Happy Birthday to Me

There's just no denying it -- today was not a birthday full of celebration. I like birthdays all right and am not particularly afraid of uttering my age (48) or of getting older. I still feel like I'm just getting started and, other than the occasional back problem stemming from high school marching band (I was a 5-foot tall bass drummer) and my recent need for reading and driving glasses after enjoying 45 years of perfect vision, I feel fortunate to enjoy excellent health.

My biggest age-related shocker came a year ago when I met Katelyn, one of the new analysts at Deloitte. Analysts are usually campus recruits -- landing their first job out of college. Some quick mental math brought me to the realization that Katelyn was born in 1989, the year I delivered my first baby in med school.

During the five years I did obstetrics, I delivered around 600 babies and most of them seemed to be named Katelyn or some variation on the theme. There were some in-vogue boys names too -- like Conner and Max maybe -- but Katelyns were popping up more often than Super-PAC ads in an election year. And their parents honestly thought that they were being so creative naming their new baby girl. I didn't have the heart to tell them that their daughter was the third Katelyn of the day.

So I'm standing in front of this very grown up, professional Katelyn -- a colleague -- trying to keep from admitting myself into an assisted living facility. And I confirm that, yes, she was born in 1989. I could feel the Alzheimer's setting in. Since then I've met at least a dozen Katelyns (Kaitlins, Katies, Caitlins -- they're all the same) running around Deloitte pretending to be adults when they've barely had enough time to be potty trained. And the real pisser of it all is that they really are adults.

So I don't mind so much that my birthday this year was overcome by recent events related to Kym's breast cancer. Kym has been doing remarkably well. She's off her pain meds and is only taking a muscle relaxant to help with the discomfort related to the expander. Still, she's moving slowly and, following yesterday's cooking marathon, has been decidedly pooped. After making an appearance at church, she spent most of the day napping. Which was fine since Kym and I had already celebrated last weekend when we attended the wedding reception for friends Harry Greenspun and Kerry McDermott -- where this picture was taken. We got a room on Marriott points and danced the night away, knowing that it would be a while before Kym was ready to cut a rug again.

Instead, I took Taylor out for breakfast and that was pretty much the extent of it. In fact, the only way I could really tell it was even my birthday was from the many nice emails and notes on Facebook I received. A number of those notes included acknowledgements that they knew far too well what I was going through because their spouse was going through the same ordeal.

It struck me that I am now a man of a certain age where friends, loved ones and colleagues are starting to get hit with those medical issues for which they seem far too young to be eligible but are actually just early adopters on an inevitable curve of far too commonplace ailments.

Let's hope for the sake of all those Katelyns out there that all those walks and races and other fundraisers for the cure have their desired effect so that no twenty-something woman need fear that they will someday have to miss celebrating a birthday because of a disease, but will be blissfully ignorant of what it means to have breast cancer.

That would be the best birthday present ever.