ON CALL
Arun K. Gadre, MD, FACS
M
ay 31, 2012, started as an uneventful day. I arrived that afternoon at
the Detroit Metropolitan Airport
on a smaller aircraft from Louisville. Following a long walk over wide polished floors
and a couple of escalators, I waited patiently
for Delta Flight DL627 to depart. I looked
at my boarding pass and passport one more
time, and made sure my travel documents
were in order. I was headed to the 9th International Conference on Cholesteatoma and
Ear Surgery in Nagasaki, Japan, slated for June 3-7. I was excited
that two papers had been accepted for podium presentation. The
famous Australian otologist, Dr. Bruce Black, had invited me to
participate in a panel discussion on ossiculoplasty. I again looked
through references, making sure I had memorized the statistics
and wondered what questions I would receive from the audience.
Working in fits and starts on my beat-up laptop, I made some last
minute formatting changes, and hoped fervently that the device
would not crash. Would the videos work? Had I made a duplicate
presentation on the thumb drive? Where had I kept it? Why was I so
stupid not to have stored all of this on the Cloud, so that it could be
accessed from anywhere in the world? It was my first trip to Japan.
I looked through my PowerPoint presentations one more time. I
looked at my wristwatch; two more hours to go before they started
the boarding process at 6:35 pm. I walked around looking at open
stores - the one with magazines, newspapers, endless packets of
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LOUISVILLE MEDICINE
lifesavers and gummy bears, sodas, gum, and organic bananas were
the busiest (apart from the bars). I watched people walking in and
out of the McDonald's restaurant across from the gate. The L’Octaine
en Provence store competed for customers with the Swarowski store.
I wondered who bought these things at any airport. On the other
side, a lone airport employee was standing under the wing gassing
up the plane, and preparing it for that long transpacific flight.
Soon enough people began arriving at the gate. It was the melting-pot that is America; different hues, different shades, different
features, different nationalities. In that throng of anticipating humans, a stocky gentleman of eastern extraction with a floppy hat sat
hurriedly on the seat across from me. He seemed to be in his 60s,
accompanied by a lady companion who appeared to be less than
half his age. The couple seemed tired, but otherwise did not seem
out of place. But - something about the man’s demeanor worried
me. Beads of perspiration were forming on his forehead as he wiped
them off with a well-worn handkerchief. His lady companion, who
seemed to be tending to him, brought him a bottle of water. He
squirmed in his seat as he took a gulp of water and licked his dry
lips with his newly moistened tongue. Was the poor fellow ill? Or
perhaps he had traveled from a far off place, and he just looked
tired and worn. I consciously wiped any thoughts about him from
my mind and dug my head into an old humorous book I had read
before; George Mikes’ "The Land of the Rising Yen."
Zone 1 was announced and I dutifully took my place in exit seat
29B. I popped an aspirin and readied myself for the nearly 16 hour
flight that would carry us in a wide arc across the vast expanse