Bedlam Farm Blog Journal by Jon Katz

I’ve written a number of times about my frustration with male doctors especially surgeons –  many of whom have gone to medical school for many years but never been taught effectively to their patients or sometimes, to talk to them at all.

I’ve shifted to all women doctors for treatment of my general health, my diabetes and heart disease.

I feel a strong chemistry and trust with every one of them.  They all know me and have helped me stay healthy and active, even with two chronic diseases.

But in fairness, it is always unfair to generalize so broadly, and  there are some wonderful male doctors, I’m sure. I’ve just encountered  one, a male physician who is both competent, sensitive and human.

It’s only fair for me  to write about Dr. Timothy Kelling, who is just as nice as he looks. And, in my experience quite rare. I’ve never been sorry to be finished with a dental oral surgeon.

I haven’t written about my implant issues – I really hate writing and talking about my health, it often turns to “old talk,” a fatal social disease.

But it’s part of the story of Dr. Kelling and me

Three years ago, my dentist noticed a problem with a tooth in the top row of mouth. He said it had triggered an infection that was causing a deterioration of the gum and possibly the bone. He said this happened rarely, but was serious. The tooth had to come out.

The tooth was removed, and my dentist urged me to get an implant, to keep the adjoining teeth strong.

He suggested an oral surgeon in Bennington, they removed the tooth.

I had an implant inserted there, and it was a problem from the beginning. I had to return three times for additional surgery before it seemed to settle.

The very male surgeon didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t explain what was going on, or what my options were.

But the implant didn’t settle, from the first,  the implant caused much more trouble than the tooth.

It became infected, but because gum infections are often self-contained, it wasn’t evident beyond some occasional soreness. Several months ago, my dentist did an x-ray and freaked out over the deterioration of the bone above the tooth that was taken out.

She said she thought the implant had failed and urged me to get to an oral surgeon – Dr. Kelling of Northeast Surgical Specialists in Saratoga Springs.

He examined me, and told me there was a serious problem. He said the implant was not healthy, and the area around it was infected and threatened the adjoining tooth.

I was at risk for losing three or four teeth, or sustaining serious bone damage and the risk of greater infection. I was concerned, I knew I might be facing years of painful and expensive surgery. I also trusted this person intuitively.

Dr. Skelling scheduled surgery immediately to remove the implant and clear out the infection and then graft bone in the gum opening and around the adjoining tooth.  He carefully and without rushing, explained what had happened and what we could do about it. I never felt I was taking too much of his time, he never acted as if he were too important to talk to me.

He never bombarded me with data. I always felt like a human being.

I asked him where the bone came from, he said it was cadaver bone.  I did ponder that for a while.

(Thank you, whoever you were.)

I didn’t want to write about this, I wasn’t ready for an avalanche of dental horror stories and advice.

I said what I usually said to doctors I trust, do what you think best. What the hell did I know about implants and bones and infections? I just wanted it to get fixed.

I knew it was a serious surgery because there were four people in the room – Dr. Kelling and three medical techs and nurses – for a  couple of hours.

This was several months ago.  There was a lot of blood and gauze, and I was out of it for a couple of days. Compared to what so many people go through, this was minor.

I have been back several times, including this morning. Dr. Kelling is always patient, he explains clearly what is happening, even as he is examining me. He asks me enough questions about my life to get to know me.

He doesn’t just want to do the work and get out of the room.

He is also very busy. He is also very nice. So are the people around him.

The charge for this surgery was $850, and he charged nothing for three subsequent visits, all with X-rays. I was expecting a bill of $4,000 to $5,000. He was unfailingly courteous and sensitive to me.

The operation was not fun, but he made sure I was in no pain. I felt very confident about him. He did a great job.

I’ve had a lot of encounters with male doctors over the last few years, and this doctor is quite special. I just felt I had to acknowledge that.

I don’t  have to see Dr. Kelling for four months. Part of it is gratitude, I know.

He is pleased at the healing going on in my gums. The bone graft has been successful, my nearby teeth are secure. Today, he removed some loose bone graft fragments. I hope the cadaver was a good writer, that’s what I was thinking, forgive me.

I think I will leave a space between those teeth, I’m not up for another implant.  Maria says it’s kind of cute.

Dr. Kelling’s work was impressive, he saved the adjoining teeth, which were in danger.  And rebuilt the bone around the damaged area. There was no fuss, confusion, or drama. It was not a simple procedure.

I don’t need any further surgery. He really saved me from enormous trouble and pain and expense, or worse.

And he could not have been nicer or more available. The odd thing is that I will miss him. We are not pals, I’m not looking for that. He is just a very good and compassionate doctor.

