Learning to crawl
There’s something the matter with me.
Now, I know this news will come as no surprise to anyone who is acquainted with me or who has ever read my work or who has stood behind me at the coffee shop (yes, I always take the lid from the middle of the stack), but I’m not talking about that kind of something-the-matter-with-me. I’m talking about going-to-the-doctor, running-tests, talking-to-insurance-adjusters something-wrong.
And, worse, I’m afraid I may have brought it on myself.
That is because I am a product of Protestant guilt. I remember being told in Sunday school that if I dropped a nickel and it fell down a storm drain, it was because God was punishing me for something. So hardwired am I to this notion that anytime a bad thing has befallen me, I can link it to a cause. Didn’t get that E-Z Bake oven for Christmas? It was because I broke a figurine at Sally Eastman’s house and hid it on the windowsill behind a curtain rather than fess up. (Santa is a vengeful god.) Lost my grandmother’s engagement ring? It was my unkind thoughts about a woman’s unfortunate updo. My dad’s death? Didn’t respond to a chain letter. You’d really think after a while I’d have learned to watch my step, but no.
And how did I bring on this thing-that-is-the-matter-with-me? Simple. Last fall, I was reading the “Diagnosis” column in the Sunday Times magazine, in which they feature a rare mystery affliction someone is suffering from and trace how it was finally diagnosed. I thought a bad thought – that a mystery ailment was probably somehow self-inflicted; that people caused these things to happen so they could take a little siesta from their daily routine and catch up on their Matlock reruns.
OK, I’ll admit it, I scoffed.
Not long thereafter, my legs started giving out on me. Not right at that moment, mind you (God has quite a backlog), but soon enough afterward that I could see a cause-and-effect relationship.
At first, I was just stiff – not unusual for an aged person like myself. But then I started losing strength. Despite the fact I continued to go to the gym three times a week for two hours a pop, I could no longer run. I could walk fast, but I could not lift my legs to run. If I sat longer than a half-hour, my legs would buckle when I tried to get up. Going up stairs took an enormous amount of effort. There were stabs and sparkles of pain playing all over my legs. This was more than getting older.
I thought I might’ve injured them in some way, so, like a good Yankee, I tried to work out the problem myself (more stairs, extra stretching, nightly beer ‘n’ bath, etc.). When that failed, I finally went to see my doctor. Several quarts (or so it seemed) of blood later, Lyme Disease was ruled out, as were platelet issues, muscle-enzyme stuff, a B-12 deficiency, and the presence of tiny green men armed with spears attacking me when I wasn’t looking. (Personally, I still haven’t fully discounted that one.)
The next step was to see a neurologist. At first, this sounded sort of glamorous – kind of Dark Victory meets Sunset Boulevard. The nurse making the appointment for me asked if I had a preference of neurologists, as though I was one of those Hollywood wives selecting the quack who was going to pump my face full of Botox. “Oooh, yes,” I’d purr. “I heard Dr. Tinkerflunk is just fabulous with the needle.” I didn’t know how to pick a neurologist. Besides, what if I chose wrong and found crystals and Shirley MacLaine books in the waiting room? Or what if my selected doctor worked out of a camper parked in his parents’ driveway? Or had a diploma that looked like it was printed off the Internet? I took my chances and let my primary care doctor choose for me.
I needn’t have worried. The first look I took at my neurologist, I knew he was the man for me. He had nightmare prints on his walls – a Miro dreamscape, Picasso’s “Guernica” – and he had gray hair, black-framed glasses and was mean-looking. In fact, he sort of resembled a male version of me. Following the exam, he determined three MRIs were in order. He leaned in and asked if I was claustrophobic, like he couldn’t have guessed that one out of the gate. He sent me home with a drug doggy bag to keep me from going all Buried Alive once inside the machine – which, in my imagination, was going to be like being squeezed inside a toothpaste tube for almost two hours.
I received a check-in call the day before my appointment. “Just want to make sure you’re ready for tomorrow,” the screener said. “When you come in, please make sure to wear loose-fitting clothes, no zippers, clasps, buttons, or buckles. No makeup, no jewelry, no hairspray, no lotion.” I looked down at myself. I never knew that all my life I had been dressing like an MRI patient.
Even though I was freaked at the prospect, the experience actually turned out to be kind of fun. First of all, I didn’t have to get entombed inside a tube. Instead, I got the ring. Now, it may have been the drugs, but I thought my machine looked like a giant, back-lit toilet seat. The bed was comfy, and the very nice nurses propped up my feet for me and let me scratch my nose in between images. But the best part was that each segment – ranging from two to five minutes – had its own soundtrack: repeated bongs or trills or tweets or gongs. It was kind of like being at a Laurie Anderson concert. I mean, I wouldn’t pay for a ticket or anything to do it again, but it wasn’t the nightmare I thought it would be.
The real nightmare turned out to be the waiting. Up until the MRIs, I had two bum legs, but now they held the awful possibility of something greater. Something dire, maybe debilitating, maybe deadly.
I know that sounds melodramatic, but it’s hard to keep your mind quiet when your body fails you. It stops everything else around you and starts up the reckoning. Two a.m. is the nightly screening time in your brain for such titles asWhy Me?, What If?, and Me and My Scooter. During this waiting period, I had one picture that would not leave my brain (aside from taking up smoking again and chasing kids on my Li’l Rascal): Katahdin. John and I had started to climb it two years ago, but turned around halfway because of the rain. (Two glasses-wearers + pouring-down rain = “Hell with this, let’s go drink beer.”) I could not imagine that was my last crack at that mountain.
Two weeks later, I was back at the neurologist’s office. After an hour of reviewing the CDs of my brain (which I thought looked suspiciously like a sonogram I once saw of my ovaries), my neck, and my spine, I was told the worst-case scenarios – brain tumor, MS, ALS – were ruled out. We discussed all the other things I do not have, and then my doctor leaned back, folded his hands and announced, “I have no idea what’s wrong with you.”
And so, on the one hand, I am free. He does not feel my condition is dire. He says there are all sorts of mysterious neuro-maladies out there, and I may wake up one morning and find mine has gone. Or not. He says to try Ibuprofen, up my B-12 intake, and come back in six months. And, in the meantime, live with it.
Thus, I now take my place in that netherworld populated by people with non-conditions. Do I have something, or do I not? My legs say yes, my diagnosis says no. But I can’t complain, really. After all, I brought it on myself, didn’t I?
Elizabeth Peavey, whose column appears monthly, suggests that we all grasp our nickels closely and watch our step around those storm drains.
