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.”

One Tough Cat

I’ve noticed that I have been living this conundrum for several years to one degree or another (Glass half full…Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.) While it gets rather lonely stuck up in my fourth floor “garret” producing zero works of art and occasionally getting one or two brilliant works read that were not or ever could be composed by me. Believe me, I realized I had what I thought was an “artistic temperment” (whatever that means) minus any talent of any kind whatsoever. I rationalized my fatal flaw by telling myself that the world needed people like me who can simply enjoy the work of others. So that’s what I do. I adore Maggot Brain, Thomas Hardy, and El Greco. The world needs people to do this or else the art might never be produced. QED: I’m a critical part of the creative process. You need an audience? Give me a holler.

I lock myself in my apartment looking more like a Morlock or some eyeless mole by the day. I have no problem looking like a Morlock. I could always relate better with the Morlocks anyway. Eloi were just particularly like the stereotypical stupid surfer-type dudes for whom I have little patience.

Doug found out a little more about our friend Chip. For the last year or so, he’d been closing himself up- withdrawing from life. He knew there was a terribly dangerous surgery ahead of him with a good chance of dying on the table. He withdrew. I not only understand it, I do it. I know it. I live it. My god, I wish I could have spoken to him, but he didn’t even tell his closest friends what was happening. Like with my darling Cliff, I understood the pain and fear he was living. We could cry to one another. If you haven’t been there, you can’t possibly know.

Goddamnit. Now I understand why my father chose to die rather than subject himself to the vicious chemotherapy that only had a slim chance of putting in remission. We kids saw what those drugs did to him. Within days, this robust, strong man was reduced to a skeleton with skin stretched over it. He didn’t look human anymore. But we kids, when his disease returned, were horrified that he would just let the leukemia run its course. And let himself die. We begged him to try to put the disease on hold one more time. Now he was a grown man, he could do what he felt right. He knew what he would face with that heinous chemotherapy. But my Dad, my incredible Dad couldn’t disappoint his kids. Not his kids. He went ahead with the chemo. And in days that followed, he entered into that shadow world somewhere between living and dying. Two weeks later he was dead. Oh Dad, I’m so sorry to we put you through that again. We couldn’t imagine ever losing you. We saw, but seeing isn’t understanding.

That’s while I’ll be damned if I put myself on the lung-transplant list. I know the hell of this drill, and it’s a drill I refuse to repeat. Sounds an awful lot like my thirteen weeks in the ICU. Thank you Dad. I’m just sorry he had to relive that hell-even for two weeks- for us.

I find that I cocoon myself. I so rarely see anyone. Sure, it takes lots of energy for me to have visitors. (Anyone who has come here to visit came, because I wanted that person to come. No one has imposed his or herself on me. Laura J., Joanie, Bob et al were here, because I wanted them to be. No feeling guilty, okay? You brightened my life. I’m strong enough to say no. And I’m strong enough to say yes, capeche?)

As I have said many times to my therapist/angel, that I can’t burden my friends with my Sisyphean boulder of crap. I say all the time that the only people (besides my mother, Doug, and Chip) I can unload on are the people whose time I pay for: my therapist/angel; Tamar, the best P.T. on the planet; Rachel, my terrific masseuse, and Laurie, my beloved chiropractor. That’s a damned fine group, but this shit cannot be laid on the general public.

Usually when we visit the ill, we wish them a speedy recovery and then talk about life as usual. For me, not only will there not be any recovery, there is not one in the offing. (But they’re doing an awful lot of stuff with mice.) And I reminded Chip that if there were some new experimental procedure, who knows? Perhaps, I’ll never get off the table like Chip Rabkin.

I am stopping right now the specious comparison that many have used, because no one knows what the hell to say to me. “Well, you can get hit by a bus tomorrow.”

Ugh, strangle me please.

Yeah. Sorry. (I really am.) This does not fly. It only upsets me. I hadn't figured out why or how until I started putting it to paper. But here it is: Saying so is dismissive of my illness and all I've been through these past four years. My fears (“Is today the day?”) and all the hell I continue to go through are being equated to being whacked to kingdom come by a bus.

