With Hurricane Dennis’s destructive power all but spent, news concerning Karl Rove’s mounting troubles dominated the airwaves yesterday. Notwithstanding the President’s expression of confidence in him, Rove will likely be history by August. Of considerably less interest was the turgid price movement on the nation’s major bourses. For traders, it was the kind of day that could make glue-sniffing seem like an appealing alternative.  I had other things to do myself, like tidying up my desk. I also bid my wife adieu as she left for Steamboat Springs with two college friends for a week of R&R. That means the kids are all mine for the next few days, but we’ll be headed up to Steamboat as well come Friday. Meanwhile, it’s Wendy’s for dinner – either that or some of my not-yet famous left-handed macaroni. I can type with two fingers of my right hand but am discovering that the efficiency gained has a cost, since it causes my wrist to swell up just enough to make those surgical pins push against the cast. I’m already looking forward to getting the thing removed on August 17, but until then I hope you’ll pardon me for keeping my comments brief.

Here’s an item about anesthesia that popped up in a chat group -- coincidentally, just days after my surgery. It is from the L.A. Times:

Post-Surgical Risks

“One study, presented last fall at the American Society of Anesthesiologists annual meeting by Swedish researchers, showed that the duration spent under deep anesthesia is a significant risk factor for predicting death up to two years after surgery. Although the patients in the study were undergoing non-cardiac surgery, most deaths resulted from heart attacks or cancer.

“The other study, published in the journal Anesthesia & Analgesia in January by Duke University researchers, found that longer amounts of time spent under deep sedation increased the risk of death in the year following surgery. The patients in the Duke study underwent major, non-cardiac surgery with general anesthesia, and again, deaths in the first year after surgery were primarily from heart attacks or cancer.”

There was also this reassuring tidbit from another member of the chat group: “Hades, man! You really want to stump your anesthesiologist? Ask him how it works. They have no clue. They really do not completely understand how it works in the brain. However their honest guess is it destroys a tonne of cells. Worse is open heart surgery. I asked why so many men acted so emotional after the surgery...with the loss of blood and heavy dope it is amazing the brain survives much less the heart.”

Medical Arrogance

The morning of my surgery, I had discussed with the anesthesiologist the pros and cons of using a general vs. a local. I asked him about something that the owner of a health food store had told me years earlier -- that my hay fever was probably a result of my immune system having been compromised by a general anesthetic I'd received when I had a broken arm repaired at age 5. The anesthesiologist, who looked to be in his mid-30s, seemed bemused by the question, replying that, no, he had never heard of such a thing.

I'm always amazed when the medical journals report the discovery of things that have been known to lay health practitioners for decades, if not hundreds or even thousands of years. The medical professional's arrogant skepticism toward this body of knowledge, and the insurers' understandable interest in suppressing quackery, will likely continue to thwart any real progress toward basic cures. Meanwhile, we'll have to resign ourselves to the hubris of an age in which doctors have all but mastered the mechanical tricks of bringing symptomatic relief but possess little basic knowledge about human health. In the interim, let's pray that none of us finds himself in the office of the neurologist, medicine's deepest pit of hopelessness, despair and fundamental ignorance.