I'll Be Dead in Two Weeks

When I was 5, Steve Austin was my hero.  I’m not talking about the wrestler.  I’m talking about The Bionic Man.  The Six Million Dollar Man.  The man who was rebuilt… better… stronger… faster.

If you’re not familiar with the Six Million Dollar Man, I’ll catch you up real quick:  it was a television show in the 1970s, starring Lee Majors.  Steve Austin (Lee Majors) was an astronaut who lost his legs, an arm, and an eye in a crash.  But because he was so awesome, the government decided to “rebuild” him in a surgery that cost six million dollars.  Steve was given new “bionic” limbs and a bionic eye.  He could run 60 mph on his new spiffy legs, and his arm was much stronger than a normal man’s.  His bionic eye was capable of a 20x zoom and even had infrared capabilities.

I wanted to be bionic so badly that I would pretend to be bionic in my everyday endeavors.  I sprung out of bed with my pretend bionic legs.  If I was brushing my teeth, I made the bionic sounds with every stroke of my bionic arm.  I pedaled my Big Wheel at astonishing speeds.  With my awesome eye, I zoomed in on the cockpits of airplanes flying high above.  All in my head.

Steve Austin's Squinty Eyebrow Look

I even practiced squinting my eyes while lifting one eyebrow…just like Steve.

He was so cool.  My brother, Greg, and I never missed an episode.

Until…

One day, we had an absolutely brilliant idea: we should reenact the crash scene that appeared at the beginning of each show. Greg is two years older than me, so at 7, he was much more analytical and positively full of wisdom.  He had all the logistics thoroughly planned out.  We would launch the “space capsule” (a laundry basket) down the runway (the stairs of our townhouse).  We needed a passenger-restraint system, so we found a thin, red cord-like belt (like the ones that serial killers use) from one of my mom’s old robes.  Safety first and all.

Guess who got to be the astronaut…

No need to worry.  I was in good hands because my brother thought of everything.  I climbed into the laundry basket at the top of the stairs.  My brother methodically wound the bathrobe belt around me and through the weavings of the laundry basket.  Before long, I was ready for launch.

Now, because the stairs of our townhouse were right inside the front door, they tended to “collect” things.  You know….mail….shoes…laundry that needed to go upstairs…that kind of thing.  So, after I was secure inside my spacecraft, Greg ran downstairs to “clear the runway.”  As he did so, he began the countdown:

“T-minus 10, 9, 8…”

I was literally shaking with excitement!  This would be the coolest stunt ever!  I would be legendary.  I imagined myself giving Phil Donahue an exclusive:  “Well, Phil, heh-heh…yes, it was remarkable…”  Then I shifted my weight in the laundry basket.

That’s the last thing I remember about the crash.  I do remember that, miraculously, the only injury I sustained was a dislocated nose, for which I had to wear a piece of tape across my face for what seemed like an eternity.

The rest of this story has been pieced together by eye-witness accounts:

Greg’s version:

“She’s breaking up…she’s breaking up…”

As my brother tells it, he went down the stairs to clear some things and start the countdown.  The next thing he knew, I started rolling and bouncing down the stairs, flying just past his head, and impacting face-first into a closet door in a spectacular explosion.  (Please excuse my lack of illustration skills.  You can click on the image to make it bigger.)

I imagine there were some pretty deafening crashing and banging sounds of my face destroying the closet.  When that all ended, and I lay in a crumpled heap on the floor looking like a chalk outline, my mom shouted from the living room at my older, wiser, boy-genius brother in a conversation that went pretty much like this:

Greg's Eyewitness Account - Exhibit A

Greg's Eyewitness Account - Exhibit B

Greg's Eyewitness Account - Exhibit C

Greg's Eyewitness Account - Exhibit D

Mom’s version:

When piecing together this posting, I recently asked my mom what happened after I flew into the closet.  Her reply?  “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you ‘don’t know?’  How could you not know?  Your youngest child lay dying in the closet.”  I was incredulous.

