty good filters, don’t you?

Keeping My Wits About Me

I’ve been back home now for several days and finally falling back into the predictable daily routines that make my life work. The only thing missing has been writing, this being the first couple of sentences I’ve written in over a week. The book I’m working on has been lying dormant for over a month, the last creative flash happening one of the first nights we were at Fernwood Cottage. It is a rare occurrence when I have nothing in my head to write about.

I have a few things on the schedule this week that have caused me no small amount of anxiety, tomorrow’s doctor’s appointment, and this book reading Zoom event I have Thursday at noon. I was told by my publisher that I had been selected, along with two other new authors, to read a selection of my choosing on a Zoom call that will have in its audience many other authors, plus any friends who happened to register for the event. I am given 15 minutes to read, followed by the other two authors. Then there will be a Q and A from anyone in the audience, all of whom will be invisible to me. I was nervous enough doing this live in front of 130 people who I love at my book launch party. This will be different because most of those listening will be strangers. Of course, playing along in the background like bad elevator music are the wild gyrations of world equity markets, and the Shakespearian tragedy of the 2024 Presidential election.

Of the three anxiety-producers listed above, the easiest to deal with is the Zoom Reading. I mean, who cares? I’m a decent reader and I’m proud of the story. What’s the problem? Nothing really. If somebody asks a negative question, I have a pretty good track record of being fast on my feet and my capacity for pithy snark is basically unchallenged at this point.

As far as the Presidential election is concerned, I have resigned all previous political affiliations permanently in recent years. I’ve done my bit. It’s time for someone else to lose sleep over politics. And the stock market is best known for acting out in this way. It has a long history of histrionics. This too will pass. These two things—the stock market and politics—are one and two on the list of things I have no power to change.

The doctor’s appointment is another thing all together. They are the one place I go where my IQ drops 50 points as soon as the doctor walks in the examining room. I can’t half remember what I’m even there for. I get quiet and apprehensive and oddly passive. When he or she speaks to me it sounds like the parents in the Charlie Brown cartoons. Then my ability to remember any single thing he or she says vanishes as soon as I reach the parking lot. Consequently, Pam has instructed me to write all of my symptoms down, along with everything I can remember about them ahead of time, then come up with a list of questions to ask, so I don’t sit there, mute as the dead like some slack-jawed ignoramus. But I suppose Pam is right when she says that this is what life is like when you reach a certain age. You have to learn how to manage good working relationships with a whole host of physicians. Part of how you do this is keeping your wits about you when you’re in small rooms with them. 

I’m working on it.