Some of us who have reached codgerhood still take everything for granted. They get up in the morning, certain the sun will be shining, all right with the world, as they meet the new day. The rest of us approach things more cautiously. As impossible as it may seem for problems to crop up while one is sleeping, this is not an unknown phenomenon in Fogeyland. Sleep too long in one position, the back is out of whack, or the neck. Headaches often appear out of nowhere, like the Flying Dutchman. On rising, the clouds of miscomprehension may have gathered around one’s personal head, leading to mistakes and, of course, coffee. Surviving all this, it’s time to go outside.
When we go out to feed the horses and there are no accidents or leavings of feed (indicating a possible eventual colic), no horses maimed by a nail sticking out of the fence or a kick from one of their compadres, when the cars start and the electric gate works and the Pathogenes employees show up on time, we are encouraged. But we never take anything for granted.
Even so, it was a little surprising last Friday when I arrived home from the gym around noon and was instantly attacked by a clutching pain in the sternum. You know, the place….the breastbone, front and center, that little area where the peanut butter sandwich sometimes sticks and refuses to go down. Yeah, there. I thought it would stop after a few minutes. Uh uh. It got worse. It would clutch, then slowly release, then reclutch. It went on for hours. I was 95% positive it was not a cardiac event but I was also 95% positive of this the time, eight years ago, when I had a heart attack. I called my cardiology crew and they arranged for me to come in at 4:30. I was perfectly capable of driving to and fro myself, but Siobhan wouldn’t hear of it. We were having a dinner with guests that night, so she assigned her brother, Stuart, to go with me while she carried on in the kitchen. Leave it to me to be inconvenient.
“I’ll be driving,” said Stuart.
“Why would that be,” I asked.
“It’s part of my rigid policy regarding possible heart attack victims,” he said. Made sense to me.
When I arrived, I was seen quickly by Dr. Natrajan Subramanian, who took an EKG and checked my blood enzymes for indications of heart damage. Everything was normal. He also probed a large swollen area near my left groin, which I had noticed while showering prior to the trip. It looked like a hernia to both of us but there was no protuberance. He was a little uncomfortable, but he let me go. We even made it back to Siobhan in time to preserve the dinner.
As the night wore on, my tongue began to swell and seemed very acidic. When I went to bed, it was large. I mentioned this to Siobhan, who thinks I exaggerate my ailments. I woke up about three and the tongue was killing me. Not only that, it was blocking a lot of my airway. I could still breathe adequately, though, and I felt it had reached maximum overdrive so I just got up and tried to flush it with an ice cube. No improvement. I went back to bed and, eventually to sleep. Next morning, I was not eager to get up. Siobhan came over to rouse me.
“WHOA!” she yelped, jumping back in horror.
“Whassamatta?”
“Your FACE! It’s all blown up. You look like a giant FROG! Or, sticking to the human category, like somebody who went ten rounds with Marciano.”
“You know Rocky?”
“I know he beat the hell out of everybody.”
I went to the mirror. She wasn’t kidding. My lips were about five times a big as normal and the lower half of my face was a mess. I don’t know about a frog, though. Perhaps more like a fish, the Malawi Blue Dolphin Cichlid, to be precise. My hands were red and swollen, as were my forearms, especially around the wrist joint. Both hands, especially the right one, were extremely sensitive to hot water, which felt scalding. And not to scare the gentlemen out there who get nervous hearing about these things, but my testicles and penis were a fetching shade of maroon. Okay, that’s plenty of clues for your personal home diagnosis. Put ‘em together and whattaya got? Definitely not Bippity Boppity Boo.
Stuart, a doctor himself, advised taking Benedryl and an antacid. He and Siobhan agreed the whole mess had to be some kind of bizarre contact allergy. The Benedryl improved things immediately, first with the tongue, the big lips hanging on to the bitter end. By Monday, when I went to my primary care guy in Gainesville, most of the swelling had subsided. He said the culprit in such a case is almost always the most recent thing a person has ingested prior to signs appearing. That would have been a supplement I took—and have been taking for two years now—on the way home from the gym. That’s our story, anyway, and we’re sticking with it. I tossed the remaining supplement and will move on to good old Gatorade.
