i don’t know why you say goodbye i say hello

As I opened my computer this morning and typed in my password, I realized that I hadn’t authored a single less is more post since September. That realization upset me. Writing this blog has always been a passion project. Every post – whether I personally loved it or not after hitting “publish” – means something to me. But I sputtered and stalled in 2015. After writing 40-45 posts a year for several years in a row, I fell off the writing wagon for large portions of the last 12 months.

As we head into 2016, I hope to return to the older pattern, posting once a week for most of the year. In the interest of getting reacquainted in the meantime, allow me to revisit 2015 with the “less is more Top 10 of 2015.”

10. The Beatles hit Spotify

Technically, this hasn’t even happened yet. But as of December 24 at 12:01 AM, the entire Beatles catalog will find its way to Spotify and other music streaming services. For those of you who dismiss this as “old music for old people,” or ask, “what’s the big deal?” allow me to share the following story.

My son, Max, had serially shrugged off every suggestion I made about the importance of listening to The Beatles. Last Christmas, armed with a few hundred dollars of iTunes gift cards, he took the plunge and bought their entire catalog. In early January he pulled me aside.

“I listened to The Beatles, everything.” He paused. “[Expletive deleted.] You were right. They’re [expletive deleted] great.”

Score 1 for the old guy.

If, like Max before this year, you’ve never “gotten” The Beatles, you have to give it a shot now. Here are the 5 albums you must start with: Help; Rubber Soul; Revolution; Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band; and Abbey Road. You’ll thank me.

9. i can still get nervous before speaking in public

Peggy Chenoweth and Your Humble Author at the Public Hearing

I spend so much of my professional life speaking to audiences of varying sizes that I’m largely immune to nerves. But that wasn’t the case this past August when I spoke for 6 minutes at a public hearing focusing on proposed changes to coverage, coding, and clinical care for Medicare beneficiaries. (See also, #1, below.) I haven’t been that nervous in years. Why? Because that speech, more than almost anything I’ve ever delivered, felt like it mattered.

8. college looms

The fact that in 2015 Max received his driver’s license and now has submitted applications to college is one of the great mind-benders of my adult life. The fact that 17 years have passed and he’s on the verge of starting a new phase of his life is something I still can’t fully comprehend. I can’t even write about it in a coherent way.

Anyway, it’s bizarre. And I’m happy for him but completely freaked out.

7. Amp’d ramps up

Peggy Chenoweth, my partner in crime and co-host of the Amp’d podcast, texted me two months ago. “Do you know how many people listen to our podcast?” As a proud web analytics agnostic, I quickly responded, “Nope.” When she gave me the number I couldn’t respond for a moment. The fact that for a given topic we have more than 11,000 people listening to us ramble is simultaneously thrilling and daunting.

Peggy and I have made a commitment that we’re going to try to increase our podcasts to a weekly (or near-weekly) frequency moving forward. Let me in advance apologize for the times we don’t meet this goal, because it’ll be entirely my fault and likely due to my travel schedule. But much more Amp’d to come in 2016! (In this case, more is more.)

6. Cheap Shots releases its first EP

Cheap Shots EP

Just as important as The Beatles catalog becoming available to streaming services was Cheap Shots’ release of its first EP in October. After losing his lead guitarist and bassist to college at the end of this summer, Max formed this new group. (He and I spent the better part of two weeks in Aruba tossing potential new band names around. Discarded names included Illysium and Kooster’s Last Stand, among roughly 830 others.)

Cheap Shots has played regularly through the fall and into the early winter, including a stellar gig at Webster Hall in New York City right before Halloween. The EP, The Things That Keep Me Up Late, is a blistering set of melodic pop-punk/rock tunes with a gorgeous acoustic ballad (“One More May”) thrown in for good measure. If you’re unwilling to submerge yourself in the Beatles discography, then commit to Cheap Shots instead. Actually – commit to them either way. If you want to hear soaring melodies and poignant lyrics that come right from Max’s heart, you’ll love Cheap Shots.

