I feel the warm drops in my aching left ear.I pass out when the sharp scalpel blade slits my eardrum. I am eight.

Osteopath Dr. Bob shoves the powerful fingers of his right hand down my throat and tears away offensive tissue.Six weekly sessions of finger throat surgery to pay off an insurance premium.Six terrifying weeks of unremitting torture, spitting shreds of flesh and blood. Barbaric. I am ten.

My kid brother wraps me up in his powerful arms, lifts me upside down and lowers me head first to the floor on my nose—all 165 pounds on my nose. Smashes it. Terrifies Fritzie. I laugh.

At 40, I wake up in my hospital room screaming with pain.A ten-inch incision to remove a gall bladder sewn up with black silk thread.
I scream again and again.Time stretches to eternity before the hypodermic needle injects morphine.Six weeks later, pus flows from an infection at one end of the incision.A half-inch of black silk stitch pops out unaided.

The nurse razors away pubic hair.Prickly pokes of lidocaine and a small groin incision.Catheter tube shoves all the way to my heart.
A flood of warm dye is injected. Photos taken.Repeat six times from November 1990 to December 2004.Balloons push against the plaque-filled coronary artery walls.

Heart attack on July 5, 2000. Kaiser doctor misdiagnoses angina as “exercise-induced ashthma.” Treats with inhalers. The more the pain, the more the inhalers. Later photos show scar tissue on heart.
Toss me in hospital gown flat on my back onto cold steel gurney for bumpy two-hour ambulance ride to Sunset hospital.Stent inserted at the blocked spot but keeps closing from cell growth. Back to Sunset.

Thirty-five one-hour sessions on consecutive week days of EECP—-enhanced external cardiac counterpulsation—-hurt. Inflatable straps around calves, thighs, buttocks pump blood from legs and butt into upper body with each heart beat. First calves, then thighs and buttocks—-378,000 pumpings. Still can’t walk around the block angina-free.

Pharmacological stress test pain unbearable, unremitting, irreversible. “Worst looking arteries I have ever seen,” says Dr. Shen.

Lumbar spondylosis with crippling lower back pain.

Tissue thin skin rips when gently brushed. Bleeds. Buy stock in Johnson & Johnson.

Basal cell cancer on nose tip sliced off and a flap of skin cut loose to cover. Barrymore nose now crooked.

Internal hemorrhoids tied off but keep bleeding.Four Citrucel capsules a day with eight ounces of HOH.

Qualaquin for night leg cramps. Atenolol to slow heart beat. Entocort for colitis. Plavix to keep platelets in their place. Lisinopril to keep arteries open. Levothyroxin for hypothyroidism. Isosorbide for blood vessel relaxation. Simvistatin to lower cholesterol. Omeprazole to shut down gastric juice flow. Fluocinonide gelfor lichen planus of gums. Proctosol with cortisone to staunch anal hemorrhaging. Nitroquick to pop for angina pain. Gaviscon to control reflux through collapsed esophageal sphincter valve.

Annual manual sodomy by primary care physician to confirm enlarged but smooth prostate.

Physical therapy by Charlotte twice a week for three months for inoperable lumbar spondylosis.I am caught in Charlotte's web.

Stress echo treadmill test with Dr. Rahman April 2.

As me: “How do you feel?”

I feel great. One evening at a Clubhouse 3 concert by the Orange County Youth Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maestro John Koshak last Saturday night washes away all the pains and anxieties and sends a healing wave of pure joy through my being. Koshak’s arrangement of Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story” played magnificently by 86 high school virtuosos sends tears streaming down my face. I can still drive my two passengers with walkers from portal to portal. They love the music. Music is powerful medicine. And Tiger sinks a winning 24-foot putt. I am alive. I am 87. It's a miracle.