wow's first christmas and ASH

It's twelve days before Wow's first Christmas and he still doesn't have a stocking on the mantle or an ornament with his picture on it.

The stocking situation isn't a big deal. We aren't going to be here for Christmas and a sock will do as a sufficient placeholder amongst our rather meager holiday decorations. I do wish he had picture ornament, in part for the memory-preservation aspect of it and in part because Munch has three. I went to Target today with the sole purpose of purchasing this ornament. My bank account would disagree with any claim to have left "empty handed" (the idiot tax, remember?), but Target had sold out of all picture ornaments.

I don't how important it is to keep these types of things equal between the two siblings. I can't imagine Wow, a petulant sixteen year-old, lamenting the lack of said ornament to commemorate his first Christmas. Will he interpret its absence to mean he was loved less? I have prepared for this contingency, which will involve a blunt reminder that at least his conception was planned.

As seems to happen every year, the season got away from me.  The Sunday after we rode the Polar Express I slept on the floor of the bathroom, doing shots of Pepto-Bismol and chasing it with Gatorade, only some of which I kept down. Monday and Tuesday Wow was sent home from school with similar, although far more mild, symptoms. I purposely associate the Polar Express with our illness because almost every other member of the other two families who came with us on Saturday also got sick. I was laid low for most of the week, a time period I had planned on reviewing and preparing for the American Society of Hematology (ASH) conference, which was in Atlanta this past weekend.

I was a medical student the first time I had a poster presentation at ASH. I was nervous, over-prepared, and, in the end, was asked only one question. It came from a bearded, academic-looking man, who, after spending what seemed like an ice age scrutinizing my poster, leaned in to ask –

“Where is the USC dinner reception?”

I correctly predicted this year would be different, largely due to the fact I was presenting data on a novel drug antibody conjugate, and if you, my fair reader, happen to follow oncology or hematology drug development (no doubt you do), you know it has been a big year for drug antibody conjugates.

The poster presentation went fine – the poster generated some very mild interest from mostly PhDs and industry people, all of whom politely asked a question or two between sips of the inexpensive libations that they held in squat plastic cups. I think ASH purposefully distributes alcohol during these sessions so that everyone is extra “chatty”, no small feat amongst a bunch of nerdy science types. We went out to dinner afterward, and in what became a theme for the weekend, I woke in the morning swearing I would Never Eat Again For The Rest Of My Life.

It was a conviction that lasted until lunchtime and the cycle would repeat at dinner. I think I ate every part of the cow and pig in the four day trip, a consumption seriously offensive to my weekday vegetarianism. I told myself I was making up for a rough week.

Now if I could just find that damn ornament I'd really feel back on track.