Rural Georgia is no place to have a medical emergency on a weekend. The only hospital is small. The emergency staff was sparse and equipment was minimal. The first task after providing insurance information and identification was getting someone to offload Avner from the bus onto a gurney.
Still the attitude grew darker. Avner gravitated to violent video games. In fact he had migrated away from the social games that he played with friends at school. He was turning morose and there wasn’t a ready explanation, except adolescents. Everything that we thought we saw could be explained by teenage hormones or frustration with school work.
I suppose that context always makes the difference. Talking to Avner tops the list of important things I do, especially during this lockdown. Absent any other external stimulation, I find that engaging conversation has a nearly magical ability to restart cognition. It may be my own confirmation bias, but I don’t think so. Avner has a ravenous appetite for information and analysis. I love that aspect of his personality. We
In hindsight, early 2016 started the steep decline in the quality of all of our lives. As parents, Barbara and I failed to recognize the symptoms of Avner’s decline as a medical problem. The changes and challenges came so fast that we pivoted from crisis to crisis. It feels as if we were the frogs in the slowly warming pot, about to boil to death without realizing the clearly present danger.