Okay. I’ll buy it. But let's play it my way. You survive the bus accident, you are now limbless (or maybe, your limbs just no longer work), and your heart is fucked in such a way that it cannot be surgically corrected. Transplant? Maybe. As the boys from Pittsburgh said to me over and over and over again, “Please remember, you’re just exchanging one disease for another.” Welcome to my world.

Then maybe we can talk about being hit by a fucking bus. Why do you think Chip Rabkin began withdrawing from life? When you know what’s coming and there’s no chance for a do-over, it’s awfully difficult to embrace life. Life has become a dirty word. Your own personal dirty word. Why bother anymore?

Death by bus may provide you some comfort, but it sure makes me feel an awful lot worse. From my standpoint, that bus sounds pretty fucking good. (“Glass half full…) Boom, it’s done. No, sorry everybody. I live with my near death experience every fucking second of every fucking day. God bless that bus. May it only fly up to the fourth floor. (Please be careful not to hit Chip or the cats, okay?) I may look just fine, but I feel sick every single day. I hate gasping for air which I must do all the time. Gasping creates a panic response automatically. (Water boarding, anyone?) I really don’t like to panic. My throat always hurts. I live with a painful cough. Side effects galore from my high-tech medication. But one stinking respiratory infection, and it’s sayonara kids.

One of our cats developed a hideous cancer. One of those that once you see it, it’s too late for treatment. The damned thing became an enormous tumor on his jaw. He used to tap me on the arm for more pain killer. My poor sweet baby. What a wonderful boy Jazzy was! The vet told us we’d know when it’s time because cats turn inward as they get closer to the end. When I bring Jazzy back to the vet, he is stunned that this is the same cat he saw six weeks earlier. How could that cat still be alive? Because he sure shouldn’t be.

I started balling, “You said, when he’s ready, he’d turn inward. He hasn’t! He hasn’t at all! He still wants to live!” The vet took one more look at Jazzy and said it was time. When he brought Jazzy to the room where they first put him into a deep sleep before kicking you out when they give the Kevorkian injection, Jazzy just wandered around the room checking it out. Just like a cat. Not a dying cat.

The vet sends out condolence cards. This is the first one I’ve ever seen him personalize one. He wrote for Jazzy, “To one tough cat.”

The Final Mission

A week and a half ago, I was depressed yet again. (I’m such a dumbshit. If I used my light box regularly, I might actually know if it had any impact on how I’m feeling. I don’t, so I don’t. Foolish girl. Big news: a new plaint has tumbled from my lips: “I can’t bear it.”

Yes, on the face of it it’s yet another whimper (or yelp) that I can’t live any longer feeling like I do. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. (Spoken à la Yul Brynner.)

I’ve had the idea that I’m getting closer to the core of my own personal version of my Journey to the Center of the Earth. And you’re all invited, as I write (and rewrite) the sequel. (Like “penne alla vodka except it will be “journey à la Fran.” Huh?) If anyone prefers the penne, I can’t help you.

Actually, I can’t help you with either pasta or movie scripts. But if you feel the urge for movie sequels or at the very least, the idea of movie sequels, let’s play pretend. Because that is what I live for, you know. (It reminds me of strange bit on the Sarah Silverman Program. Sarah and another young women are supposed to taking out a “mentally-challenged person” out for fun and games. It seems a mistake has been made and the women argue back and forth: No, you’re the retard! No, you’re the retard! No you’re the retard!” And so on. It was very funny. Ah, guys, you embarrass me! But you already knew how insensitive and appallingly politically incorrect I can be, aw shucks. I’m beet red. No, you’re the retards!

All right there is nothing but strange on The Sarah Silverman Program.

Back to let’s play “pretend Franny’s life.” Okay not a pretend life, but a pretense of a life. We can play “script write and rewrite” if you want to try? Let’s do it! (No, I’m a retard!) First of all, get this straight, in my Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Final Mission, Gertrude the duck comes back. S’alright? Or I'm not playing.

Now that we have that out of the way, the big Icelandic he-man would be awfully nice to have around but sadly, I have to let him go. I’ve got Chip. And he beats the he-man Icelandic dude hands down.

About a week and a half ago, I blurted out a brand new message of pain and sheer nastiness. “I can’t bear it” What felt different about it is that I’ve been so incessantly down without many breaks. (Except when watching the HBO lead up shows for the Winter Classic. Those and The Winter Classic itself were my Calgon (Take Me Away!). I should live in Canada.) But the Winter Classic is history, and I’m not. I may be splitting hairs, but as I open up more and more during my weekly massage, the sadder and sadder and more frightened I become. I have been warned umpteen times to expect this. I must tell you, that doesn't provide a muon of backbone when the inevitable happens when even a muon is better than none.

From day, hmmm, let’s say fifty two, I’ve gotten weepy now and again for me. My poor dear Chip Rabkin drew real honest-to-god tears. But a tear (or maybe even two, could that be so hard, for crying out loud?)?) never for me. Never for drawing the short straw. I’ve kept my demon hidden away. I think, as Rachel, my lovely and talented massage therapist, peels me like an onion, I get closer to all of my crap I’ve held back for four years now.

Chip Rabkin. He was my guy. He was my partner in illness. We became sick together. His success was my success. Who have I been kidding besides myself? I’m walking a tightrope without a net. I can drop dead at a moment’s notice. Should I be shocked at this? No, I just can’t bear it.

P.S. Re: Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Final Mission. I think some of this is workable. Now how to get me down to Atlantis in a wheelchair with enough oxygen tanks will be a toughy. Hey, perhaps there’s room for the Icelandic he-man in this sequel. Gotta keep thinking. Thinking, thinking, thinking…

Chip Rabkin

I imagine this is my last post of the year. And it’s ending on such a cheery note. One of Doug’s friends died. And became one of mine albeit a more distant one. But he always included me and Chip in the summer soiree upstate in a beautiful spot with beautiful grilled (hmmmmm!) food. He was a really nice guy. He was part of the New York Ranger ticket sharing crew. We were all part of a bunch of New York Ranger fans who bought into a friend’s season tickets that he could never afford on his own. (Who the fuck can?)

No more live Ranger games at center ice for me. Lucky me, they look beautiful on the television my Chip and I received from Lydon and my mother-in-law last Christmas.

Our friend who is no more: his name was Chip Rabkin, and we were the same age and lucky us, we became ill at roughly the same time. Unbeknownst to him, he had congenital heart problems, which we were all told were fixed once they were correctly identified. (I thought it took too damned long, if you ask me. But no one did, and I think my urging Chip’s doctors to “Move along, move along” as they dawdled during recess would have fallen on deaf ears. I would have made one lousy instructor.) Ultimately, the doctors made the correct diagnosis in time. Phew!

Them surgeons opened that boy up and found what they’d expected to find. Chip was told that if he didn’t have this gargantuan surgery, he’s have only a twenty percent chance to live to old age. Duh, he chose the surgery. There were no complications. He went back to work in a matter of weeks even though the doctors had to open up his chest to fix his heart. Chip was fixed! Me, we know I wasn’t quite so lucky. I lost lung function, and then I lost more lung function. I don’t think I can lose much more without being switched to a ventilator. Do any of us really want to live attached to a ventilator? Don’t raise your hands all at once.

I don’t know why Chip had to have another procedure sometime last week. But he did. This time, he had a massive stroke and died without ever regaining consciousness. (Not that that would have been a good thing. But I don’t think he- or his brothers- ever imagined that the procedure would have gone anything but swimmingly. He’d been through the worst, right? Those scary days before his condition was initially recognized when the congenital defect could have done him in.

It’s crossed my mind more than once that if medical science finds, if not a cure, something to help me out so I don’t have to be so frightened with every new thing I feel. I’m always on edge that I’m losing lung capacity. I’m not. Not yet anyway. But panic sure makes it feel so.

