Thoughts for Tuesday

I love my days at home.

I love that I don't have to get dressed and leave the house right away. I can work out, read the paper, play on the computer. Read. Fold laundry. Do a little writing. Shop. Do what I want, when I want.

This doesn't mean I accomplish a lot, necessarily. We'll just consider it at-home therapy. Sometimes, it's just whatever gets you through the day.

Lots of thoughts running through my head. Thoughts on spring break - we've made reservations for Big Bend National Park, which is, apparently, the least-visited national park in the U.S.A. We'll go there for a few days (staying at the Gage Hotel, circa 1920 - looks very nice), then on the way back, stop in Corpus Christi or South Padre for a couple days at the beach. The girls are not thrilled. One opted for skiing in Colorado, which another vetoed because Barb, my brother's girlfriend, will not be there. Another suggested Hawaii, but that is on the itinerary for 2011. Boston, but we think that might be more enjoyable in the summer. The Grand Canyon was discussed - doable, but a long drive - and Florida was also suggested (but we have beaches here, plus we've been there a bunch o' times). Our rationale for Big Bend was that, while we live in Texas, it is very accessible. But once we no longer live here (and we won't be here forever, trust me) it would take way too much effort to get there. So, Big Bend it is.

Oscar nominations are out - no big surprises. As much as I enjoy movies, the Academy Awards are not that important. They are totally political, and they are not necessarily indicative of who really has talent. Barbara Stanwyck, Annette Bening and Glenn Close have no Oscar wins, but Julia Roberts and Helen Hunt do? Please. Still, it's a game to try and predict the winners. I'm always way off - Gary, on the other hand, tends to guess them all correctly. Yet another game I can't win (but I'll take him in Mah Jongg any day).

Caught American Experience last night on PBS, all about Walter Freeman, the neurologist who popularized the lobotomy, inventing the transorbital lobotomy procedure. It was fascinating (but American Experience usually is). He really wanted to do something to help the mentally ill, and you do have to put his work into the context of the treatment options for mental patients in the 1920s and '30s (there were none) and their very bleak options - not to mention the conditions in which they lived, which were horrific. But it was indeed shocking to see how this almost barbaric procedure was performed, with very little information on the outcome, no long-term studies on the side-effects, and without the consent or even knowledge of many of the patients or families.

Some families were grateful, feeling that their relatives were returned to them more subdued, without violent or suicidal behavior. Other lobotomy patients were not so fortunate, having been rendered virtually incapacitated, both physically and mentally (Rosemary Kennedy is the most famous example). Others were simply left as less than they were before - more docile, but without emotion or memory. Freeman would do as many as 25 in a session, having the staff at mental hospitals simply wheel in the neediest cases, without the knowledge or consent of the families or patients. He was not a trained surgeon and had no license for surgery; at some point his ambition surpassed his desire to help people - something even his own children said in the show.

Gary had to leave the room - the filmed footage of the actual procedure was very difficult to watch. But, as I said, it was gripping. In the mid-50s, with the introduction of thorazine, which could produce many of the same results without surgery, the practice dropped off. But Freeman continued performing lobotomies until 1967 - ! - when a patient died on the table. He performed the procedure on children, at least one as young as 4 years old.

A mental health professional I heard speak once said that 25 percent of the population is afflicted by mental illness, from depression to schizophrenia. This has been true for eternity, but it's been difficult to know how to deal with a malady you can't see.

There is no good transition out of this subject - suffice it to say, it's not an easy issue. Most of us know someone who is affected, either as a patient or family member of one.

On another note, Happy Roe v. Wade anniversary. No activities planned for me, but I'm happy in spirit, anyway. Let's hope my daughters do not see the clock turn backwards.

And that's enough for today!