“Puh-leeze.  That wasn’t exactly a unique occurrence,” she said matter-of-factly.  “I may have taken you to the hospital.”

“You may have?”  How could my own mother not remember my near-death laundry basket experience?  Was it so insignificant that it didn’t even warrant a place amidst the myriad of her other memories?

“Or maybe we went to the doctor’s office the next day.  I don’t remember.  You might have been complaining that your face hurt.  Maybe you were black and blue, or your nose was crooked or something.  It doesn’t matter now.  You’re fine.”

“I cannot believe you don’t remember,” I said, idignantly.

“Uh…I do remember seeing a placard in the emergency room that listed the signs of child abuse.  But I might have seen that on one of the many other occasions you were there,” she said, pointedly.

Hmpf.

It appears that by the time I was 5 years old, my mother had already grown so weary of my stunts and shenanigans that my brush with bionic death was met with disdain and apathy.

Although, now that I think about it, that might have been about the same time I abandoned Steve for Isaac Washington—the bartender on the Love Boat.

I’m a hypochondriac. It’s not something I’m proud of. I’m also terrified of doctors, which leads to an awful lot of self-diagnosis on the internet. It’s not a good combination.

In the past two years, I had convinced myself that I had any number of diseases, including SARS, West Nile Virus, Bird Flu, Swine Flu, Mad Cow Disease, parasites of varying origins, the Ebola virus, flesh-eating diseases, vitiligo, Bell’s palsy and lead poisoning, just to name a few.

Two weeks ago I began having a pain in the center of my chest. On Friday of that week, I told my friend, Jamie, that I had Hodgkin’s disease. Now, I don’t really know anything about Hodgkin’s disease, other than my cousin had a tumor removed from his chest due to Hodgkin’s, but I was undeterred. Jamie asked if this was a recent contraction of Hodgkin’s, or if I’d had it for a while and was only just now confiding in her. I told her that I had acquired it on the past Monday. Despite my emphatic proclamation, she insisted I didn’t have Hodgkin’s. I quickly dismissed her, though, as her judgment was clearly lacking.

My brother seemed skeptical, as well, however. So, I went to WebMD, and by Sunday night I’d learned that I did not have Hodgkin’s, and instead had paraesophageal hernia, which, as I understand it, is a kind of hiatal hernia that strangles your stomach and intestines. It can also make your chest hurt. As if that weren’t bad enough, there was also a possibility that it was esophageal cancer, but I couldn’t bring myself to think about that. I was too busy losing sleep over the hernia. The next day, I mentioned my new self-diagnosis to another friend, who convinced me to try the chiropractor before purchasing a burial plot.

Well, I went to the chiropractor, Dr. Guy, who enjoys the exclusive and privileged status as one of the handful of people who I allow to touch me, and I explained what was going on. I somberly broke the news: I was fairly certain I had paraesophageal hernia, or worse, esophageal cancer. He said he was pretty sure I didn’t have either of those things, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t serious. I was in pain, after all. He began asking questions: was I in a car accident? Did I recently take a blow to the chest or collar bone? I’m clumsy, so it was certainly a possibility, but I think I would have remembered a blow like that. But it made me wonder: what the heck did he think I did when I left his office? Fight club?

As it turns out, the first rib on my right side moved out of place. He said it definitely could have been aggravated by sleeping wrong, using a computer, slouching, or coughing, but without an initial injury it seems unlikely that sleeping or computer work, alone, would have done this.

Regardless, he sat me in a chair, and got behind me. He put his right arm under my right arm, and put his left arm over my left shoulder. He put the ball of his left hand on the top of my sternum and put his right hand on his left hand. Then he said, “This is going to hurt. Just take a deep breath and try to relax.”

“How bad?” I asked.

“How bad what?” He asked.

“How bad is it going to hurt?” I clarified.

“A lot,” he said. “Just keep breathing.”

Perfect.