I received high marks two weeks in a row from my masseuse. My body is responding to her touch. I’m opening up. That’s the one thing I’ve never done since this nightmare began. How long has it been, four years? I must be petrified to let whatever’s in there out. I have been feeling low these days. But Rachel, my crack masseuse, explained that the emotions massage can release don’t necessarily release while on the table. They might the next day, later that night. She assured me that releasing these feelings is totally normal and not to get freaked out whenever they choose to announce themselves. (Rich gets a major thumbs up for warning me about this months ago. Glass half full?)

My therapist has given me a powerful tool, which, I admit, has kept me from leaping out the window. For Franny to remember: when I’ve worked myself up into a lather what’s put me there are just vicious, destructive, painful feelings that push me over into the abyss (oooh, that abyss again!). They are not reality. (Oh, they may resemble reality, but I don’t have to accept every nasty feeling that comes my way as the god’s honest truth.) This isn’t easy. It’s fucking hard as hell especially when wrestling with my life and especially today, my death.

My new one that popped out unexpectantly, “I can’t bear this!” Shaking my head vociferously, and repeating my new mantra over and over again. To escape, I tried to go back to sleep after waking from my afternoon nap. Even with my beautiful Lunesta, you can’t sleep when you’re not tired. Around 10:30 I gave up and joined my very much alive Chip in the living room.

Eons ago, my mother bought me two kits to make dolls. She chose the Indian Princess and Katrina, the little Dutch girl. They’re darling, and I felt so sad and teary that I never sat down with Ma and put them together. These include patterns, different stitches (a lot of sewing). These are not beginner’s projects, and it would have been a fun activity for the two of us to do together. I had her bring them here. I have begun the Indian Princess. The pattern for her body is pinned down and ready to be cut out. Scares the willies out of me that I’ll screw this up. Ma will come over and help me along. My therapist loves this. This work takes me out of my head.

It’s like mending underwear and darning socks except here I’ll end up with sweet smiling faces to look at. Don’t pooh-pooh sweet smiling faces. They’ve got serious mojo. Uh-huh.

I need to be taken out of my head. For all my qvetching about wanting to die, I’m petrified that I’ll follow the way of our friend Chip. I don’t want that.

Hey, and I have two dolls that need to be made, a book that needs to be published, and a new Facebook organism that I need to screw with. I think that’s reason enough to live, don’t you?

Chip Rabkin, I’m just stunned. You were one of the good ones. They fixed you, damnit! I’m sorry. This is not supposed to happen.

It's Nixon, By A Nose!

Have you all forgotten me? No, sweet ones, you haven’t. I wish I could. No such luck. Damn. The oxy saga finally comes to a flaccid ending. (If endings can be such. Well, they can now. You wanna argue with an extremely pissy, ill, menopausal woman? Are you crazy?)

I never felt comfortable using the oxy as my “anti-suicide pill” or as my “mood enhancer” though it performed the latter function with aplomb. My mother, of all people, was so happy to see her usually miserable daughter so gregarious, so social, so relaxed. I suppose, if my choice were that or nothing, depending on my mood, I might as well go for the narcotic that would quickly have me addicted and wanting more. Not a good look.

My psychopharmacologist missed last Thursday’s phone appointment to solve my conundrum: misery or not giving a shit, salut! What the fuck was that all about? Chip thought I didn’t want the appointment rescheduled, didn’t reschedule it assuming that everyone agreed that oxycodone was everyone’s drug of choice. I knew that was no solution, and I was shocked that Ira (the psychopharmacologist) would go along with this. We had our belated appointment yesterday. I was only taking the oxy when my back was not happy and was yammering for a hit of something, thank you very much. And that’s what I did.

Ira thinks that last week’s walk to the very edge of the precipice may have been partly caused by withdrawal from those few measly pills I’d taken, I thought, so prudently. So I thought. I’ve since gathered, best to take it regularly, on a schedule, for as long as necessary, and them wean yourself off the stuff by cutting your dose little by little. I know this shit. I just haven’t had to deal with this all that often in my life.

