Mom

It’s wonderful to be rid of the extra fifty percent boost of Effexor that my body “was unable to tolerate.” The latter is shorthand for constant shakes, crawling out of my skin, and magnified fear. No, I wasn’t able to “tolerate” that.

After the initial euphoria wore off as the dose was reduced back to where it did me some good, I’m still stuck with the problem that made my psychopharmacologist raise it to begin with. I’m sad again. No, sad is normal. Unpleasant, perhaps, but a normal human feeling. No, I’m talking about nagging depression. We’ve stabbed and shot at it with poison arrows (with all the psychotropics in my “If depressed, please open and follow directions” satchel) but the damned beast refuses to die.

Now what? Beats me.

I’ve recently switched bronchial dilators. New drugs that are delivered three times a day from a nebulizer. Bless my allergist. He guessed right. (“Guessed” because the diagnosis was done over the phone.) I was suffering coughing spasms. The new coughing “pearl” I’ve been taking seems to be working. Very few coughing jags. Cepacol seems to handle the rest.

Rachel, my sterling masseuse said I had the best massage yet meaning I opened completely allowing her to work. I’ve never done that before. Opened up like that. Like a cooked clam. Duh. Of course I feel like shit. What’s beneath all the layers she had to go through except pain, depression, and anger. I most definitely am keeping the duck and the uber-Scandinavian for Journey to the Center of the Earth: The Final Mission. I’ll be wanting company confronting those demons all by myself.

I had an idea as I lay on the table. Rachel: masseuse by day, Iron Hands by night. She’d make a great superhero. I need to find the right roles for Tamar, the best P.T. on the planet, and Laurie, the magnificent chiropractor. Rachel was completely down with it. I’ll tell Tamar tomorrow when I see her. It’s great to have characters while lacking any sort of storyline. Just like the grand old days of the Internet boom when venture capitalists threw money at anything with the name internet in its title workable business plan or no. I could certainly understand if someone found my writing tedious and Since When so bad that the agents have to stop giggling when they each send me a uniform, Thanks, but no thanks.” But no one can ever accuse me that my characters are filled with air and nothing more. Well sure, anyone could say this, but I’m completely confident they’re wrong. But I actually believe, especially with the guiding hand of Rich (who put me in his end-of-year letter! I’ve never made it to one before! Thank you! You are just plain remarkable, young man) it is pretty well written. So there.

But why the hell can’t anyone stop my nose from constantly running like a fucking faucet? I’m told allergy shots are too dangerous for one with such crapola lungs. Oh yeah, I can use Spireva with its clever “drying agent.” Perfect, no? Yes, if you prefer mucous the texture of glue and stuck to your throat and vocal chords and rib-breaking coughs (no kidding) to try and move it from where it has decided to rest in my innards like in a hammock, most likely. Who wouldn’t? (Will I ever see a hammock again? In life, photos, I’ve got.)

I recall a year or so ago complaining that I felt like shit all the time. And what I was told by those close to me, “Hey, you don’t know how you’ll feel in a year.” That was meant to give me hope. Because in a year, how could things not be better? I don’t have a degenerative disease, I exercise every day and am assuming no upper respiratory nonsense is percolating, why shouldn’t I feel a little better?

No, no sweethearts. This disease doesn’t work like that. I haven’t found any logic in it. Nor has anyone with a medical degree. Damn it all. I don’t feel worse than I did a year ago, but I feel no better. No one is telling me I’ll feel better anymore. No one is saying, “You never know how you might feel a year from now” to boost my spirits. God help us if it’s otherwise. But I have been asked to hold on, because a stem cell therapy is in the offing. (Have the researchers moved past small mammals yet?) I suppose I should be heartened that the stem cell community has graduated to mammals, period.

I’m still so damned exhausted that I can’t get up in the morning. The books I read are fat. (This Lindbergh bio I’m in the midst of is fascinating. I’m getting to the anti-Semitic part; I’m champing at the bit.) I have my doll to make. She’s a big job. I can’t just curl up with it and sew away happily with thread and a blanket stitch and ponder her dress where I’ll have to fucking sew the pretty details with yarn. (Yes, yarn again. At least this time I know what I’m in for.)

Why do I care? I care because it was a project meant for me and Mom to do together. I need to make the dolls in the kits she bought for the two of us 1972ish. To be honest, when I looked at the instructions all those years ago, I’m sure I blanched. That’s why the two kits have sat undisturbed in the same place for all these years. They made the move to Manhattan one box atop the other. I knew exactly where they lived. Still untouched but not given up for dead. She (my ‘Indian Princess”) must be made and made beautifully (if I have to stand on my head) along with her buddy “Katrina, the little Dutch girl.”

My mother is 87. She looks great. She’s healthy. I feel compelled to make those two dolls right now. This very moment. Five minutes ago. Their “births” are completely intertwined with Ma. Since When is really her story. Sure I tell the stories of her Hungarian aunts and uncles, but the backbone of the book is the story of my mother at age six-and-a half year wrested (it sure felt that way to her) from a life she loved, from, her magical (it was) home in rural Czechoslovakia to the Brooklyn of 1930. I found as I interviewed her for hours upon hours, I could finally admit to myself how very much alike we are. (You all know of a time in your collective lives when the last thing you wanted to do was to resemble a parent, any parent. True?) Hell, you all may have avoided this interviewing process I went through to get there, (which was loads of fun by the way). Now I’m more than okay with it. No. I love being a part of her.