It was then that I had a fleeting thought: This pain isn’t so bad. I could live the rest of my life feeling as though I had a chimpanzee repeatedly kicking me in the chest. After all, I’d already lived like this for a week, so I mean, how bad could it be going through rest of my days taking shallow breaths, not being able to look to my left, and wincing any time I tried to lift either arm? I could adapt, right? Suddenly realizing he already had me in a bear hug and wasn’t letting go, I was resigned. So, I took a deep breath.

He pushed the top of my sternum down toward my feet. Oh. My. God. I nearly lost consciousness. I can’t describe the pain. I think there might have been screaming involved, but I couldn’t swear that it was my own voice. It seemed far away, like an indeterminable and wounded animal caught in a trap somewhere deep in the forest.

Three times he did this. Three. Times. By the end, I melted into the chair, a fleshy, gasping mess of what I once was. No longer a human form, I slid off the chair and into a heap on the floor where I wept quietly on my knees, ashamed of the amoeba-esque mass I had become. The only sounds were my own sobs and the softly fed Muzak through the office’s speakers. Being brutalized to a clarinet-led instrumental of “if you like piña coladas” only added to my humiliation.

I have had to go back for adjustments almost every other day since then, and I’m still not done. While I do feel better, I have to admit that I’m not looking forward to more treatments, and for the first time, I’m glad my crappy insurance only pays for 20 visits a year.

A few weeks ago, I was at my brother’s house watching his dog while he was away.  Everything was fine until Sunday afternoon.  I was upstairs doing dishes when I heard a loud banging noise coming from the garage.

I ran downstairs and into the pitch black garage and it was just deafening: BANG, BANG, BANG!  I flipped the light on and quickly realized that the washing machine was demonically possessed.

It wildly charged me from across the room.  I tackled it but it bounced off the ground and managed to shake me to the floor.  We squared off, and it took a swing at me.  But I was quick.  I blocked it with my left, clocked it with my right, and then I tackled it again.  I had it pinned in a sleeper hold and it let out a guttural moan.  I kneed it in the side, and it gasped to catch its breath.  I kneed it again, but it managed to summon some fiendish strength from its underworld appliance-god, and it threw me to the ground.  While I struggled to find my footing, it banged loudly, mocking me.  But I knew it was only a weak intimidation tactic.

That’s it.  This thing was going down.  I wasn’t playing anymore.

It came at me again.   Too late, sucka!  I was already on my feet.  I lunged at it, and hit it hard with my shoulder. Before it could recover, I gave it another quick left, then another knee, and another right. I had it on the ropes.

I was enraged. I began kicking and screaming…”AND (kick) I (kick) DON’T (kick) WANT (kick) TO (kick) HAVE (kick) THIS (kick) CONVERSATION (kick) AGAIN (kick)!

The mechanical menace coughed up one last death-throe-squeal in defeat.  I reached deep into its belly and ripped out its clothes-guts…still sopping from the failed spin cycle.  I held them above my head in triumph!

AAAAAAAAHAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAH…

…just as my brother, home from his trip, entered the garage and said, “What in the name of all that’s holy?”

Epilogue:
After my righteous battle, the Maytag lay there, withered, much to the  delight of my nephew’s golf clubs.  Apparently, the laundry-beast had been bullying the other garage-dwellers for some time.  The empty fish tank, utility sink and hockey sticks let out a cheer, and the snow-blower sat there looking rather droll.  Of course, the snow-blower is never truly happy unless it’s chewing on something.

I had the flu in July.  Unfortunately, since I’m also a lousy grocery shopper, I never have the things that sick people need.  When I feel the flu coming on, I usually find myself running to the store for a few packs of Nyquil capsules, often forgetting things like tissues and soup.

Miserable and already having missed 2 days of work, I was determined to beat this thing into submission.  I was coughing up a storm, my nose was running like it was trying to get away, and I was exhausted and dizzy.  I opened up a package of Nyquil pills and crawled into bed, instantly irritated that I didn’t have any water.  I threw back the covers and stomped across the floor as if it were the house’s fault.  I made a pit-stop in the bathroom for the toilet paper that I was using as tissues, and went to get water from kitchen.