Yes, I know you can’t go cold turkey on psychotropic drugs, as my internist so lovingly refers to them. I’ve been weaned off those before. I know the drill. But getting weaned off anything is pretty unusual these days. It feels to me that I just keep adding drugs and upping dosages. Nothing fun, mind you. But perhaps life saving, so I shouldn’t complain that they don’t have me doing the hula, cannula, tubing and all, in my living room. Though wouldn’t that be fun if I had the urge? Hmmmm. Oxy, oxy, oxy.

Resolved after my appointment with Ira, Effexor has been upped by fifty percent. (Effexor just kills sex drive. Whoopee. One more thing to look forward to.) That’s a whole lot of Effexor. I should know in a day or two if I can tolerate that high a dose. If so, I’ll need some time to see if I hop back from that precipice and contemplate dancing the hula. (Sorry, y’all, that’s the best I can do.) If I spent last week being proverbially kicked in the nuts from oxycodone withdrawal, I’d really not like to go there again.

I’m no longer in excruciating pain. That’s one reason I can be so blasé about dropping the oxy. Slowly, achingly, my back improves. Maybe, I can get by with Alleve. (Glass half full.)

I can’t catch a break. Just when I think its safe to go back in the water…(Actually, I wonder when that might be. I love the ocean. I even love swimming pools. Being wheeled along Long Island’s gorgeous beaches comes in second, though just by a rather large and eminently caricature-able nose, to Richard Nixon walking along the beach in a suit and wing tips. I’d be ridiculous. (Though he wins the ridiculous contest, no question. Certainly not in my mind.) And impossible to push along- at least on the dry sand. What a nightmare.

No today, and it has been happening since the heat has poured out of our radiators, my throat and sinuses are filled with a glue-like mucous (Nasty but healthy mucous. No funky colors. When that happens, no if that happens, then I’ll be up shit’s creek.) I can’t get the crap out without ever more violent coughing. I was coughing like that when I first came out of the hospital. That’s when coughing was responsible for two fractured ribs. Albeit hairline cracks, but cracks just the same. That’s not normal. That’s fucked up. This time around, my hearty pecs protect my ribs and allow me to breathe through the scarred wreckage that are my lungs. (Yes, I worked on the pecs some, but they really appeared without any conscious help from me. Amazing what the body can do when forced to. I love those damned pecs. They’re seriously multi-purpose. They also keep my sagging middle-aged breasts a bit less saggy than they would if left to their own devices.)

So I’m coughing again. Instead of cracking ribs, these coughs mostly throw my back out of joint. The clavicles are a nice easy target that my coughs toy with regularly. I also get lumps on my back just about anywhere you slice it, and I point them out to Rachel, my very fine masseuse, as if she’d miss them on her own. Oy.

Today, I had finished stretching my neck when I was overcome with Coughs From Hell. Those are the ones that fail to move much of anything, go on for what feels like an eternity, and make it impossible for me to catch my breath. Oh shit. I can’t catch my breath. I panic, because besides making me a fine set of pecs, my body panics all on it’s own with no help from me. During a tiny respite, I take my four o’clock pills twenty minutes early, because that batch contains a Klonopin. I thought that was clever of me to do that, don’t you? Too late, I was already in the thick of it.

The best cough suppressant is oxycodone. I swear. If I hadn’t quit Brownies I’d make a Brownies promise to you all. Just when I thought I had this one figured out, no more oxy, the insidious drug calls out, “Wait for me!” (“ Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in.”) I have to wait and see. If this fucking cough is what I have to look forward to all winter, it’ll be…long time no see, Mr. Codone!

Old Brown Water, Keep on Rollin'...

I didn’t expect I’d be writing so soon, but I need to. (Even if I fuck up my neck doing so.) Today began like any other day. For forty-five minutes or so, the hot water chose to exit the faucets brown. Calling downstairs, no one else had yet complained of the problem. As magically brown water appeared, magically it disappeared.

