FXBG ADVANCE Sunday 7/12/26 NEWSLETTER
Steve Watkins, The Family Heart, Part 3. Lauren Bock, Not Enough Doctors? Maybe Share. Drew Gallagher, A Few of My Favorite Things. Paul Cymrot, Fredericksburg Player in World Disc Championship.
The Family Heart, Part 3: Mutants
By Steve Watkins, ADVANCE EDITOR
I woke up the other morning thinking about an artificial heart. Not just any artificial heart, but a specific one, made of titanium, implanted last year in a 40-year-old Australian man who was in such severe heart failure that most days he could barely make it to the toilet. He was the sixth person in the world to get the new device, and the first to ever be discharged from the hospital with a fully artificial heart and able to live on his own. It kept him alive for a hundred and five days, until he was finally matched with a donor, making him one of 5,000 heart transplant recipients worldwide last year out of more than 50,000 on waiting lists, most of whom died, or will die, with their original, failing hearts. There have been other artificial devices over the past 60 years, all of which have been temporary—a way to keep patients alive long enough to get the real thing. The titanium heart, though, is meant to be forever.
I’m not on anybody’s transplant list—too old; too conflicted--but I could use a new heart. A cardiologist told me this a few of months ago after I had a sudden bout of ventricular tachycardia while out walking our dog.
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Not Enough Doctors? Maybe You Could Share
By Lauren Bock, ADVANCE HEALTH COLUMNIST
Top 10 most common patient comments and questions regarding lifestyle changes:
10. “What am I supposed to do if I can’t have screen time within two hours of going to bed?”
9. “I’ve tried to meditate, but it doesn’t work for me. I can’t turn my brain off.”
8. “I need to lose 50 pounds.”
7. “I don’t want to take a statin.”
6. “I don’t like tofu.”
5. “I don’t have time to exercise.”
4. “I’m tired all of the time.”
3. “I try to make changes but they don’t last.”
2. “What am I supposed to eat?”
1. “I need a new PCP, who do you recommend?”
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These Are a Few of My Favorite Things
By Drew Gallagher, ADVANCE COLUMNIST
In less than 48 hours, Donald Trump ruined two of my favorite things. and neither was raindrops on roses.
I was legitimately excited about America’s 250th birthday since I realize that my RSVP for the Tricentennial is likely to read “Unable to Attend…with regrets from the grave.” There was such potential to bring the country together to celebrate our triumphs as well as our tribulations to show that this “experiment” in democracy was ongoing but, to this point, a rousing success. With our proximity to Washington, a day trip with the family to a mall with museums instead of an Aerie clothing store would have been a fun way to mark the occasion. That was until the birthday party somehow morphed into a lecture series on the latest in nanobubble technology and the market price of turkey legs—with melted ice cream and no prospect of cake.
In 1990, I attended the Earth Day rally on the Mall, and I had visions of a similar celebration complete with performances by the Indigo Girls and R.E.M. which would have elicited a sympathetic pat on the back from my 18-year-old daughter to acknowledge that both Michael Stipe and I have noticeably aged since the last century. The atmosphere on that Earth Day was one of hope, and if they wanted to add a Ferris Wheel and funnel cake for the 250th that would have been perfect. Instead, I spent the 4th watching fireworks on TV and wondering if it was the end of the world as we know it, and I most definitely did not feel fine.
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Fredericksburg Player in World Ultimate Championships: A Flying Disc Primer
By Paul Cymrot, ADVANCE CORRESPONDENT
World Junior Ultimate Championship, Logroño, Spain. July 11, 2026
Every two years, the World Flying Disc Federation holds the Under-20 World Championships for the sport of Ultimate, sometimes called Ultimate Frisbee. This year’s tournament is being held in Logroño, Spain. USA Ultimate, the organizing body for the sport in the US, has sent teams to compete in all three divisions: Men’s, Women’s and Mixed (co-ed). Fredericksburg’s own Ellie Cymrot—one of our daughters—has won a spot on the mixed team, and will be representing both our home town and the nation this week in Spain.
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