At the end of our time today, he came around to look at me, and he said he wanted to apologize. I could not imagine what he was apologizing about.

The office had just installed a new computer system and he had to turn his back to me for a couple of minutes to look at my X-rays. He said he was very sorry. I was speechless.

I asked if I could take a photo. He said sure.

I suppose it had to happen sooner or later – I met a male doctor I felt absolutely comfortable with and who knows how to talk. It never pays to generalize.

Thomas Toscano sometimes looks to me like what I imagine the Prophet Isaiah might have looked like,  and he has the made eyes of Arturo Toscanini. who he worshipped as a child and then as an opera singer, composer and conductor.

He is also, to me, a historic figure, the face of Community Radio, a once vibrant but now struggling form of media, fighting for its life against the Corporate Juggernaut that is devouring our media.

Thomas is the Executive Director of WBTNAM1370, a community radio station in Bennington, Vt. It is one of the few remaining community radio stations in the country, it is non-profit media organization dedicated to giving voice to the people, not just the stockholders.

When these stations are gone, we will be left entirely at the mercy of the mega-media corporations that our destroying our news culture, and not incidentally, damaging our democracy as well.

Free speech lives on Community Radio, and I think it is a powerful testament to our animal show that  neither Thomas nor I could ever be hired on a corporate media radio outlet, which almost all radio stations now are.

I love my weekly two hour broadcast, Talking To Animals, I’ve wanted to do a radio show like this for a long time. But one reason I decided to do it at this time was WBTN and the idea that perhaps we could forestall or prevent the Corporarte Onslaught from devouring this little radio station as well.

Thomas, who helps me get “Talking To Animals” on the air every Wednesday is outspoken, outrageous, brilliant, passionate and tired. He practically lives in the radio station doing 50 or 60 hours of programming a week.

He is a refugee from New York City. He worked in the opera there, was a composer and conductor.  He left the city after his girlfriend told him he had to leave their condo. “I am the worst boy friend in the world,” he concedes.

When I took out my camera – I love taking his picture – he held up his hand – ever the diva – and said “wait, I have to put my conductor face on.”

I take a portrait shot of Thomas every week, that face is a living gallery.

I think Thomas and I are friends, if you count trading late-night texts about one of our joint obsessions, British mysteries on streaming channels. We each know the name of every British DCI and DC on Netflix or Amazon Prime or Hulu.

So he did, and there it is. No smiling, just those blazing furnace like eyes. (Thanks Eileen, for sending those White House subs from Atlantic City. He told me today that his favorite food is Memphis Ribs.)

Thomas is a dinosaur, the last of a breed, a fierce individualistic who has renounced every single thing we are told we must have – money, security. convention free wisdom. In a country that invented the free-thinker, they are now a vanishing breed, humbled by health care costs and corporate blandness, hunted down like refugees, silenced by greed,  pushed to the edge of our world.

Listening to Thomas talk politics can single the rest of my hair right off. “I am Sicilian,” he says haughtily. Yes, he is. And a child prodigy Sicilian at that.

This radio station feels like a last stand to me, kind of like the Alamo. You know they will come for us sooner or later, but in the meantime, it is a hell of a ride.

I think one day I will get to the station and find Thomas molded into his chair in front of his radio programming computer. He needs a few days off.

When I do interviews on other radio stations, they are swarming with staff – somebody to get coffee, escort guests, monitor phone calls, cue ads and  announcements, write copy. At WBTN it is just Thomas, there is no one else but Suzanne, a part-time producer who come in in the mornings out of love and loyalty, not money.

I am going to fight hard to help make the show work, and it does seem to be working, but I also hope to fight for this station, build during the Korean War, and forgotten almost ever since.

Community radio is the last stop for the voices of real people. The screaming head and Barbie Men and Women on cable news are ready and willing to take over. Just look at their news and shudder.

This radio station has to survive. You can help here.

As for my show, it’s good and hard work. I’m getting more calls, and they are very good calls. Anyone who gets through is a kind of hero to me, brave and determined.

There are lots of media out there for people to consume, and this station will have to fight hard for it’s nice in the world. I think we are on the way, and I hope that me and the Army Of Good can help Thomas and his station survive. They are trying some exciting things, and they claim I am one of them.

We’ll see. Thanks for your interest. I told Thomas today that I have never met anyone like him.

“Really?,” he replied,  raising a bushy eyebrow. “I bet you’ve met a lot of people.”

“I have,” I said, “but no one quite like you.”