I know Mom so desperately wants me to live. (And yes, she has said to me, “I wanted so much more for you.” Me too Ma.) She wants me more than alive. I know she sure has no intention of outliving me. For Mom, and for all mothers, I must keep on, because I can’t imagine anything worse than having your children predecease you . Mom. I will not do that to you but you realize, I can’t possibly imagine life without you.

(I’m not shortchanging Dads. The same goes for all of you.) My Dad died at age sixty in 1982. I never had the chance to scare the shit out of him as I scared Mom, Chip, and Doug-every day for eight-weeks plus that I was in danger of waking up dead.*) So I have to live. For Mom, for all of them. And my doll babies have to grow up now. From those intimidating patterns and folds of felt to cuddly, sweet smiling girls just like on the box. As a gift. To Mom. To me. To fill every promise I ever made to anyone and didn’t come through. (These little girls are carrying one heavy load.)

Oh, how much fun would we have had making those two together back in 1972!

Promise me something. Never put anything off what you want to do in life ever. All there is is now. And my regrets.

*I’ve always wanted to use “wake up dead.” I find that expression kicks ass. I can die happy. Or maybe ”happier.”

"Fran, get back on the Prozac."

Just woke from a nap and still a bit disoriented. I can't spell anything correctly anymore. I sometimes skip words, so sentences are unintelligible. I type other words that have no relation to what I'm writing instead of the one I want. It's kind of like writing "Captain Ahab" when all you really were looking for was the word "with." That's plain spooky to me.

Once I become fully awake, the word scramble remains the same. Perhaps later I'll get really annoyed at the phenomena. Right now its kind of strange, annoying, and kinda cool. What will come out of her fingers this sentence? Maybe this is my body compensating for lack of outside stimuli. By making typing an adventure. Aren't bodies amazing how they do that? Compensate for loss of limb or to help the fuzzy brain. Why not call it Brain Fuzz? Is Brain Murk better? Or Lazy Brain? "I'm sorry to inform you, Mr. Sleeper, your wife is suffering from an acute case of Lazy Brain." That works okay for me.

Chip has made an appointment with an orthopedist to see if he can figure out what's going on with my back. It made me feel really stupid when he said if this has been going on for quite a while, you need to get this checked out. Why didn't we make this appointment weeks ago? My friend David who has had a zillion back surgeries said they'll either want to cut you open or give you pills. try the chiropractor first. I've had a lot of success with them. Okay. Chip said let's go back to Laurie (my blessed chiropractor and soul soother. She really performs magic. Her mere presence is balm for my aching soul). I have no problems except she's up in Washington Heights, and I have to go up three ginormous steps to get to her 1st floor office.

The architect of the building where her office is located was a fucking sadist. These days, I don't think there's anything that scares me as much as those steps. (Except when I'm truly loco, the shower becomes my object of Dread.) Because once I climb those steps, the goddamned back pain rises to the rarified heights of hell. (Why does hell have to be down? Up may stink worse. Think about it. Can we really know?) And whether I'm having back pain or not, when I've finished my climb, I'm gasping for breath for the what seems like an eternity. (I think I may have improved a little bit in this arena. So now it takes half an eternity...) I try to avoid losing breath as often as I can. Inability to breathe has a high fear quotient for me. I must love Laurie. A lot. Who the hell else would I put myself through this crap for?

It took my therapist a while (this was years and years ago) to realize when I calmly discuss terrible things, I wasn't just some patient overstating her crap. I may very cheerfully say I'm really depressed. And I mean it. I am. I choose my words very carefully. If I'm feeling blue, I'm blue. Not depressed. There's a world of difference. One is illness and the other is a normal human emotion. We're allowed to be sad. And should be when appropriate.

Haven't you found that people often overstate whatever's happening in their lives? "I'm depressed" is a big one. "I've never felt worse in my entire life" when the person has a cold. To quote my uncle commenting on his younger brother who was about to say the bruchah over the bread, "He's going to make a BIG DEAL of this." (We have that recorded. It is priceless.)

For a short while, years ago, before we got to the psychopharmacologist, I was getting a blip of Prozac from my internist. That blip was enough to keep me on an even keel. My therapist, who didn't yet know me and had seen many, many patients self-medicating with antidepressants they received from their internists whether they really needed them or not. It was September, a few months before I crash from SAD (With my SAD, I'm as precise as an atomic clock.) My therapist asked me to stop taking the Prozac and see what happens. Well, I reiterate to her that I do get depressed but sure, let's try it.

I don't remember much about this one particular appointment. I think it was in November. I'm not sure if was able to make any sense. There was fuzz (oh no! fuzz again) between me and her and everything else for that matter. Her jaw dropped (literally or figuratively, who the fuck knows? But I do remember one thing. "Fran, get back on the Prozac." (That belongs on my FB profile page. I like it.) It should be someone's yearbook quote.

When I got back on my even keel (well even enough to function in the world), I said, "I told you I get depressed come fall." She said most people who say they're depressed aren't. They're sad, blue, angry and a whole mess of this they need to get off their chests. But depressed, they're usually not. She has learned no matter how calm I may appear, take my words seriously. And she, smart cookie that she is, finds ways to get around my placid or cheerful body armor. (Maybe my rope and pulley contraption- please see yesterday's post- may require body armor. Chip and I could make it a thing. How deliciously kinky.)

Back to my back. I think I'm very good at tolerating pain. But I have said, with relative good cheer, I am in excruciating pain. For me this means I feel really bad. Hey, this is coming from the girl who thinks that going off in the woods alone is the way to give birth to your children. (Psst, she's off her rocker, but she's harmless.) Next year, in Jerusalem. Bye for now.