The need for clean hot water usually is something less than an emergency. This was too, but I often can’t tell the difference anymore between a real emergency and a not-so-real emergency. (I still have a vague fear of the shower.) Well today, I had to shower before Rachel the fine (and I have learned though it never crossed my mind she wasn’t) extremely kind masseuse arrived. Time was a wasting as my faucets gushed brown. I’ve become increasingly aware that when I get tense, my whole head tightens up. Obviously, this has become particularly problematic when I have a screwed-up painful neck and head. (Limited range of motion blah, blah, blah…) Yes, I am well aware that this “head” problem is quite different from the one that requires oodles of psychotropics for me to maintain a semblance of emotional stability.

So I got tense. I took an oxycodone. It helped both head and screwed-up back a bit. My fine masseuse arrives and is horrified to see my upper thighs covered with very ugly bruises. She is more horrified that they were caused by the splendid deep-tissue work from the prior week’s massage. She gets upset. She’s not supposed to do that. I said, “Yeah, I know, first do no harm." I’m not concerned about the bruises. I must have a high tolerance for pain and for whatever reason, my legs have always been tight. No, I have beautifully stretched muscles. I stretch like a maniac. I have to. With one quarter lung capacity, there isn’t a whole lot else I can do. This is not a stretching issue. It’s a fascia issue. Massage opens fascia releasing pent up emotions, stress and makes a person just feel plain better.

My massage therapist says she won’t go into the tissue as deeply as she did last week. This really rattled me. I was soooo relaxed last week and my body just let her in. This was not Nazi massage. So I turned a little purple. I know how tight I am , and there is no painless way around opening me up. I know it. I expect it. I accept it.

I feel guilty that I made my poor masseuse think she was Dr. Frankenstein or worse, Dr. Mengele. Guilt makes me tense. Where did I have a real hard time letting go? My goddamned head that’s where. And Chip, angel that he is, started to make a cheesecake while I was getting worked on. He forgot that the first part of the recipe requires use of the blender. Oops. I’m feeling guilty, trying to relax while knowing I have upset my masseuse for taking the damned pain, and the blender is blending in the next room. Not a surprise, this was not my best session.

After the session, I tried to explain to her why I didn’t give a shit whether my whole body was one big bruise. No, I didn’t burst out sobbing though it would have been very helpful if I had. But I did go a step past weepy. I’ve been weepy a lot. I can do weepy on the turn of a dime. My problem is that I haven’t ever been able to get past weepy. Not in three and a half years. I spoke to my masseuse, and this is what came out:

I don’t care about the bruising or the pain. I’ve had so much taken from me that I refuse to give up anymore. Back pain, neck pain, bruising. Who the fuck cares? I’m locked up (figuratively) in my apartment. I’ve lost the life I loved. I just want what has become crapass chronic pain to disappear. You add that to my inability to breathe, I don’t have much left. So if I have to walk on hot coals to make this extraneous shit go away, I have no problem with it. Don’t you see? Don’t you understand?

At this point, I’ve gone past weepy. My fine masseuse tells me she happened to work on the area (somewhere in or near my gut?) that is tied to emotions. She finally gave me a reason bruising is no good. Bruising can lead to scar tissue which she must later break through to get back to where we were prior to the bruising, That’s logical. This makes perfect sense. I can wrap myself around that. I don’t want bruising, because it may very well be making me less able to rid myself of my chronic pain.

That’s where we left it. I feel low. The oxycodone has long worn off. My fucking back hurts. Looking to the right is a no-no. (If nothing else, the left feels better than the right. Sometimes we need to grasp on to tiny things, because that’s all there are. Pick a mote. Any mote.) I had to write this down. Perhaps, I’ll feel better, Better enough to walk my three laps in the hallway gasping for breath. Oh yay. Isn’t life grand?

P.S. Yeah, I was right. My neck feels worse after typing out this post. Let’s just hope I feel better. (Can’t get no worse.)

Happy Thanksgiving y’all!

