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.”

Marijuana Toast

As promised, today was psychopharmacologist day. Given that oxycodone, if it hasn’t rid me of pain (the stuff dulls it down some), has given me a life back, the rest of my drugs will remain as is. What’s really funny is that I had no life to begin with. I guess the good news is that I’m out of the minus column. (You know, I’m afraid I’m really going to regret saying that.)

I didn’t want to fuck with what works. I’m way too close to suicidal to be stupid and try and wean myself off some of this crap now. (And there’s a lot of it.) No, sweethearts, I’m not feeling the least bit suicidal and haven’t since I emotionally recovered from my recent upper respiratory infection. (Put me face to face with death, why suffer longer than you have to blah, blah, blah?) Also, going into the winter is a bad time for me to screw around with mood-altering drugs because, if you all remember I suffer from S.A.D- Seasonal Affective Disorder along with Anxiety, Depression and PTSD. (Knowing that I suffered most of my life from S.A.D. explains so much the crud of my painful adolescence. I understand behavior that otherwise remained inexplicable to me. I feel like I should always have slapped on my person huge gummy red letters, “How ‘bout that!” Not quite To Sir With Love, but that’s as close as I’m ever going to get.) Now, I just sit in front of a light box, and I remain stable. I sure wish I had it back then. (The light box. But come to think of it, the huge gummy letters would have been cool.)

Oh, why huge gummy, red letters?

I don’t know. They just popped up into my head. They feel right. Let’s try and explicate them, shall we? There’s no Bocarde around to tell me my stream of consciousness is all wrong. Which it may very well be. But I’m sorry Mr. Bocarde, you can’t make that determination. Well, you can, but who would listen? Certainly not I. What’s even lovelier (than those big, fat sticky letters) is that I don’t give a shit. And odd man that he is (was? I hope not), he’d probably like that. I think he would also enjoy like this foul blog. (“Foul” was one of my darling Suzanne’s favorite words.) Bocarde loved Suzanne.

How could he not? She ripped apart everything he had us read. Those precious works he found so important and special that he wished to share them with us. He always gave her an A+ because she shred every single point he made about any of these beloved works- like Portrait of an Artist…one rip at a time.

He ate that shit up. Bizarre as you were, you, sir, you were one of the only interesting teachers in the whole goddamned school system. But let’s not speak of such things now.

Huge, gummy red letters. Ahh! They’re so perfectly clumsy, awkward, bizarre, and impossible to miss. The adolescent me knew only a few who what went on in my fevered, little brain. (Sorry to say, it’s not all that different from the crap you’ve been reading. Except I confess my tough-guy countenance is pure fantasy. Well not exactly. I hang my head in shame. I’m actually a very sweet person. No one would ever think so from reading this damned blog, but I confess. It’s kind of true. But no matter. This time, I’d be noticed all right. I think that’s kind of cool. Hey, it’s a helluva lot better than a zit the size of Mount Vesuvius. Oh, I’d sure wear my letters with pride. Yo, I don’t consider this humiliating. I find it liberating. My scarlet letters. You know, that is kind of sweet. Warped perhaps, but sweet.

Back to teachers in the Port Washington Union Free School District. One day Mrs. El Kadi who, for those who didn’t have the pleasure of her acquaintance, was a mad woman. Flat-out bonkers. One class she announces, “Don’t you find it interesting that the smartest person in the room has the smallest forehead?” I slump in my seat. Shit. The class is looking around. Obviously, they can’t discern forehead size like Mrs. El Kadi. Finally, she breaks the suspense and points to the back of the room. At me. No one in the room gives a shit. But I’m mortified. What was this woman thinking? Who said she was qualified to teach anyone anything ever? Good old Port giving the enfeebled or just plain mad a chance to live a normal life.

Back to me and the present. After the visit with the psychopharmalocogist, Chip made an appointment at my behest with the Heebie Jeebie Lady chiropractor. Oh how soon they forget! My goilfriend the doctor recommended her because she was “a good practitioner” and right in the neighborhood. My beloved chiropractor is in Washington Heights. Among weekly visits from Tamar, the best P.T. on the planet, Rachel, the fine masseuse, and Kristen my angel, my therapist who comes twice a week, I’m physically unable to make the trip up to Washington Heights to Laurie, my darling chiropractor. (It ends up about an hour each way.) I do miss her terribly.

Besides the screwed up back (which I actually think is responding to all the attention paid to it), my head and neck decided to get in on the fun and flip out too. Sons-of-bitches. Here’s where the Heebie Jeebie Lady comes in. Since she stopped coloring her hair, she doesn’t give me those same heebie-jeebies she had years ago when first saw her. I knew I needed to see a chiropractor and fast. I really was desperate. ) With each passing moment, it became more and more difficult to turn my head left or right. (Besides being rather restricting, it was painful as all bloody hell.) C’mon, don’t I already have enough on my “plate” to contend with? It doesn’t work that way, does it?