You just never know what the new day brings. Some days are diamonds, an increasing number are stones. But hey, if any of your friends ever call in a blind panic in the middle of the night citing maroon testicles, now you’re ready for it. Just recall this column, smile and tell him, “Grover, I got you covered.”
Worse Off Than Bill
I am, of course, but a bit player in Allergy World. Some people have got it really tough. How would you like to be poor little Kaleb Bussenschutt, a 6-year-old Australian kid who can consume only water, ice and one brand of lemonade? Talk about your boring meals. If Kaleb eats anything else, he develops ulcers and experiences agonizing stomach pain. He gets his nutrients directly through a feeding tube connected directly into his stomach for 20 hours a day. Doctors think (but aren’t sure) that Kaleb suffers from multiple food allergies and severe malabsorption that makes his body unable to cope with eating food at all. And you felt sorry for Chris Christie.
Believe it or not, there are people out there who are actually allergic to sex! Many of you men out there will not be at all surprised by this and may even claim to know several of the victims, but we’re talking serious here. There is actually a rare allergy to male seminal fluid, a condition known as human seminal plasma hypersensitivity, symptoms of which include burning sensations, rashes and welts. Between 20,000 and 40,000 women in the U.S. may have this problem, although it’s not clear that they would have it with all men (I guess you have to check around a lot to find out. “Nope, George—you’re no good. Okay, Larry, let’s give you a shot….”).
Some people (like Siobhan and Allen Morgan) are allergic to cold. People with cold urticaria, however, are really allergic to cold. Exposure to chilly air or frigid water can cause their skin to turn red, swell, itch and develop hives. Swimming in cold water can evoke a severe whole-body reaction, leading to fainting, shock or even death. Discovery of this allergy could be a big help to the Mob. Now when the cops drag a body out of the Hudson, Mob lawyers can cite the possibility of cold urticaria. For this to be an effective defense, of course, there must be absolutely NO evidence of cement materials in the pedal areas.
You’ll think we’re kidding, but some people are actually allergic to beanbags. Kids get sick playing in them but nobody ever suspects the beanbags. Been around for years, right? Must be something else. Unbeknownst to about everybody, however, beanbags can be filled with a variety of stuffing materials, some of them being soybeans. Apparently, lots of people are allergic to soybeans. Who knew?
House Of Cards, Year Two. “Me Golden Idol Is Tarnished!”
When we first met Kevin Spacey’s HOC character, the cleverly initialed Frank Underwood, he had just had the rug pulled out from under him, he would not be named Secretary of State, contrary to the President’s promise. This turned out to be a very, very, very bad thing to do to Frank, who seethed for vengeance and was quite capable of extracting it. The whole viewership was behind him as he cajoled, threatened and prevaricated his way through the first thirteen episodes, finally arriving, of all places, at the vice-presidency. If a couple of people had to leave this orb to grease the wheels for this remarkable achievement to occur, well, that was just unfortunate, the only consideration was that Frank move forward. I mean, after all, Frank had been screwed, right?
Cue up season two. Now ensconced at the Center of Power, Frank remains threatened by a few members of the press, who are digging for details of his previous indiscretions, particularly the odd death of Frank’s candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania. Before long, one of the newspeople is dead, another in jail, a third in hiding and the fourth, well, hopefully his life insurance is paid up. Whereas once Frank was a sympathetic character, he has now become a slimebucket, a murderer, a despoiler of people’s lives, an egomaniac nonpareil and married to a woman of similar ilk.
Frank, we don’t like you any more. Not only that, but can’t anyone in Hollywood throw a goddam baseball without looking like a sissy? If you’re throwing out the first ball from an actual major league pitching mound, chances are you won’t be able to do it using only your forearm, I promise you. It will only travel about twenty feet, not counting the roll. Put a little shoulder into that pitch, Frank. Not that we care about you, anymore. Oh, and enough with the barbecue shack, already. And more than enough with it’s unduly dour owner, who might smile once a year, tho you can’t prove it by me.
I’m rooting for the poor put-upon newsmen still alive and working the story. I don’t like their chances, mind you, but there must be someone remaining to spare all of us a Frank Underwood presidency. The ones we’ve had are troublesome enough.
