New dresses, bunnies, and eggs aside, Easter has always been my favorite holiday. In elementary school I was aggravated that I had to go to school on Good Friday. After all, we were off for two weeks at Christmas and Easter was equally as important, or more so. Even as a child the importance of the “rest of the story” was apparent to me.

About twenty years ago our local newspaper published a front-page article saying that over fifty percent of Christians pastors did not believe in the resurrection. I remember thinking, how sad. It reminded me of the way I felt at the end of Jesus Christ Superstar. Andrew Lloyd Weber ended his famous musical drama with the crucifixion. Without the resurrection, the gospel message loses its joy, its victory, its power. We can die for ourselves. God doesn’t show his love for us, if Christ died and did not live again.

But Christ died and lived again. It is true. You have to take it on faith, but I am as certain of that truth as I am of the sun coming up in the morning and it causes a joy deep in my soul that nothing can shake. Believe the whole gospel message and you will know the joy, peace, and power that the living Jesus imparts through his Holy Spirit. Celebrate Easter.

A friend recently accused me of being naive. Not meaning it to be a compliment, he was surprised when I agreed with him. Naive, lacking worldliness, innocent, without artifice, simple, credulous as a child-these are what I am supposed to be as a born-again Christian so I am glad someone saw these things in me.

The most negative words in the thesaurus associated with naive were ignorant and unsophisticated. The world’s body of knowledge being what it is, I would claim that everyone is ignorant is many areas. A synonym of sophisticated is complicated. While not considered desirable, I won’t deny these descriptions of me. I am ignorant of so many things, sometimes by choice, often not, and my life is simple.

On Saturday I attended the Cave Run Story Telling Festival for the second time and found this year’s story tellers even better than last year. They were a perfect mix of funny and poignant. It reminded me again why I prefer attending funerals to visitations. I love the stories.

The stories that have stayed on my mind since Saturday were Kevin Kling’s. Kevin shared that from birth he had a deformity that made his left arm useless. Then he suffered an injury that rendered his right arm paralyzed. Now he does everything with his “useless” left arm. He finished his segment talking about the evolution of his prayers.

His first prayers were for things; his next prayers were for help, and now his prayers are prayers of gratitude. He is grateful. He did not list the things for which he is grateful, but you knew that along with being grateful for life and his ability to tell stories, he is grateful for his left arm. I am grateful for Kevin’s story and his courage to share it.

Classic signs of concussion are headache, loss of consciousness, and mental confusion, but you can have class 1 concussions without any of these symptoms. According to Dr. David Blake, a neurologist, my friend, and doctor, equally classical signs are loss of drive, creativity, and energy. Apparently, loss of smell, sleep disturbance, and excessive thirst are also common symptoms following head injury, but fortunately, I didn’t have those. The good news is that with rest, you do recover from class 1 concussions, though slowly.

Since I thought headache and unconsciousness were requirements, I hadn’t bothered to read about concussions after I nose-dived into the concrete floor on July 1. I beat myself up for so few blog posts and Facebook visits. Even though my face still has some bruising I thought I should be able to go on as normal. Dr. Blake putting a name to my injury helped me back-up and give myself permission to take time to heal.

We know that in a instant our lives can be forever changed, but we never expect it to happen to us. How many times have I fallen on the ice only to get up and go on as normal?A friend’s brother fell on the ice and died. I am sorry for a non-productive summer when Saving Jane Doe has just been released and there is so much to do, but I am grateful for the promise of recovery.

We take feeling good for granted and we should be grateful. Three weeks ago today I felt well. Nothing hurt, I awoke feeling rested and energetic. I often say a quick prayer of gratitude for that and expect to accomplish a lot through the day. That evening after my fall, I didn’t feel so well. No headache was a blessing, but the knot on my head was tender to touch and some tightness in my neck was uncomfortable. Specifics were hard to come by, but I just didn’t feel well. Four days later I did a colonoscopy prep and procedure. That was another assault. In spite of these assaults, I expected myself to be able to follow my normal daily routine.

