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| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
When Isabella, my 6 year old granddaughter, asked,
"Grandpa, why do you have the big scar in the middle of your
chest?" I told her the truth, the whole truth, because you must never
lie to a child. If you do, you may finish up with a child who can't be
trusted
a child who may turn out to be a politician
either a little
liberal or else a little conservative or something even worse. Of
course there was no reason to confuse her by telling her about my
mitral valve replacement and the horror of waking up intubated and
unable to talk, frantically waving my hand around to show that I wanted
a pencil and paper to write on, followed by the final indignity of
having my hand tied down, as the recovery room nurse thought that I was
behaving that way because I was confused, because I was coming