Friday, July 22, 2011

My Brain is Oatmeal (Continued)

And so it continues. I was dizzy Miss Lizzy Tuesday night. Saw Dr. feelgood Wednesday morning. Got some drugs which seem to be taking care of the dizziness. But on Wednesday an overwhelming fatigue took over my body. The kind where you do not want to move a muscle. The kind where you swear you could sleep all day. I slept 12 hours Wednesday night and 12 hours last night. Twelve hours. And still, today I want to go right back to bed.
Can't do it, though. Got to work at the booze emporium. I am a low wage earner. No work, no pay. Had to work yesterday at the bar. That wasn't quite so bad because it's slow and I could lean against the bar all day. But still I couldn't wait to get home and hit the recliner. Today will be tougher, much more physical but I will get through. We always do, don't we?
Thinking about health. Your health is whatever it is. You create your own definition of health. I don't believe in medical definitions of how to get health, how to maintain health. With all the knowledge today's doctors have, there are still so many things they don't understand about the human body. How can one guy drink 2 bottles of whiskey a day and smoke 2 packs of cigarettes a day for 50 years and live to be 82? How can another guy jog 5 miles day, maintain a vegetarian diet, avoid alcohol and cigarettes, and die at the age of 39?
At some point in your life you figure out what is healthy for you, how healthy feels, and you go with that. It's when your body suddenly feels different or reacts differently that you get nervous. You exercise or you don't, you eat "healthy" or you don't, you drink and/or smoke or you don't, but at some point in your life an equilibrium is established that you become comfortable with.
My regimen includes alcohol. There have been many times and years and decades when I have consumed way more than my body needed and I knew it when I was doing it. Did it anyway, which is a topic for another time and place. But when I am consuming what I consider to be the right dosage of alcohol for my health, I feel comfortable about it. It's possible I will be proven wrong. My liver may fall out one day or I may end up in Eric Clapton's addiction treatment center in Antigua (wouldn't that be soothing), but until then I will continue to do what I do.
But right now I am uncomfortable. The dizziness is gone, I think, except my normal dizziness resulting from processing the absurdity of life. But I am exhausted and I don't like it. Because I am outside my comfort zone. It makes you think about mortality and lifestyle, it makes you question your vulnerability. Or maybe I am just a drama queen. Maybe normal people laugh this kind of stuff off, maybe they just deal with it.
But I am sitting here wondering if I will feel "normal" tomorrow. Or Sunday. I am wondering how the hell I am going to make it through work today and tomorrow when I feel like I could sleep standing up. And of course I am pissed off that I feel pressured to go to work because we need the money, instead of staying home and resting, which is exactly what my body needs.
The irony of course is that when I start feeling better I will take it for granted. Maybe. I have been exercising my ass off this year (I haven't been able to since I got sick and that pisses me off) and I like the way I feel. Maybe I'll worship my return to health and start going to church and praying by my bedside at night and stop swearing so fucking much. Maybe not.
The doctor thing cracks me up too. I figured they would draw blood, do a stress test, schedule an MRI and a CAT scan, keep me in the hospital for a week and arrive at an accurate diagnosis. What she did in reality was check my blood pressure, take my temperature, look into my ears, nose and mouth, check my pulse and breathing, ask me questions and make a diagnosis (guess). Isn't that the way they did it in 1839?
Hopefully she was right. Hopefully my energy will return and I can get back to driving my wife crazy.
When I do feel better, will it be because I visited a brilliant and knowledgeable doctor? Or because she made a lucky guess? And what if I still feel this way Monday? What do I do? Visit a witch doctor, a shaman, a holistic healer? Or do I go right back to the hallowed halls of modern medicine and hope they guess right this time?
That's enough whining for today. Shortly, I have to get to the booze emporium. It might not be too bad. If I am not thrown on a register immediately upon arrival, I can hide behind the wall and slowly stock the shelves. And sit down on a case of Dewars to sneak a quick nap. If I do get thrown on the register immediately there could be blood shed. Everybody will be whining about the heat, whining about their jobs, whining about their poverty. And I will be asleep on my feet. Whining to myself about how tired I am. And thinking about how much I want these whiners to shut the hell up.
Life is bizarre, no?

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