March 9, 2026
This week’s adventure included a dental nightmare, a 10-hour ER visit for Charles, mysterious pancreatic lesions… and a Jewish grandmother who taught me something about resilience.
If the subject line made you curious enough to open this week’s update, you’re probably wondering:
“Where exactly is she surfing?”
Well, I’m still in Roseville, and the only body of water I see regularly is the bird bath.
I’m speaking metaphorically.
Jon Kabat-Zinn, the author of Full Catastrophe Living and creator of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program, famously said:
“You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”
And that’s exactly what I’ve been trying to do.
Because this week felt like standing in the ocean during a tsunami. I had two choices: let the waves pull me under, give up, and drown… or learn to ride them.
The trick isn’t stopping the storm.
It’s remembering you’re still the captain.
So here’s what happened.
Monday started with a bang.
I was seven days post-molar extraction and still in excruciating pain. In fact, the seven days after the extraction were worse than the twelve days of toothache that led to it. When I went back to the dentist, he told me I’m healing much slower than usual, which wasn’t exactly the news I was hoping for.
I tried one dose of Tramadol, a weak opioid, but it made me feel strange and didn’t help the pain. Tylenol didn’t touch it either.
Meanwhile, Charles had just come home the day before from his cardiac ablation at Stanford when he suddenly started having visual disturbances. The arrhythmia hotline nurse told him to go straight to the ER to make sure he wasn’t having a stroke.
Ten hours and every imaging test imaginable later, they determined it was an ocular migraine, which can happen after an ablation.
So neither of us slept Monday night.
Then, as if things couldn’t get any more exciting, I received the results of my recent imaging which showed new lesions on my pancreas.
Needless to say, that got my attention — especially since my brother died of pancreatic cancer.
But I also knew it would be days before I could speak with a doctor about it. So instead of playing the Olympic sport of What If, I literally just said “WHATEVER” and moved on.
There was nothing I could do in that moment anyway.
What it did convince me of is that I’m getting a concierge doctor ASAP so I can shorten my “worry time” and get answers sooner.
For now, they said it can wait until my annual PET scan in April. It could even just be a residual effect from the pancreatitis I had for 66 days last year.
So…
How was your week? 🤣
If life sent you a few waves too, feel free to hit reply and tell me about it. While I can’t always respond, I read every message and greatly appreciate them.💞
This unusually stressful week reminded me of one of my favorite old Jewish jokes that my beloved grandfather, Papoo, loved to tell:
A Jewish grandmother is walking along the beach with her beloved only grandson.
She’s watching him play in the sand, smiling, kvelling, thinking, This is the light of my life.
Suddenly — a massive wave crashes in and sweeps the boy out to sea.
She throws her arms to the heavens:
“God! Please! He’s my only grandson! I light the candles every Friday night! I never miss a High Holiday! I give to charity! I’ve suffered enough! Please bring him back!”
The sky darkens.
The wind howls.
Another wave rises… and gently places the boy right back at her feet.
Perfectly dry. Perfectly safe.
The clouds part. Sunshine. A beam of heavenly light.
The grandmother looks at the boy.
She looks back up at the sky.
Pauses. And says:
“He was wearing a hat.”
I realized this week that sometimes… I’m the grandmother on the beach.
I pray for good news. I get good news.
And then I look up and say…
“But what about the hat?”
My lung scan is stable… but what about the pancreas?
The tooth extraction is slowly healing… but what about the pain and the hole?
I can eat… but not what I want, and I can’t chew on that side.
Charles came through his cardiac ablation… but he’s very fatigued.
The wave returned the boy.
And I’m still looking for the hat.
Maybe resilience isn’t pretending we don’t notice the hat is gone.
Maybe it’s catching ourselves when we do… and saying, “Thank you for the miracle.”
Before we start asking about the accessories.
So if life has been sending you a whole orchard of lemons lately, my advice is simple:
Open a lemonade stand.
Because life will keep coming.
And so will the waves.
The skill is riding them — not stopping them.
Love & Surfboards,
AJ 💜
From the Puppy Files
With both Charles and me recuperating this week, we haven’t been able to do quite as much as usual.
So we’ve been enjoying two new shows on Hulu recommended by my sister — the family TV maven. She always picks the best shows.
Since I can’t watch anything heavy or dramatic right now, we’ve been loving Best Medicine (think Resident Alien meets Northern Exposure) and the return of Scrubs.
But honestly, our favorite entertainment is still the pups, who seem to live every day in a constant state of joy.
Here they are after one of their nightly Zoomies.