But as she was on all my past visits, she is a fine practitioner. She’s good too. I have a head and neck back. You really don’t know how much you’d miss them if they flat-out went cuckoo on you. Not crazy. Loony tunes I know intimately. No, that they just don’t work. (I can’t even imagine what stroke patients go though.) Let’s just say you miss them an awful lot. Now, they’re behaving themselves, and I know have a chiropractor in the hood if I need her again. I think she has a new name. From now on, she’s “The Good Practitioner.”

Flattery will get you everywhere, even when you’re dealing with lumps of flesh. Oh they know. Yes they do. They just remain impassive as always. Slowly, but surely, they poke up their little invisible antennae and if you coo just right, they’ll cut you a break and stop leaving you in agony. It’s a subtle cross between love and diplomacy. Difficult. But left in the right hands, they’ll- the lumps of horrifically painful flesh - eventually cut you a break. And the oxycodone sure doesn’t hurt.

Even if it may be making me queasy. (Damnit!) Hello marijuana toast! (A most beautiful and often necessary invention.)

Heebie-Jeebies

Today I went to see a chiropractor. The chiropractor I love and adore is away on vacation this week. I see her because she makes me feel better physically. But her presence, her aura, is one of comfort and nurture. I love her.

But for me, it requires a feat of Herculean strength to get to her office. This all sounds pretty silly when you explain what makes the damned act of getting there so Sisyphean. (Excuse me y'all,what the fuck is with me tonight? Did someone add something new to medication that makes me even more pretentious than usual? I'm not down with this one bit. It's not fitting for a Queens girl.)

She has moved her office from the Upper West Side to Washington Heights. I actually got to enjoy the hour or so it took to get there. I got a lot of reading done on the A train. All right, I had to accept that a visit up there was a day outing. Worked for me. and it was nice up there, right by Fort Tryon Park.

Then, I became ill. And a year and a half after that, I became significantly worse. (If I lose more lung function, who the hell knows?) You know that's the guarantee I want. I want to be told that I won't die from this. Oh you could all tell me I'm not going to die, but the cat, unfortunately, is already out of this bag. I sure can. Die or perhaps lie to myself, "Oh you silly girl! Everything is going to be fine, just fine. This thing can't kill you!" That would be positively delightful. Oh come on. Pretty please with sugar on top? Doesn't work, does it? So, life's delightful in your dreams, you numnutz.)

Okay, I've got that out of my system for the next ten minutes, so we can talk about getting up to Washington Heights post-illness. Chip, angel that he is, drives up there. (Late afternoon appointments only. I am now constitutionally unable to get out of bed before noon. It is impossible. For real. I also need an hour (or more) nap in the middle of the day, or I crash about mid-evening. So, my waking hours are few. I'm more like a cat, except they don't seem too perturbed by much of anything. All their needs are met. What do they have to fret about? I fret a lot. Too much.

The hour-long drive to Washington Heights isn't too much of a problem. The car seats provide very nice lumbar support. It's what I have to face after the drive that makes me a nervous wreck.

Now let's get this straight. I'd much prefer to use utterly perfect Yiddish words I've heard all my life to describe my inability to cope at that moment in time. Why use the vanilla, unexpressive "nervous wreck" when there's a perfect expression that connotes all my angst and sheer nuttiness in one neat little package?

Because I can't find a goddamned transliteration anywhere on the Web. Dad was the one who grew up speaking Yiddish, my mother grew up speaking Hungarian and her Yiddish is just the every day, run-of-the-mill New York Yiddish (but infinitely better than mine) Hell. Chip's New York Yiddish vocabulary has really become quite good. And you know, I think Roy would think twice now before he tells Chip he looks like a Nazi storm trooper.

No. He wouldn't. But that is neither here or there. I'm very proud of my honey. (And yeah sweetheart, in that raincoat of yours, you really did have that aryan thing going.) So I'll take a crack at it on my own: Physically entering my chiropractor's building and negotiating the ridiculously high steps make me a nervosa hilaria. (Already, I feel better.)

The steps scare the crap out of me, because after I go up these measly few stairs, I can't breathe. I hate it when that happens. (Don't you?) It feels like eons before I can breathe like a regular person. (I'll have to wait eons for me to breathe like a regular person. I settle for my version of normal breath intake. As Chip would say, "Quel drag."

So today, I went to the chiropractor who gives me the heebie jeebies but as my girlfriend, the doctor says, "She's a good practitioner." And she is. she's really good. Better yet, I no longer have searing pain in my back that has put me fairly close to the edge as of late. I think I may have to go on the combo plan and visit the two: my Washington Heights darling for her great work on my pathetic body and just as important, the great work she does for my soul, and the Great Practitioner who really is awfully good at what she does who's right in the neighborhood. What else can this girl do?

P.S. I knew I was crazy wrong. I'm miserable with Yiddish transliterations. The "correct" spelling is "nervouse chahlairya." And I still am one today, by the way. ("Correct" spelling via telephone through mother courtesy of Leah in Florida.) xoxo