That’s the plan

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.

Five more days ’til vacation. Five more days ’til vacation. Five more days ’til vacation.

It is hard to concentrate on my job. Not that I don’t love it here, but I’ve got to figure out ways to make it easy for my compadres to cope while I’m incommunicado for a month. They’ll be all right, but it’s just hard to plan for every eventuality.

I spent my weekend engaged with the positive aspects of preplanning. The garden is complete for the summer, except for two container peppers. It seems ornamental peppers are a little hard to come by this year. It’s all right, I’m sure I’ll be able to get some before I go on my road trip to Massachusetts. When I get back, assuming everything goes according to plan, I should have a massive garden that’s only in need of weeding.

Along other related lines, when my honey had her last glaucoma surgery, her eye doctor, Dr. Michael Stanko, had the presence of mind to put a little incision near her iris, just in case—in case—the lens replacement didn’t do all it needed to do to decrease the pressure in her eye. Well, that little forethought came in handy this weekend when the pressure exploded again. Hunter and I were sitting in the lobby Sunday morning when the good doctor did the laser surgery.

From down the hall, I could quite literally hear the excitement and—what—triumph?—in his voice when something magical happened. “We got it.” He was effusive when he brought her out. I didn’t know whether to congratulate him for a procedure well done or thank him for a procedure well done on my honey.

I will say this: I’ve never come across a doctor before who’d do a surgery on a Sunday morning or who gave a personal cell phone number to a patient. We do a lot of whining about medicine in this country, but sometimes its high costs are more than balanced by its high level of sophistication and the dedication of its practitioners.