Ergonomics

I am sitting in my new spot at the dining room table at this moment, the only place I am allowed to use the computer without causing evil things to happen to my neck and head. But I really liked sitting like that fucking lump on the couch with this damned laptop. I guess ergonomics are super-duper important for a gimp like me. It's so damned easy to get a body part out of whack with minimal effort. I just have to get over my fear of sitting at the table. Yeah, more irrationality. Aren’t I fun? You just never know what you’re going to get from me, do you? Maybe you do. I sure don’t.

Today I had a session with Rachel, the lovely and eminently capable masseuse, who was pleased with the improvement I’ve made. She has no idea what it has entailed me for this to happen. Pointing and flexing feet for me is a cardio exercise. And not because I am pathetically weak. I just do them like I mean it. FYI, translation: that’s pretty damned intense.

I still haven’t gotten my splendid quadriceps back (one thing at a time Lipman). Oh, they were as quadriceps should be. But I can't give them much thought until I get this back crap put to bed. And how will I do that? By continuing all the new, fantastic exercises I’ve learned from Tamar, the greatest P.T. on the planet. The three laps walk in the goddamned hallway every night. I’ve added stretching quads, hamstrings, and glutes every day. I’m a little slow. If I did this shit say, once a week, I can’t ever make any progress at all. Meaning my mobility would remain static which is better than having my legs tighten up (if I did nothing), but I can’t make any progress like this doing all this shit piecemeal.

Reading this, you might actually think, “My, what a motivated person! Especially after that terrible disease that knocked her down and good.” Nah. I’m the same lazy shit I’ve always been. What happened to that “high achiever” of years ago? I was a lazy shit then. Now, as I did then, I am motivated by fear. Fear has always ruled my existence. My life has been a lie. I think that’s pretty funny, pathetic though it may be. So now I aim my fearful ferocity into recreating my body sans lungs of course. But if I could, I’d do that too. One fucking alveoli at a time. I’ll shove my hand down into my lungs and place new ones there myself if that were an option.

I am listening to one of my favorite playlists. (My guilty pleasure. Creating playlists.) Right now it’s David Lindley doing a semi-reggae version of Warren Zevon’s Werewolves of London. Trust me. It works. (David Lindley is a genius. Grease, dirt, polyester be damned.)

Oh Warren. I still find it difficult to listen to you, babe (This was prior to my becoming ill, so this isn’t some personal fear manifesting itself in the death of Warren Zevon. I remember buying his album Life’ll Kill Ya with the song “Your Shit’s Fucked Up.” Sounded like a fine Warren tune. The title alone made me laugh. What was this boy up to. I didn’t laugh so much after I listened to it. Naturally I didn’t realize that the song is his visit with his doctor telling him that he has inoperable lung cancer and that he’s going to die. Oh man.

Well I went to the doctor

I said, “I’m feeling kind of rough…”

“Let me break it to you son,

your shit’s fucked up.”

He ends the tune:

The rich folk suffer like the rest of us

It’ll happen to you

No wonder I have trouble listening to Warren. I adore him. He and his buddies made a film which I think ran on VH1 shortly before he died. I missed it, but my brother said it was Warren wry as ever bathed in a watercolor wash of sadness. Doug (the brother) said it was surprisingly not as painful as you’d expect it to be. Warren, I admire you immensely. I guess you came to terms with his illness. Or maybe the last laugh is on us. That you came to terms with nothing and was pissed as bloody else that your time on earth was sorely limited. When the cameras were off.

I don’t think I can come to terms with anything. I just get more and more angry as I get farther from the 2007 Life-Altering EVENT. I just had a check-up. Woohoo. Everything is fucking perfect except my lungs, asshole. This is one stinking, dirty trick that would deserve kudos if there was anyone to give kudos to.

Lucky for me I’m an atheist, because I’d be cursing out god on a daily basis. What a fucking evil thing to do a person. The only reason to do it is to laugh at that I have become a human oxymoron. Perfect, yet fatally flawed.

Fuck you.