Finding a Still Space in a Mad, Mad World

I had an interesting discussion with the doctor who helps us dose cannabis and monitor Sophie's progress on the oil. We spoke a bit about the obduracy of Certain Neurologists. She agrees that it's a real and maddening, frustrating puzzle and also believes that the deeply wired ethic of the field demands a sort of ego superiority over the patient and definitely over the parent of the patient. When I try to look back in an unbiased way at the many encounters I've had over the years with neurologists from all over the country, I am really struck by the negative similarities that go way beyond what we might have once called bad bedside manner. I've agonized over my biases -- am I too angry? too stubborn? too opinionated? too too? I wonder whether the neurology field attracts a certain kind of personality or whether the personality is affected by the field -- a kind of chicken or egg coming first conundrum. We all grew up hearing the expression It isn't brain surgery, after all! to describe even the most herculean task in comparison to what is perceived as the most difficult branch of medicine. Yet, there's this arrogance that reveals itself in the cannabis revolution as a cover for what might just be a nearly primitive fear or shame, a tail-between-the-legs kind of running away when the dog isn't chained to a post, lunging and barking. This morning as I contemplated the universe, I nearly laughed aloud at an article in the paper describing the creation of an atomic clock so precise that it won't lose or gain a single second in 15 billion years -- roughly the age of our universe. Get me one of those.

Yesterday, Sophie didn't have a single seizure -- not even a small one.