Yesterday, I developed flashes in the eye on the side of my head injury. Careful exam showed no retinal detachment but did require dilation of my pupils which made me useless for hours. I gave myself permission to take a nap and did make it to choir practice last night. I always feel better after singing and did last night, but this morning that sense of being unwell returned.

I am learning that sometimes we need to back off of our expectations for ourselves. Even if serious harm is avoided with injuries, they are still injuries and we should not try to go on as if they never happened. I’ve decided as long as my face is black and blue, I am going to cut myself some slack and maybe let someone else cut the grass.

My friend who teaches medical students recently told me of a tee-shirt that said, ” Please don’t confuse your google search with my medical degree.” For several years she has complained that her students were too satisfied with the information they got from google searches on medical topics. She tells them that their patients are getting the same information. In defense of the medical degree, the students are perhaps better able to understand what they read and they have probably done many more google searches on medical topics.

But it is amazing how good your information can be from a google search. I recently wanted to know about fibrous dysplasia. I don’t believe it was even a diagnosis when I graduated medical school. From the google search I was lead to a foundation for the condition. On the foundation website I was able to read recent actual research papers on the topic. You can’t get better than that.

Nothing makes one more interested in a medical topic than you or a loved one having the diagnosis yourself. People who have conditions often know more about their condition than the average medical person, hopefully not more than a specialist. In addition to the google search, they have personal experience of the disease. Doctors do well to realize this truth.

Half my face is black. A spot above my right eye is very tender to touch. Needless to say, it is a bad hair day, but still I am grateful-grateful my brother and sister-in-law were there when I passed out and hit my head on the concrete floor; grateful I did not have a concussion and have not had a headache since the injury; grateful my family stayed with me two nights; grateful my injuries were not much worse.

I had never passed out in all my years. I knew about vaso-vagal reflex reactions, but I had never thought about laughter causing them. I got so tickled I passed out. Note I said tickled not pickled. The young man who did my cardiogram at the emergency room said it had happened to him once. Who knew?

What is perhaps most amazing is that I can’t tell you what was so funny. It was an inside joke between my brother and me. I may have to wear a helmet now because I love to laugh and I won’t give it up.

I attended a friend’s funeral yesterday, cried, laughed, and left feeling I knew Bev Raimondo better. It was celebration of a life well-lived, a tribute to a woman, beautiful in every way, loving wife, mother, sister, friend, and colleague. Having reached an age where these celebrations seem to come often, I’ve given some thought to why I prefer attending the funeral rather than visitation.

It is for the stories. At visitation people share wonderful stories with the family and as a family member I loved that. Many of those stories were new to me. They helped me know my parents better, to know them as other people knew them. But the stories told at the memorial are the ones the inner circle know. They are the stories the family have repeated over the years at holidays and reunions, the stories that made my friends laugh and cry over the years, the stories that make me know them better.

Celebrations of life make me reflect on what stories people will choose to tell about me. I hope my family will choose ones that will make people laugh, ones that made us laugh through the years. Whichever ones they choose, I hope they show how blessed I’ve been to have had these years and how much I love them.

Time flies when you are having fun. Can it really be June 3, 2016? Didn’t we just worry about the Y2K problem last year? Well, in defense of the saying, I have been having fun. I looked at my calendar for the last five months and discovered I have talked to nine book clubs and two other groups about Saving Jane Doe. I have done three radio interviews and written two articles. Cheryl Truman interviewed for the Lexington Herald article. A number of emails and notes from old friends and former patients who have read the book have filled my inbox and mailbox. I would have taken less than twenty years to write Saving Jane Doe if I had any idea how much fun it would be to market it. Fun gives marketing a whole new meaning.

This photo was taken at the Mercer County Library when I attended their Lunch Bunch Book Group. It contains a new friend, Wendy Hood, and an old patient, Becky Stigall. The librarians provided lunch and decorated the table with photos related to my book, the Downtowner Motel and Uncle Henry’s house.

Time flies when you are having fun!