Good morning Hank, it's Tuesday.

It's Thanksgiving week here in the United States, so today I thought I would share with you a story of gratitude.

So, several months ago Sarah got me tickets to see the musical Hamilton in New York City and I should say that Sarah and I are both huge fans of Hamilton. Like we've listened to the cast recording hundreds of times and now we were going to have this once in a lifetime opportunity to see the show with the original cast and we were going to go to some art galleries and visit all our favourite places from back when we were first married and lived in New York.

(00:24)So, we got to the airport a little early and hurray our flight was on time so we settled in to an airport bar for some snacks and we were debating whether I should direct message Lin-Manuel Miranda who, not to brag, follows me on Twitter and generally feeling sort of giddy and then I took a bite of my sandwich and more or less immediately knew that we were not going to see Hamilton after all.

(00:42)A bit of relevant background, I have this weird disease called Eosinophilic Esophagitis. Basically I have this mild-ish inflammation of my esophagus, which usually is not a problem, but then very occasionally food will get stuck part of the way down my esophagus. And that's a real bummer because when it happens I can't even successfully swallow my own spit so I just sort of throw up every 2 or 3 minutes for several hours until a doctor sticks a tube down my throat and clears the blockage.

(01:05)So okay, I can't even peel away all the layers of luck and privilege that led to this moment of misfortune in the Indianapolis airport. The ability to afford a Broadway show and a trip to New York City, the joy of a spouse who loves you enough to get you Hamilton tickets, access to excellent medical care so your oesophageal blockage is an inconvenience rather than a catastrophe, the list goes on and on.

(01:23)But still I was pretty bummed out when we had to leave the airport and go to the hospital. Now of course it wasn't hard to find a happy home for our Hamilton tickets, and the airline (Thank you Delta) was amazingly cool about refunding our tickets. But, yeah I was still in a pretty foul mood partly because I was vomiting every 2 minutes and partly because I don't love reminded that what I think of as my Self is, in fact, wholly dependent upon an unreliable and unpredictable machine called my body.

(01:44)Okay so after several hours at the hospital, a woman named Carmen came by to transport my hospital bed and me to the Endoscopy Room. Along the way she asked if I had kids, and I said yeah, and she said that it's nice that your wife can stay with you when you go through this and I was like "Well we were supposed to be on vacation together!" And then she said that maybe when you guys get home tonight you can watch a movie together, and I was like maybe and then she said "So, you are married and you have kids. Do you like your job?" And I said "yeah". And then she says "Well, you've got the basics covered."

(02:08) And then I was in the O.R. and then I was unconscious and then I could swallow again and I woke up thinking "Well, I've got the basics covered." That night Sarah and I went home and watched a movie. It was a pretty good movie actually. Since then I have thought that day, and Carmen, many times. I love my friends and family and I am loved by them; I've got the basics covered. 

(2:26) OK, so flash forward 6 months to last week. We have just started filming our new health and fitness show, 100 Days. Starting January 1st, you can watch my best friend Chris and I try to have a healthy midlife crisis over at youtube.com/100Days. Anyway, as part of this show we have to exercise 6 days a week, often at very odd hours because of our work schedules. So last Wednesday I had to wake up at 5:10 in the morning to go to a spin class and I was not psyched about it. 

(2:48) So I walk into this spin class and there's Carmen! And she says "Hey John, remember me?" and I say "Yeah" and she says "I'm your spin instructor. This is what I do before work." And, of course, it turned out to be an excellent spin class. So this Thanksgiving I am grateful to Carmen. When you are kind to strangers, you never know what it's gonna mean to them, but sometimes it means a great deal. So thank you Carmen. Happy Thanksgiving.