Rumination on a Pharmicological Nuclear Test

Yes, thats where I was supposed to be today at the Cardiology department of Stony Brook Hospital. Didn’t make it as I am not feeling well enough to do the 12 hour no eating routine and running the treadmill. My Cardiologist thinks I may have some more blockages that are hindering my blood flow. Blood flow always interested me as I think of the heart simply as a pump. Having worked in a Powerhouse substation where pumps are critical to the operation of boilers, turbines etc. The human heart “pump” puts out 74 gallons an hour. Or 1776 gallons a day. You can keep multiplying that out for a year a lifetime etc. What an amazing organ.

Wow that’s far more than the main Worthington pumps were doing in the old sub-station. It is simply hard for me to believe that this little fist sized organ can do that kind of work. No wonder it gets tired. Mine has been doing that for 93 years. I am really sorry for this old heart. As reluctant as I am to be nuked I’m letting my doctor friends see if it overworking because of stuffed up pipes. I do hate doing this and I do keep putting it off. Eventually it will happen.

Same kind of blockage happened with the Powerhouse pipes leading to the steam boilers. They got corroded with minerals and before you knew it the old pumps were just giving up because of the back-pressure from the blocked pipes. A few years ago thats what they found with my pump. They opened up the blockage with a small metallic net called a “stint.’ Dr.'s think I may need another one.

All of this is just an opportunity to write about how technology has taken over our lives. Medical care is just one example. My lower back surgeries required numerous MRI’s X-ray's Cat-scans etc, I feel certain that without these interventions I probably wouldn’t be here, or at best I would be severely handicapped.

I live with this terrible ambivalence toward the Industrial Revolution. That was the birthplace of our technological revolution. It was also the birthplace of the emergence of the great middle class. All of us could have our very own washing machines, vacuum cleaners, homes, cars, boats, etc etc. Then inexorably it lead to the Electronic Revolution. That's where we are now. It is changing how we relate to one another, invades our privacy, our credit cards are totally revealing what we buy and where. And yes it helps doctors diagnose what is going inside of us. Probably most important, it is causing us to use up all the natural resources of our planet. (I will do a separate blog on how we are using up the planet.) Therein lies the dilemma.

I have a real nostalgia for what we have lost in how humans interact with each other. How we made things by hand. ie. before all tools got electrified. Where I grew up in the North Bronx the neighborhood seemed to be one big extended family. Having lost my mother at a young age it was quiet normal for me to be in a neighbors house having lunch or having some nice Italian women sewing my torn pants.

My grandchildren mostly are busy texmessaging and I don’t have the slightest idea how they relate to each other on a face to face basis. I also don’t know how this new generation would survive with out all the goodies brought to us via High Tech. I suppose I am just revealing the ambivalence of old age. For that I have no apologies. My best RS