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.”

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!

"I bet you can squeal like a pig. Weeeeeeee!"

Vain thing that I am, I used the magical, dry spray shampoo my hair stylist, the adorable Aisha gave to me. Anyone remember Psssssst? The commercial glued itself to my brain:

“It’s not a dry shampoo. Oh no. It’s not a wet shampoo. Oh no. Clairol freshens your hair instantly with P-s-s-s-s-s-s-t.”

The above was sung to a seriously lame jingle. It did do exactly what Clairol said it would if after spraying, you never touched your hair ever until ready for a real washing. Because if you do, watch out. Your hair ends up greasier and more hideous that it was before you sprayed. The product is still available. I thought it went out long ago in the seventies. Apparently not. I suppose there are people out there with more self-control than I (you now know I have none whatsoever) and maintained their lovely Psssssst hair for the day.

Well now, there exists a product that makes no bones about it. It is a dry shampoo. Just like Psssssst. (Or if you’d like me to be technical about it, they both spray out of a can.) The difference is, this new shit really works. (I had a panic this morning, after a carefully executed shpritz, that I breathed some of it in. I believed that I did this, because it’s yet another terrible thing that can go wrong. My Life’s Motto since my initial illness: “If it can get any worse, it will.”

Breathing in these toxic fumes will naturally have ruined my lungs even further, which of course would make it even more difficult to breathe than the normal gasping for breath. Who knew that some silly hair product could trigger PTSD? A car’s backfire, the whir of helicopter blades, being kidnapped, blindfolded and dropped in some unknown desert…that I can understand. Those things should trigger PTSD. And now we find that this new shit that actually works (unlike Psssssst) making your hair look and feel clean even when it isn’t triggers PTSD In me. How ‘bout that? I may have a cool diagnosis, but I feel as lame as Arlo Guthrie trying to explain to real felons on the Group W bench that he was arrested for littering.

But I’m here today to talk about my inability to let go (verbally) during massage. I've taught myself how to relax even when it's killer painful, but I won't ever make a peep. Silly girl. 
I'm afraid I have so much locked up inside that one day I'm going to blow. 
I even tried an on the spot exercise that I thought was just so damned clever. I asked my masseuse "permission" to let go. The poor girl was so befuddled by my question. I just told her, “Amuse me, just go with me on this.” She did. She gave me permission, and I explained to the still confused young woman (with hands of steel) that this acting exercise was in fact giving MYSELF permission to scream like a banshee. Sounded like a good idea, but it didn't work. Not last week. Oh, and I know I need it bad. This may take some serious work. What’s the expression? “You’re too clever by half.” Yup. That’s me.

My man Rich, to whom I confided this dilemma on Facebook, was quite amused by the idea of my being a Submissive. (Asking permission to go zoo on the massage table and such.) Perhaps I need to move further in that direction.

If Franny doesn’t behave and squeal like a pig…they’ll be more pain forthwith. (The goofy thing is that deep tissue massage is more often than not excruciatingly painful, so that threat won’t do shit.)

But the “squeal like a pig” (yes, which I did use deliberatively to bring us all back to the first (and for me) last time I saw Deliverance. Those words, “Squeal like a pig” may frighten me more than anything in this entire world. I have put together an early 1970s playlist that includes everything I can think of: Deodato’s Thus Spake Zaruthustra, Billy Preston’s Space Race, Kenny Rogers and the New Edition’s Something’s Burning, and even the treacly United We Stand sung by Brotherhood of Man whoever the fuck they were. But I cannot bring myself to include the formerly ubiquitous Dueling Banjos on that playlist. If I were never hear it again that would be too soon.

I think I’ll continue my quiet ways on the table. She, Rachel my fine masseuse, has the capacity bring me to my knees, but she’ll not hear a peep from me. Let’s say…I’m a work in progress.

Or maybe playing Dueling Banjos on repeat during the massage? If that doesn’t get a rise out of me…ohgodno! It’s more likely to clam me up forever. Forget it.

P.S. I thought I would have, at the very least, a mess of angry comments for writing about Deliverance for a second time. Once was too much. This time I expected an angry mob outside my building with tall flaming torches and pitchforks forcing their way in come to rip me to pieces. (Not that I don't deserve it....)

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.