Evil Frank Underwood And His Wicked Wife Claire; Come Back Zoe, We Miss You.
The Arizona Massacre
In an era when our own state has managed to cobble together the worst state legislature in its befuddled history, it’s comforting to know that others have sinned even more egregiously. The politicos in Kansas are still absolutely positive Darwin had it all wrong and they most assuredly are NOT descended from monkeys, although their antics might give you pause. They keep insisting their schools teach “creationism,” whatever that is, and anybody who doesn’t like it can just go and move to Duluth. It would be difficult for any state assembly to snatch the coveted Booby Prize from this nest of lemurs but the group in Arizona is trying.
See, in Arizona, they would like you to be a nice, white, Christian heterosexual, born in the USA….on the Fourth of July, if possible. Failing any of these requirements, you’ve got a problem. The Arizona legislature is going to find a way to harass you into moving somewhere else. They recently decided to pass a law allowing the local police to arbitrarily stop and badger anyone they were suspicious of being a Mexican. Those pesky courts thought the law might be a trifle unconstitutional, so that didn’t work. They came up with another one which allowed Arizona businesses to refuse services to people whose habits might offend their religious sensitivities. Hmmn, that sounds familiar. Well, a funny thing happened on the way to the passage. A boatload of national corporations took umbrage. Apple, on the verge of opening a 2000-employee operation in the state, said they might reconsider. The Hispanic National Bar Association, no hypocrites, promptly cancelled their 2015 Phoenix convention. Even scarier, the National Football League threatened to pull next year’s kajillion-dollar Super Bowl from the state. American Airlines spoke up. Petitions piled in. Letters of denouncement arrived, signed by everyone from the Baja Marimba Band to the Knights of Pythias. Even bumbleheaded Florida governor Rick Scott, who is never right about anything, came out in opposition. He must have had a vision. Buried beneath the debris, some of the very people who voted for the bill began coming up with claims of being temporarily possessed by demons, voting in their sleep or suffering altered alertness caused by desert weather conditions. They were jumping ship faster than Denver Bronco fans after the first half of the Super Bowl.
Yesterday, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, a troglodyte in her own right, raised an index finger to the wind and came to the only rational decision available (even troglodytes can count). “I have vetoed Senate Bill 1062,” she pronounced, claiming the bill “could divide Arizona in ways we could not even imagine and no one would ever want.” Maybe this will be a large bucket of ice-cold Gatorade in the face for like-minded politicians capable of the same shenanigans in other states. Not that we’re optimists, but even the worst of fools will ultimately see the handwriting on the wall.
The Bill Update
The first article today was written Tuesday, the better to remember the particulars. It is now Thursday, of course. I went back to the gym yesterday in a feisty mood, ready to resume my former schedule. After two minutes on the treadmill at a modest pace, I felt lightheaded. I got off, mystified. Alert staff member Mike took my blood-pressure (120-70) and heart rate (70), both as normal as could be. He asked for unusual circumstances. I told him I woke up Wednesday morning four pounds lighter than I went to bed (two is normal for me), having sweat like a dog through the night….enough to wash the sheets.
“Your body is still trying to egest some toxins,” said Mike, who knows about these things. “Sometimes it gets rid of the baby with the bathwater and you get electrolyte imbalance. If you are the healthiest person in the world and develop a bad electrolyte imbalance, you’re going to have a temporary problem.”
“I’m going home, now,” I told him. “Got a Gatorade in the car.”
“TWO good things,” said Mike.
I woke up today feeling spectacular. I bounced around feeling lighter than air, feeding horses and whistling a happy tune. I noticed the birds were singing and I discovered a brilliant red camellia had opened up on the garden path. It occurred to me that it was a mere 22 days until Spring. There was a massage scheduled for tomorrow and the Gator basketball team could seize the SEC Championship with a home win Saturday. The azalea bushes were budding and weatherpeople were predicting a warm and perfect weekend. I was astonished at my good fortune. How can all these marvels be descending on me at the same time, I wondered? And then it hit me:
This was just the Natural Order Of Things when all the poisons have been egested.
That’s all, folks
