Risk

I am not risk adverse, though I am self protective, sometimes to the point of cowardice. But there is also a trait I have noticed of needing, let’s just say, a bit of calculated risk in my life. Since my eleventh year, I have been on the water. Much of that time was spent on Lake Michigan, a body of water that will provide as much risk, calculated or not, as anyone could want.

These years I am boating on Maine’s North Atlantic coast. This is a different world than the Great Lakes. It is not that it is more dangerous just more complicated. There are tides that average between 10 to 15 feet. These tides, along with the convoluted geography of islands and coves and rivers and rocks nestled along a corrugated mainland, make for strong currents and tidal races. And need I mention the fog.

Maine has the added attraction, which does exsist on the Great Lakes in a diminished state, of manmade hazards. Here I speak of the ever present lobster buoy. Maine’s lobster men and women manage to populate much of the coast with a system of colorful buoys that float within feet of each other if not closer.

A short cruise on a calm sunny day through the legions of buoys leaves the possibility of disaster always open. If one of the thousands of buoys passed managed to wrap around the boat’s propeller, well then, the boat is dead in the water. And as the water’s temperature is in the mid forties or low fifties diving in to untangle the line is not an option.

The purpose of the above several paragraphs is to give myself bona fides, and to make a case that I am not a scaredy-cat. Add to this that I practiced (and I do mean practiced) medicine on the south side of Chicago, and I think this should give me some cred.

On occasion, when confronted by a truly sick patient in the office I would tell them to go to the emergency room ASAP. By which I meant immediately. Most people confronted by such a demand begin a negotiation with themselves and eventually with me.

I understand this. They have responsibilities, which in many cases are deemed more important than their own well being. This lead to the inevitable question/statement, “I’ll go first thing in the morning . . .” To this I would respond that if their condition was making me, an old grisly white haired family practitioner nervous, then it should make them nervous.

This ended the conversation, and over the years my track record was, if I don’t say so myself, admirable. So, when I say that the Corona Virus has me nervous it should make everyone of my beloved readers nervous. Now is the time to error on the side of caution. Trust me, you do not want to be flat on your back with doctors trying to decide if you are worthy of a ventilator!

April 2020