We Zoomed to Shabbat services at Shir Hadash this evening; one new custom that has developed during the pandemic is for the Rabbi to offer up a question and then send us to small breakout rooms to discuss it. Tonight’s question was “has there been a thorn you’ve encountered in your life this week, or was there a rose, or are you seeing a bud that will blossom in the future?”

I didn’t get a chance to speak, but if I had, I would have mentioned something which is both a thorn and a bud. Today, Santa Clara County announced that they’ll be starting to offer vaccinations to 65-and-up Real Soon Now – and that prompted us to start looking at travel again, in particular planning air travel for the Africa trip we hope to take in the fall, which is complicated by my 50th high school reunion’s timing – we’ll have to fly from Kilimanjaro to Richmond with very little margin for delays.

It was wonderful to contemplate traveling again for fun – but I’d forgotten how aggravating the process of finding flights for a complicated trip is! C’est la vie!

Do you know where you were 10 years ago today? I do — I woke up very early that day because I had a very important appointment to have a plumbing problem fixed.

The problem was in my heart. I’d been born with a bicuspid aortic valve instead of the usual tricuspid valve, and it was failing. I’d been told I had a heart murmur a few years previously, which might or might not have meant anything. But one day at the gym, I found that I couldn’t run for more than 10 seconds – and when it happened again a week later, I went to my doctor to see what was going on.

After a few tests, they gave me the news – I had a defective aortic valve. It would get worse and worse until it failed – but I probably could wait up to 18 months before doing anything about it. Probably. And the only option was a valve replacement, which required open-heart surgery.

I did a lot of research, talked to people who’d been through the procedure, and eventually settled on Dr. Vincent Gaudiani. And on the morning of the 14th of January, 2011, I woke up bright and early (actually, it was 4:30am, so early it was still dark outside) to be his first patient of the day – I was at the hospital (Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City) by 5am, and unconscious not long afterwards.

I’m told the operation went well – I slept through it, and didn’t really wake up fully until the morning of the 15th. A few days later, they discharged me, giving me a lovely card for my wallet.

I still carry it.