5. everything is impermanent

Back in March I wrote about the unexpected death of Phil Kreuter, my friend and the physical therapist who trained me to walk again after I lost my leg. Phil wasn’t old – only in his mid-50’s – but suffered a massive stroke that led to his death shortly thereafter. It shouldn’t take the passing of important people in my life or the near-misses in my own to remind me just how important it is to respect the time we do have on this planet with the people around us. But invariably, it does.

Be aware. Don’t sleepwalk through everything. We only get to climb on this roller coaster once, so enjoy the ride.

4. i have 3 amazing kids

In July, Cara unexpectedly wound up in the hospital for a week while we were in Aruba. It was a serious situation – she was admitted to the ICU, initially – and I suddenly had to spend the majority of my time in a foreign hospital. While she responded to treatment quickly and got out with enough time to enjoy the second week of our vacation, I had to depend on all of my kids in ways none of us could have planned for.

They were all, in their own ways, amazing. When everything around them was going to hell, they supported each other, me and Cara. I couldn’t have gotten through that week without them there. I don’t remember a lot of what happened over those 5 days, but I distinctly recall sitting with my kids around a dinner table and telling them how proud I was. “When the chips are down, families are supposed to pull together and look out for each other, no matter what,” I said. They did that and then some. Thanks Max, Jackson and Caroline!

3. your humble author cries

Eastman Theater

I’m not particularly emotional. But earlier this month, Max performed as a member of New York’s All-State Chorus. This is an honor afforded to less than 300 students in the entire state, all of whom qualify based on a formal vocal audition. As I sat in the packed Eastman Theater in Rochester and listened to the songs, I began to quietly cry.

It hit me that Max was moving on (see #8, above) to new opportunities in less than a year. I realized that while I’ll still be his father and always part of his life, I’ll be losing him, to some extent. The thought of 2:30 PM rolling around and Max not walking through the door to shoot the breeze with me about his day at school and the music he’s working on or listening to hit me hard.

In that moment I was filled with equal parts pride and sadness. Prediction: I’ll be a total mess when he leaves for college. Thank god for Skype.

2. New York’s one-limb-per-life restriction overturned for 2016

As an amputee living in New York, I found it particularly galling that amputees paying premiums for plans purchased through the state’s insurance exchange were subject to a 1-prosthesis-per-limb-per-lifetime restriction. As President of the National Association for the Advancement of Orthotics and Prosthetics (NAAOP), I helped support an effort driven largely by a friend and fellow amputee, Dan Bastian, to get that restriction changed.

First the good news: the Director of NY’s exchange added language that requires insurers to additionally cover prosthetic repairs and replacements beginning January 1, 2016. Now the bad news: it’s not clear that this language will carry over into 2017. Additionally, even though the NY House of Representatives unanimously supported a permanent legislative fix that would cover prosthetic devices whenever medically necessary, the Senate refused to bring that bill to the floor for a vote.

So there’s still work to do in NY in 2016, but at least amputees in my home state requiring prosthetic repairs or replacements during the next 12 months will get them.

1. amputees successfully thwart proposed national coverage changes

We the People Petition

I won’t belabor the point since this was the subject of virtually all of my posts and Amp’d podcasts from August of this year on. Medicare’s contractors published a draft local coverage determination that would have fundamentally changed prosthetic clinical care, coding, and costs if implemented. NAAOP launched a successful campaign that led to 110,000 signatures in 30 days on a petition requesting that the White House instruct Medicare to rescind the draft document.

In October, the White House and Medicare issued joint statements saying that the proposal would be shelved for now in favor of a federal workgroup tasked with analyzing current prosthetic best practices. While we will continue to need to fight over the coming year to make sure that the workgroup possesses complete and accurate information, the decision not to implement a policy that would have returned prosthetics to an average standard of care worse than what I experienced as a new amputee in 1996 was a huge win for amputees across the United States.

It shows how powerful we can be when we speak together with one voice. Here’s hoping there’s much more of that to come in 2016.