Three Beautiful Things 03/27/19: Cookies and Cribbage, One Tree Cider House, More Transplant Reading

1. Patrick took out the cookie dough he'd made the night before and baked a batch of his favorite chocolate chip cookies while Meagan and I played a second, and, for now, our last game of cribbage.  The three of us soon piled into the Sube and drove to Spokane.

2. Before flying out of Spokane, Meagan and Patrick wanted a bite to eat. We easily found the One Tree Cider House at 111 S. Madison.  It's a modest sized and, to me, Nordic looking room with several small tables and comfortable love seats facing each other, divided by narrow coffee tables. The servers were eager to help us choose from the twenty ciders available, from a variety of cideries. Meagan and Patrick ordered a flight of ciders. Meagan was intrigued by One Tree's cinnamon caramel cider -- I took a sip and enjoyed it, too. I ordered a 4 oz pour of a slightly hopped apple cider from Rev. Nat's. Patrick and Meagan ordered a large pretzel and a basket of tots.  Sitting in the love seats facing each other with food and drink between us was a comfortable, relaxing way to spend time together before I dropped Meagan and Patrick off at the airport.

3. I returned home and continued reading, When Death Becomes Life: Notes from a Transplant Surgeon. I continue to find the medical history of transplantation compelling and marvel at how much the practice of transplantation has progressed, particularly over the last 30-40 years. It's sobering and unsettling to read how much the pioneers in transplantation learned from practicing and experimenting on animals; in addition,  many people willingly agreed to organ transplants in the early days with little guarantee that they would survive for long. Many of these patients died not long after the transplant -- whether kidney, heart, pancreas, or lung -- , but in giving themselves over to these surgeries, helped the surgeons learn more and more about what successful transplantation required.

I was particularly fascinated by the book's section on the history of bypass surgery for the heart. I'd never really understood what "bypass" meant and now I know that a machine takes over for the heart and lungs, sending oxygenated blood throughout the patient's circulatory system, allowing the heart surgeon to operate on the heart with no blood present. The invention and development of such a machine, as well as the invention of the dialysis machine, has helped extend the lives of countless patients over the last several decades.