I have come to believe that we are all mirrors of one another, especially when we encounter the troubling, frightening, negative people and things and stories and events that are so much a part of life.

It could be a callous politician, an angry neighbor, an ugly storm, a traffic accident, a burst of violence, a wrenching shooting of innocent people, a vicious Tweet or  e-mail, a Tsunami in Asia, an earthquake in Tibet.

Or some more bad news.

We look for who to blame, who to cheer, who to pity, who to punish.

We experience troubling things as random occurrences, or as one minister put it, “shreds from the patchwork fabric of modern life that we were unlucky enough to witness” or learn about.

The mystics writing in their caves thousands of years ago had a different idea, one that has stuck in my mind for years, I first read of it in the writings of St. Augustine, and then again, in the Kabbalah.

These mystical thinkers believed that nothing we ever see is a coincidence, everything, especially something troubling and frightening – has a reason an a purpose and a message for us.

On the spiritual level, they taught, everything we see is a mirror in which we are reflected ourselves.  An angry message says something about my own anger and rage.  An earthquake or accident speaks to me of the fragile nature of all of our lives.

Killings of innocent people and the trials of the needy challenge me to pay more attention to my spiritual work, to continue on my path towards rebirth and renewal and transformation.

Albert Einstein once wrote that “God does not play dice with the universe.”  Everything that happens needs to happen, what I see in the outer world is a reflection of what I need to see inside of me.

Throughout life, she walks gently,

so she can treat all of life with reverence,

and take off her shoes in the presence of

Our Holy Mother’s creatures and sacred woods,

and twigs and rocks,

and feel the earth on her bare feet,

and right up into her soul.

Throughout her life, she walks with humility,

rarely in anger, she moves lightly, often joyfully

through the days, and gives thanks for every single one.

She is ever grateful for life’s many gifts –  a spider’s web,

a full moon, a cup of hot chocolate, the tracks of  of a mouse

in the snow, the creative spark, for love, a snail’s crawl, for a donkey’s whisper, for a rock that glistened in the sun, the soft kiss

of the wind.

I can’t walk so gently,

I sometimes feel so cold and lost around her,

a shadow of darkness in the light

but  one of the gifts she gives thanks for is me,

a gift of life all of its own.

For her, life is a rich journey, a miracle that never ceases,

the chance for wonder.

That is how she walks gently through life.

I’ve always felt that dogs are my spiritual partners more than they are my pets. They mark the passages of my life,  teach me the meaning of patience and acceptance, and walk by my side as I navigate my life.

Gus and Bud were the first small dogs I have ever had, and I think the small dogs can  enter our spiritual lives in a different way, mostly because they can go places other dogs can’t.

Their work seems to be getting close to humans and soothing them. In recent weeks, I’ve started a new and important spiritual practice, I call it the Healing Hour, or sometimes, the Quiet Hour.

Late in the afternoon, I lie down in a big soft chair in the living room, I usually put my earbuds in and listen to music in my Iphone, sometimes pop, sometimes old rock, sometimes rap or Gregorian Chant.

This week, I’ve been listening to an album by Jeremy Dutcher called Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, it is especially beautiful.

I sit in silence, alone. Maria is in her studio working on her art, Fate is usually with her in the afternoons. The animals have been fed for the final time in the day, if it is bitter cold, the barn cats are in the basement, dozing and chasing mice.

This time of year, my hour begins in the light and ends in the dark. It is a beautiful, peaceful, healing time for me, a time to be alone, to think, maybe to heal, we humans are always healing if we are open to it.

Sometimes I drift off to sleep and dream, usually I just let my mind go where it wants to go, rather than were some device tells it to go.

Bud usually starts the hour by lying next to the wood stove, sleeping quietly. Sometime during the hour – my eyes are usually closed – I feel a sudden pressure on my stomach or my chest. It’s Bud, he has come up to rest with me, and be close to me. He slowly lies vertically up my stomach and across my heart. he rests his head near my shoulder, and watches me for a minute or two and then drifts off to sleep.

This is something Red would never do, jump up on me like that. He is lying by my feet, still, he knows how to be around me.

We both stay this way in the quiet and peacefulness until my phone alarm goes off and it’s time for me to get up, get back to work, or start thinking about cooking dinner.

I have come to love this hour of rest and quiet, it has become a sacred time for me. Writers desperately need some quiet and space just to think, that is precious time in our world.

I must be honest, I love Bud’s visits, they seem very spiritual to me, as if he is joining in my spiritual hour. I don’t see how that could be, but that’s what it feels like, and that’s the thing about dogs, you can put whatever you wish onto them, and if they can, they will rise to it.