Ezra's Essays

Category: Health/Medicine

  • BITS AND PIECES – PART II – “Piling On”

    When an essayist collects miscellaneous items for a Bits and Pieces essay, it is inevitable that some of the items have to do with thoughts we would all like to avoid. For nearly two years now, for example, the United States has been engaged in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. This sort of adventure inevitably…

  • BITS AND PIECES – PART I

    From time to time, there are some shorter subjects that demand the attention of the essayist. To devote a whole essay to these transient items would probably be more than they deserve. On the other hand, to fail to comment on such items would be a significant injustice. And so what we have here is…

  • BECAUSE THE RIVER’S WET BUT BEALE STREET DONE GONE DRY – W.C. Handy

    Last year, the United States Congress voted to declare the year 2003 the “Year of the Blues.” This took place while unemployment benefits ran out, while the U. S. was snarling at Iraq, while most of the Congress was seeking re-election and while the economy was limping along. But in the end, as someone who…

  • BITS AND PIECES – PART 2: ST. LOUIS, LUCKY, AND APHASIA REDUX,

    ST. LOUIS BLUES This is a small St. Louis story which comes from a news release from Washington. In 1764, Pierre Laclede and Auguste Chouteau, French explorers and fur traders, established a town on the west bank of the Mississippi River and named it after one of the French monarchs, Louis XV. You will be surprised…

  • AN OVER-ABUNDANCE OF DIURETICS

    This short essay started out to be named Mini-Seizures, TIA’s or Other Cardiac Related Disturbances. Later in the day after the overabundance of diuretics, prescribed and applied by myself, had tended to pass, this more civilized title now applies. The burden of what I am trying to say in this essay, is that if patients…

  • AR-THUR-I-TIS

    What passes for a brain in my head has not been wired for introspective examination. If introspection has to do with examining one’s own mind or its contents reflectively, I am here to tell you, that’s not how my mind works. Professors and hand wringers who write op-ed pieces in newspapers and publish articles in…

  • THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN ON LONG HILL DRIVE | STROKES AND THEIR AFTER EFFECTS

    In December, 1987 it was necessary to perform a coronary artery bypass graft involving four vessels on the author of this essay. The surgery was performed at New York Presbyterian Hospital and was accomplished by a mixed Jewish and Irish team followed by recovery where I was attended to by some of New York’s finest…

  • QUID PRO QUO

    As time sneaks up on us all, there is a question about Mr. Webster’s definition of compromise. He suggests that it is a settlement of differences by arbitration or by consent reached by mutual concessions. Now if it were all that easy, I’d say fine. Let’s raise the children in your faith of Buddhism and…

  • DOCTOR, MAY I HELP YOU WITH YOUR WORK? A TREATISE ON PRETENTIOUSNESS

    This essay is intended primarily for those who practice the art of medicine. The first part is devoted largely to those who practice ophthalmology. The second part refers to all of the physicians who are currently in practice. The title of this essay will inform you that it is my intention to offer some cogent…

  • IT’S ONLY THE FIRST INNING

    According to the Gregorian calendar, which I carry in my breast pocket at all times, in a few days I will have completed one year in the business of being blind. I had promised myself that I would take an assessment after one year of what the effects of being blind really meant. While I…