2. Infectious Diseases

While the FDA dallies, the American medical establishment takes umbrage at the rapid outsourcing of its market. Doctors here are not happy with me.

“Why not total hip replacement?” they ask. “It’s so reliable here.”

“Too invasive,” I respond, “a waste of good femurs.”

“Do you know how many infectious diseases India has?”

Nothing like the epidemic of guns and hummers here, I think, realizing how alienated I feel from my own culture with its raw, unregulated greed.

The doctor at the travel clinic knows her stuff. But Maud has issues with her 4-inch stilettos and pointy toes.

What decent doctor would do that to her own body? Maud asks me.

She doesn't like being short, I whisper.

She should worry more about being stupid, Maud huffs. Does she really think those shoes enhance her stature and authority?

Maybe it's for sex appeal, I suggest. Her generation cut their teeth on MTV.

Doesn't look sexy to me, just stupid, Maud insists.

Shush, I warn. You're not sexy to her either.

Phil, ever the diplomat, says: "You have a wonderful hospital here."

"Yes, if we can keep it," the doctor replies solemnly.

She is being conservative, she says, for our protection and orders up doses of hepatitis A and B, typhoid, and pneumovax at $743 plus malaria pills and precautionary drugs for diarrhea at $81. To ward off mosquitoes: $20.

"And the water. Only drink bottled water," she warns, "With the seal intact. The bubbly kind is best." She really is good.

The medical assistant who administers the shots sniffles with a certifiably infectious disease. Should be home in bed, but maybe isn't paid enough to protect her patients.

Maud studies the assistant's long, stylishly unkempt hair and the red plastic daggers glued to her nails. Don't ask, I warn.

Three black teens in saggy jeans and bandanas pass in the corridor. The assistant mutters, "Oh my Lord," and slams her door--multiplying the likelihood of sharing her germs with us.

Racism is an infectious disease, I whisper to Maud. But I am too cowardly to say it to the assistant with her arsenal of hypodermics.

By evening, Phil is doing fine; I am not. My upper arms ache, stiff with pain-- the AMA’s revenge.

Next morning, Phil helps me put on my socks knowing we have offended a dangerous lobby. One bad hip has made us a market force.

1. Finding Maud

"You should write a blog, Mom."

Our older son, Lars, says it casually, smiling.

His words warm me. I usually feel sidelined and irrelevant to his generation, a nuisance really.

Four years ago, I consciously began to withdraw from the world, narrowing my focus to those things I need to do before I die. Now my son is inviting me to venture into cyberspace.

I begin cautiously at his blog, “Bottles & Bones” at blogspot.com. The title memorializes items Lars and Kerrie found in the land they bought from her parents to build their home in the woods.

This semi-scary adventure led them to blog. From their familiar terrain, I find my way to the button that says: GET YOUR OWN BLOG.

My blog requires a name. I decide to sleep on it.

Lying in bed the next morning, I search my subconscious to see if a name is emerging. She appears, not merely a name, but a presence: Maud.



Already I have lived almost twice as long as Maud had in 1914, when she died at 31, along with her fourth baby. Two other children survived. The older one, who was 5, would become my mother.

Lars, an illustrator who specializes in ghouls and monsters, found Maud's large portrait in its gilt frame too spooky to bear. If he was home alone, he would turn it to the wall.

He says: "She keeps staring at me!"

A-ha! I laugh. Thank you, Maud.

I relent and put her in the closet. She does not hold it against me. Nor does she stay there. She knew cyberspace before we did.

Her name calls up in me a sense of ineffable kindness and hope. So we are making this journey together as Phil takes pictures and helps us reflect on larger meanings.

We'll be right here if you want to come visit Maud & Me!