- I am pushing eighty-five; I have two kinds of cancer; I am undergoing chemotherapy; so, I feel generally quite crappy most of the time. I am thankful to be alive.
- In the course of my long life, I have had four incidents during which I died and was resuscitated. I have had multiple life-threatening infections including C. dif., septic shock, major infected wounds, and am left with chronic incurable MERSA infection [Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus]. Had these occurred twenty years earlier, I most probably would not have survived. I am thankful to be able to live and to enjoy my family.
- Speaking of that, I have had one superb wife whom I have known for 82 years, have been married to for 63 years, and with whom I have enjoyed the lives of three children who have grandchildren, eleven grandchildren who remain close to me, and their children, my now eight great grandchildren and shortly to have another. For that blessing, I am profoundly thankful.
- My father was a hard taskmaster, an assiduously honest man, and the hardest worker I have ever known. He and my mother survived the bitterest of existences during the Great Depression, which included starvation, poverty on a dreadful scale, and a long fight to survive. They did that, and they prospered. I learned from them; I honor their memory; and I started life with the example to follow of goodly parents.
- My good wife and I have been through most of the entire cycle of life together: birth, death, triumph, failure, betrayal, sickness, health—for richer and poorer. We remain steadfastly together, able to cope, and neither of us is blasé in the least about any of that. We are grateful that we have what we have and that we can do what we do. For us, it is sufficient.
- By dint of very hard work, my wife and I have good educations, both from school and from our experience filled lives together. We have had the marvelous opportunity to travel the world for a number of reasons, to become friends with people not like us, and to learn how different people think, feel, and believe. That is a most valuable set of memories for which we regularly celebrate our own thanksgiving.
- I know about war, too much about war. My children, my children’s children, and my grandchildren’s children, have not had to experience any of that. I thank my government, my marvelous military establishment as an American, and the safety and security they have provided me and mine. I am a simple old patriotic flag waver, and unashamed to be. It is not by chance that such blessings rest on the people of my country; and for them, I am grateful.
- In the course of my varied careers, I have seen, heard, felt, and come to know, things that most people should never have to know. I was one of those men—like military veterans, police officers, firemen, and other first responders—who had to get up in the night so that others could stay safe in their beds. I have vivid memories and have learned serious truths in so doing. However, I am thankful that my progeny have not had to do so.
- I am a doctor and a thorough going pragmatist. There was a time in my medical and naval career that I had to take care of people with insoluble health problems and who I could not save. I learned at the time to love many of them wholeheartedly and mourned their passing heavily. My own health issues have ingrained in me a deep understanding of what it means to suffer, to be afraid, and to feel that hope is lost. From that I learned not only sympathy but more important empathy, and I was able to translate that to my approach to patients and with my fellow man. I was a better doctor and a better person for having had that experience, and I give thanks that I did.
- I had the great good fortune of having been born into a church that—at the time—was relatively small in numbers and unpopular. I know about discrimination and disrespect up close and personal. I was taught to bear up, to turn the other cheek, and to defend my religion against those who called it a “cult”, and not to leave it for a more trendy or “mainstream” copout. It toughened me, gave me purpose, and helped to define and clarify my core identity. I am thankful, and I will persist. My companions in advanced training, in the Navy, and in my travels with people more urbane and worldly than me, were “cool” and let me know. They were more a part of the mainstream with their knowledge of good wines, their ability to handle their liquor, and their upper crust disdain for the fact that I did not use tobacco. I was decidedly not cool, and it cost me as I went along. However, most of those people are gone, all too many from cancer, lung and heart disease. I remain standing and able to appreciate the great joy of just being alive.
- I had wonderful friends, neighbors, and congregation friends, over the course of my life. They added breadth and depth to my life’s experience and knowledge of what my priorities should be. I valued them greatly. Unfortunately, most of them have since died; and the number dwindles down every year that passes. I am left with fond memories, and that will have to be enough, I am thankful to have them.
- At my age, and with my health history—which has something from almost every column of disease except I have not been pregnant—the wheels are falling off the bus. The one thing that still functions well is my thinker. I can write, be logical, and understand the world around me. That seems like an important thing to retain, and I am grateful that I do.
THINGS FOR WHICH I RENDER THANKSGIVING
- Carl Douglass
- Neurosurgeon Turned Author Writes With Gripping Realism
- Author Masterminds Charter Member
- September 13, 2024
- 2:53 pm
I chose to use a pseudonym for personal reasons. I’m a retired neurosurgeon living in a rural paradise and am at rest from the turbulent life of my profession. I lived in an era when resident trainees worked 120 hours a week–a form of bondage no longer permitted by law. I served as a Navy Seabee general surgeon during the unpleasantness in Viet Nam, and spent the remainder of my ten-year service as a neurosurgeon in a major naval regional medical center. I’ve lived in every section of the country, saw all the inhumanity of man to man, practiced in private settings large and small, the military, academia, and as a medical humanitarian in the Third World.