When I came back, I couldn’t find my pills.  I staggered through the house, checking everywhere, and holding onto things to steady myself in my afflicted state.  I retraced my steps, even looked in the fridge.  Finally, I had to consider that my little dog, Putt Putt, ate them.   I eyed her warily, then opened another pack of pills, and held one in front of her as a test.  I hoped she would turn away from it, but no, the little canine garbage disposal licked it and tried to take it from me.

Shoot.  She ate them.  I knew it.

I called the poison control center, frantic.  I talked to Linda, a saint who was a trying to understand what I was saying through coughing fits.  I had no idea what information she needed, so I rapidly told her everything. Putt Putt’s age, her weight, other medications she was on and for what ailments, what kind of Nyquil it was, the color, shape, and size of the Nyquil…everything.

When I finally took a breath, Linda saw it as an opportunity.  She sighed and said, “Let me make sure I understand…”  I imagined her on the other end repeatedly stabbing herself in the eyeball with her pencil.  “Your 9 pound, 14 year old dog ate two oblong Nyquil Cold & Flu Liqui-tabs that are transparent-green in color and approximately 5/8 inches in length, and she takes Phenobarbital for seizures and hyroxizine for allergies?”

“Correct,” I confirmed.  “Oh, and she’s a dachshund.  A miniature.  If it matters.”

“It doesn’t,” she quickly said, lest I offer her more information.  “Ok, do you have any hydrogen peroxide in the house?” she asked.

I didn’t even have tissues.  “No,” said I.

“Are you near a store?”  I was.  She said, “go there, and get hydrogen peroxide and a baby syringe.  When you get back from the store, give her a little bit of something soft to eat…cheese, soft dog food…something soft.  Then give her 2 teaspoons of hydrogen peroxide through the syringe.  It will make her throw up.  If she doesn’t throw up on 2 teaspoons, wait a few minutes and give her a little more.  After she throws up, call back.”

I raced to the drugstore, where I wandered through the aisles in delirium, talked to myself like Rainman and drew pitiful stares from the other shoppers.  I found the hydrogen peroxide and a baby syringe, again forgetting tissues, juice, and soup, and, somehow, made it home unscathed.

To her thrill and surprise, I gave Putt Putt a little dog food.  Then I put her in the bathtub to induce vomiting, where she began to panic.  Was she surprised?  Yes.  Thrilled?  Not so much.  I grabbed her by the snout, and, despite her incessant wriggling and desperate protestations, I pried her mouth open, forced the hydrogen peroxide in, and waited expectantly.  After feverishly trying to lick the taste out of her mouth, she looked at me like I was a lunatic who snapped and was now trying to drown her via baby syringe.

We  just stared at each other.  For minutes (plural.)  The sounds of the hydrogen peroxide bubbling in her stomach echoed against the porcelain tub.  Then I gave her a few more drops and waited again.  “Puke, dammit!” I screamed.

Heave…heave…  It all came back up.

I called my new best friend, Linda.  She asked if I could see the pills in the bathtub.  Reluctantly, I admitted that I could not.  She asked if I could see her food.  I said yes, I could definitely see the food.

Barely containing her exasperation, she asked, “Ma’am, are you sure she actually ate the pills?”  In light of the lack of evidence, I had to admit that no, I wasn’t sure.  She said, “well, this won’t hurt her.  If she did eat them, she definitely threw them up.”

I was relieved.  I hung up the phone and looked down at Putt Putt, still in the tub.  She was so small, that only her eyes were visible over the side, like a crocodile tracking a duck.  I turned around to get some toilet paper to wipe her mouth before picking her up.  Next to the toilet paper that I had been using all week in lieu of tissues, were the missing Nyquil pills.

I’m still dodging the ASPCA.