One sick family

In the past when people would talk about my family being sick, it had to do with the fact that we tend to be loud, a little raucous and often inappropriate. With the e-mail description of my brother's imminent corneal transplant (for a degenerative rarely rare eye-disease wholly unrelated to the one I had) and my cousin's car accident and the need for pins in his legs - we seem to be using the health care system way too much this year. Even my very healthy 20-something year old cousin decided having one baby wasn't enough and she had to up the ante by having twins. It's been quite the year, and I'm probably missing some things but I just want to make a couple of observations.

1) I know you guys are competitive and all, but I kind of think in the contest to generate the most in health care bills - I'm pretty sure I won this year so you may as well just stop trying and stay healthy. Grandma might have me beat, but she's 90 and I'm not sure she should count.

I kind of want to lay claim to next year too, what with the fat transplant surgery and rebuilding process, so again you might as well all just stay healthy. This means no complications in healing, please, and no more entrants into this event for 2010.

2) This might all be a strong argument for genetic diversity and might make the fact that most of you married and procreated with folks from different backgrounds a really good thing. (Not sure what this means for you Abby - I'm hoping the Russian part is enough to make Roman's DNA more varied.) Yes, we are smart and funny. The allergies are one thing, but 2 weird eye diseases - that just seems crazy. We won't even get into the cancer, high blood pressure etc...

3) In the end, I'm glad the year is coming to the end, grateful we all have good medical care, and look forward to seeing you all. I just found out some devestating news about recurrence in a family member of a friend, so even with all the bumps and bruises - I'm actually very grateful it all seems more of an inconvenience than anything too devastating.

For those of you not related to me - I'd also appreciate it if you could also stay healthy.