An insane foray into medication.
Six weeks ago I approach my primary care physician with the complaint of a suspected kidney stone: dull ache in the murky vicinity of the back guts, familiar pang. We do a urinalysis and find nothing, and he orders an x-ray. In 2022 this means that it will fall to me, a fully employed and busy person whose job is NOT health care to find another health pro, a radiologist, to do the x-ray, probably in some remote clime like Burbank, or North Hollywood; 2.5 hours round trip, plus parking, etc. I do not follow through, relegating the task to the “someday” section of the task management software I use to file things I will never do.
Meanwhile I am plagued by procrastination and anxiety and absent-mindedness something dreadful and actually DO try to do something about it. Recommendations from friends, referrals to health care, good advice etc. I make an appointment with a psych. Is it ADHD? Has it always been. I am reminded of chiding teachers throughout my k12 career, and well into college.
Four weeks ago I awake at 2 am with a bizarre pain in the abdomen. I suspect food poisoning: a delicious but suspect rice bowl from a thai food stall dripping with half cooked eggs and sketchy sai ua. I get out of bed, and an hour later, the pain now electric and specific. It announces itself to me like gabriel: this is your appendix. I google symptoms and know it for fact. We go to the ER and some administrata harrying later I find myself wild-eyed and frantic as an oxygen mask is slipped over me and zap out for two hours while they cut the damn thing out. I wake up frantic, mind racing. I wonder if that’s what death and maybe reincarnation will be like: the terror of the final moments, conscious and full of dread, and then the empty and blank blackness of oblivion. And then shot back into reality absolutely baffled.
A week later and I’m more or less healed from the surgery. Laparoscopic. My bellybutton is changed forever: no longer an outie-innie, a charming button set back from the surface. Now a strange inverted parenthetical thought, a burning man emoji: )’(, but healing nicely. I have my scheduled psych evaluation with a doctor who shares a name with a Hollywood actor, and he thinks it’s not ADHD but general anxiety. Meanwhile the breathing tube from surgery has left me with a lingering cough in a brutalized trachea.
I lose 10 pounds in the ensuing weeks. I suddenly find myself intolerant of diet sodas: I can feel them slogging through my kidneys. I give them up almost entirely. I am more well-hydrated than I have ever been: drinking water turns out to be the trick comma who knew question mark eye roll emoji full stop.
And that’s how, 7 weeks ago I went from taking 1 pill of Truvada as necessary in the hale and hearty blush of youth to today, when daily I take 4 capsules of Metamucil, a Truvada, a Lexapro, two tablets of Mucinex, and ibruprofen for the headache of it all. My nightstand looks like my grandpa’s.
Books read in August.
A friend got his film back from our trip to Palm Springs from a while back.
Books read in July
Recently back from a semi-impromptu trip to Kaua’i. We had unused credits for flights to Hawai’i from the beginning of the pandemic, and were hitting our “use em or lose em” deadline from the airline. Always a magical prospect for me, having lived in Hawaii for a while almost 20 years ago now.
It was wild to go back, really for the first time, to a place I know so well as an unfettered adult. No mormon spouse, no mormon friends, no children, no family members. Again, it’s so funny how a conservative cultural milieu will prevent you from living your best life, even if the only forcing function is family size. If you have 5 kids with you, it almost automatically remove nice restaurants, paid cultural site visits, or strenuous activities. You are almost required to eat at a burger king and do nothing but go to the beach.
All that to say this time, and for the first time, we did the damn thing. Nice restaurants with incredible experiences. Dive bars. Hikes to the top of a sheer cliff. Nude beaches. Kaua’i like I’d never seen it.
Played around with the Halide manual camera app for th eiphone — the macro shots it allows are absolutely insane. That’s sand and a gecko no longer than a pinkie finger.
We ate strawberry guavas off the trails, we explored the incredible green spaces maintained by the Limahuli Garden & Preserve, and just gaped at the beauty in general.
Finally, we sat on a cliff and watched the sunset, almost 16 years to the day since I did so with my mom, the last time she visited Kauai. The following day I laid flowers where we scattered her ashes.
I miss you, mom.
Books read in May.
Spent Memorial Day in Palm Springs. John and I drive up a day early on Thursday night in a desperate bid to outsmart a Friday full of meetings that would have had us on the road during rush-hour and holiday traffic. We booked a sight unseen spot for the night, which turned out to be the gorgeous Sparrows Lodge. Really lovely space, so serene, and gorgeous little touches. Definitely going back next time for an extended visit.
The rest of the weekend was spent at our Airbnb — a standard Palm Springs mid-mod with an enormous pool — with a couple friends and friends-of-friends, with mixed results. Kids these days, grandpa’s tired, etc. The highlight beyond was getting to spend time with friends from SF who also happened to be in town.
We attended a big gay pool party, went antiquing, hung out at some dives, and watched music videos.
The biggest revelations was getting hauled to a gay bar called Quadz, a watering hole on the strip previously avoided due to an athletic-lettering themed sign, but upon entry was revealed to be a slightly more… tragique version of The Edge in SF. A showtunes video bar replete with customer sing-along, bartender choreo, etc. Would have been a major highlight, but unfortunately tainted by features of the Glee version of Downtown and the Radio GaGa scene from Bohemian Rhapsody — truly no one wants to see it, diva. The evening was saved by a surprise screening of all 10 minutes of The Aloof, the Heavyweight, and the Big Finish from Sweet Charity: