Of Monsters and Vegetables

A couple of years ago, I grew a narwhal in my stomach.  It wasn't the nice, gentle unicorn of the sea that we're all accustomed to, but rather a monster with the teeth of an angler fish, raptor claws, a body covered in cactus spines, and a spiked tail like a stegosaurus.  That is to say, it hurts.  After many disappointing trips to doctors and specialists, some of whom decided I was crazy, I chose to call this narwhal Firemonster just to give it a name.  Then I decided I was going to have to go to medical school if I wanted an answer.

I've since stumbled upon another possible solution, as I seem to be too lazy (and poor) to go to medical school at present.  I'm going to try the Whole 30 program.  If you've never heard of it, Google it and be sad for me.  (Or if you're too lazy for Google, just know I can't eat the foods that are worth eating for at least 30 days.  And, no alcohol.)  Perhaps I'm starting off a little pessimistic, but I don't believe this will turn into a permanent lifestyle.  It's really just an informative tool so that I can learn if something I'm eating is feeding the Firemonster and making me miserable.

There are a few things about the next 30 days that worry me a lot.  First of all, I'm a baker.  This means that I love sugar, and I love only going to about three different aisles in the grocery store.  I'm rubbish at making lists or planning things out, so the idea of having to plan all of the meals has me stressed to begin with.  I even did a practice run at the store and ended up wandering every aisle in frustration, wondering how real adults do this all the time.  Also, I seem to have forgotten what pineapples look like.

Yep, I'm screwed.

This is the part where I come running out of my apartment, waving my fingers in the air, and yelling, "I am not a cook!"  My baking skills are pretty top notch, and I would hope that they could be translated to other areas of the kitchen.  I intend to channel the culinary badassery of Julia Child, but in reality, I'll probably end up more like the Swedish Chef, flinging food and utensils around while muttering incomprehensibly.  

Hey kids, it's time for tangential storytelling!  Speaking of the Swedish Chef, I have to put the blame on him for my childhood disgust of vegetables.  Have you ever seen Muppet vegetables?  They look horrified, and who can blame them?  They were always about to be murdered.  My parents thought I was picky, but I was just in mourning.  Somehow, I hadn't yet associated meat with anything cuddly, and seeing a cow or chicken wandering around outside didn't jam that image into my brain like seeing a tomato with a face etched into a permanent scream.  If Toddler Me had the vocabulary and access to Wikipedia to know what a fruitarian was, she would have been totally into it.  

"Mom!  Someone killed the carrots!"

So here's my tip for all you parents out there:  stop anthropomorphizing food.  Bananas in pajamas aren't cute; they're incredibly creepy.  If you're having a difficult time getting your little one to eat their veggies at dinnertime, keep in mind that they could be grieving.  Only yesterday they learned how much Larry the Cucumber loves his lips, and now he's dead.  Yeah, that's not traumatizing at all. 

And now back to my original point.  I've been reading about the "carb flu" associated with giving up all of these foods.  Some people have horrible headaches, while others become very irritable and snap at the smallest provocation.  (I apologize in advance if I call your mother a hamster or throw an avocado at your face because it happens to be the only projectile I have within reach.  It's like the anti-Twinkie defense.)  Some people report having cravings so intense that they dream of them or even hallucinate eating forbidden foods.  Then they actually believe they have eaten it and feel guilty for breaking the rules.  Maybe if I take an Ambien, I can sleepwalk to the nearest 7-11 and hallucinate my way through a pint of Ben & Jerry's AND a winning Powerball!

All of the foods I have to give up are foods that I love in ways I can't even begin to describe.  I'm afraid that I can't even make it for 30 days without sugar or dairy or grains, and I'm wondering if it sounds even the least bit petty that I may consider life no longer with living if I discover an allergy to any one of those things.  With many friends and family taking out bets against me, I'm terrified that I'm going to fail at any moment, and I'll be found face down in a gallon of ice cream.  Or maybe I'll just completely lose it, and I'll be kicked out of HEB for causing a scene when someone complains about me for lovingly stroking all the wheels of Brie while bitter tears run down my cheeks, and the stock boy will try to pry the cheese from my fingers as I scream, "Why, God, why?" at the top of my lungs.   

I guess if this doesn't pan out, I can still go to medical school.

That Time I Solved America's Problems in My Sleep

Last night, I had a dream about the future of America.  As dismal as that may sound, it actually turned out to be full of hope for the "someday" we might come to see as a people.  No, the dream wasn't as insightful or awe-inspiring as a certain dream of one Martin Luther King, Jr.  The man was unquestionably more enlightened than I will ever be.

He was also more black, which makes me sad.  I always thought I could have been a heck of a lot cooler if I were, too.  In fact, I remember back in kindergarten when we all had "share time" on the Alphabet Circle in the classroom.  I constantly had to fight a girl named Jessie to sit on the G, because I figured I had rights to it.  I tried to explain to the girl that Jessie doesn't even start with the letter G, so what the heck was she thinking, anyway?  It turns out that she didn't even know how to recognize letters or read at this point and just liked the shape, but I was never one to suffer fools gladly.  That G was mine, dangit.

For this particular share time, we were supposed to say what we wanted to be when we grew up.  Me?  I wanted to be valedictorian and a black Jewish Canadian.  (Imagine the phone call my parents got that day.)  While there's a story here, it's not the story I'm going to tell today.  I will say two things, though.  It's rather sad that I fell into the self-fulfilling prophecy of the child with a great potential and unattainable goals who would meet her greatest success in the glory days of high school.  There's a cliché I never wanted to become.  Also?  Even though I'm not really cool or the success everyone thought I should have been, at least I wasn't the girl next to me whose greatest ambition in life was to grow up to become a raccoon.  I guess both of our parents got to have awkward conversations with our teacher that day.

Thanks a lot, Captain Obvious.

I've done a lot of genealogical and genetic research to get a better idea of who I am and where I'm from, but sadly all of the records seem to indicate that I'm not even slightly black, Jewish, or Canadian.  That figures.

And now back to the original reason for this post, which probably nobody remembers because I'm a master at tangential storytelling.  The dream.  Right.

In the dream, I realized that the future of America hinged upon true change and scientific leadership.  (Believe me when I say that I'm not trying to be controversial or partisan at all, so just chill and go with it.)  I'm not talking about having a leader who is qualified to discuss reproductive rights or the future of NASA.  It was so much more than that.  It was clear in the dream that we were going to need to understand how to maintain our resources and make enormous changes in order to ensure our own survival.  We also needed to be led by a group of men and women who understood the gritty details of scientific ventures because, undoubtedly, the more advances that can be made in science and technology, the more ethical questions will arise and need to be discussed and debated for the benefit of all.

The drawback to this realization is that scholarly people don't always make the best leaders.  We are the socially awkward ones who seem to be lost in a world made up of our own thoughts.  We like to read and work out puzzles, and we wonder how to explain to our parents that we want to name our next dog Quark or how to correct our teachers when they tell us that Benjamin Franklin held onto a kite as it was struck by lightning or that diamonds are made from lumps of coal.  (Sheesh, people!)  And when we do get really excited about discoveries we've made, we find that sharing it with other people is difficult due to their lack of interest or comprehension.  It's depressing, really.

But this is where the "future" part of the dream really happened.  There already is a person who meets all of those qualifications but isn't really socially awkward or hard to understand.  In fact, this person has already earned the respect and adoration of millions of Americans.  Consider the following:   Bill Nye for President, 2016.  Think about it.  Here's a man who only wants to see people learn and to better the world in which we live.  He has always been compassionate for others.  I could see him solving the world's clean water problem while giving us a simplified example of two cups with a sock laid over them to show us how it works.  

Okay, maybe he is awkward, but only in an adorable, 11th Doctor sort of way.

Thanks to my insomnia, I always have the opportunity to think about things.  So, at about 2:30 this morning, I determined that Neil deGrasse Tyson would make an excellent running mate for our dear science guy.  (That's right, Neil, I still love you, even after the whole Pluto fiasco.  We all make mistakes, man.)  

While I can't commend this idea enough, I realize it may be just a pipe dream.  But think about how cool it would be if everyone read this and decided, "Hey, that sounds good.  Maybe we should try it."  And maybe Bill Nye would be on board, too.  Who wouldn't want to at least attempt to save the world while wearing a fabulous bow tie?  (If you read this, Bill, I majored in science and strive to remember that everyone I meet knows something I don't know yet, and it's all because of you.  Also, I would like to be best friends and/or your time-traveling companion.  You know, if you don't have any better offers.)

It could totally happen.

For those of you who were waiting for a weigh-in from my dad, of course I told him about the dream.  Here you go.

Me:  Just think about all the problems I could solve if I actually slept through a whole night!

Dad:  So, your insomnia is what's keeping you from solving the world's problems?

Me:  Exactly.

Dad:  What you're saying is, the NSA has figured out a way to make you have insomnia so that you don't discover how to save the bees or how to destroy Monsanto and GMOs or all of our other big issues?

Me:  Well, I was thinking of something akin to how God invented whiskey to keep the Irish from ruling the world, but it's the same concept.  

Dad:  Hey, don't go dissing whiskey.  A lot of good things have happened because of that.  Maybe you should go take a nap.

Knee Deep

So, my knee clicks.  That's the word written on the medical report.  In reality, it's like a sharp snap that pulls my kneecap out and a bit to the right.  It happens every time I straighten or bend my knee, which is a lot.  Every once in a while, it locks and sends an intense jolt of pain through my leg that takes my breath away.  It's especially great when this happens while I'm sleeping.  The best part is that it's obvious and noticeable.  What I mean is, you can touch my leg and feel it happen, and if it's quiet enough, you can even hear it.  So, what the heck?  After having half a dozen or so medical professionals play around with my leg, I might as well let everyone else in on the weirdness, too.

To figure out what exactly was going on in there, I got to see an orthopedic surgeon and then get an MRI.  This doctor specializes in knees, particularly the left one.  (Had I known back in pre-med that I could have established a career as the "Left Ear Lobe Specialist," I might have stuck it out.)  The surgeon moved my knee around every which way, looked up at me, and said, "Well, you've got a neat party trick here."  Party trick.  Really.  I mean, I'm about as socially awkward as a person can be, but even I know that busting this thing out at a shindig is no way to get down.

After my MRI (see previous post), I knew what to expect from the doctor and waited for the explanation of all that was to come.  Unsurprisingly, he started out by asking me how my "party trick" was doing.

Me:  Well, it's actually a lot cooler than I knew.
Doctor:  How so?
Me:  You know how some people have joints that predict weather patterns?  Like, 'My elbow aches, so it's definitely going to snow today.'
Doctor:  Yeah, I guess...
Me:  Well, my knee can tell you where Jimmy Hoffa is, which is a hell of party trick if you ask me.  Who needs to know the weather in Austin?  Hot.  Every day.  I'd say the location of a notorious criminal is much more relevant.

Sadly, Hoffa's fat pad edema is in fact named after some boring doctor who isn't even related to Jimmy Hoffa (allegedly).  It's much the same as the Baker's Cyst, which has nothing to do with baking, even though that would have made total sense to me because I spend most of my free time doing stuff like this:

So, that was two major let-downs on the knee injury.  He asked if I had any other questions before he went into detail about my options.  Of course I did.

Me:  Well, the PA said that I have extra high-riding kneecaps and extended mobility.  Is that like a super power or something?  Like, maybe I can end world hunger with the extra knee work?
Doctor:  Um...well...it's not really a good thing.  I mean, it's not...the worst thing.  It's just not what we typically see in the average patient.
Me:  So what are you saying?  I belong in a freak show?  "Come see the girl with High-Riding Kneecaps! She's not normal!"
Doctor:  Okay, well, I wouldn't go that far.  It's just that there's a range of normal, and you're at the very high end of normal or perhaps even the low end of abnormal.
Me:  I don't believe anyone has ever described me so aptly in one sentence before.

Abby Normal.  I'm almost sure that was the name.

As we went over the options, he discussed the pros and cons of each choice.  Basically, the bottom line is that this clicking and aching is going to stay with me for the rest of my life, and there isn't really any good procedure for a permanent cure.  The doctor noted my frustration and said, "Hey, it isn't cancer, and you aren't going to die from it."  Well, those were two outcomes I never worried about.  Thanks for making me feel like a jerk for complaining.  I know it isn't cancer.  It isn't a lot of things, like starvation, or EF-5 tornadoes, or even the Zombie Apocalypse, but it is my knee.  And it is also quite unpleasant.

So I now have a non-life-threatening, "it's not cancer," snap crackle pop in my knee, and it can't even tell you where Jimmy Hoffa is.  This is the worst party trick EVER.  Thanks a lot, Suburban, thou lump of foul deformity!

That Time My Knee Solved a Mystery

This week, the orthopedic surgeon's office called to tell me the results of my knee MRI had come in, and I needed to be seen as soon as possible.  I explained to the woman that my dog was having an emergency surgery and everything was kind of up in the air, so I had no idea when I'd be able to make the appointment.  Instead of the understanding reply I expected, the extremely huffy response I received was something along the lines of, "Well, I guess I can tell the doctor that, but you still have to come in if you want to get your results.  This is very serious."

I wanted to tell her that I was so overwhelmed I hadn't been very good at doing anything useful in the last week, including things like sleeping or eating regularly.  What I have been good at is crying, worrying, feeling insanely guilty, and cleaning obsessively.  (Obsessive cleaning means nit-picking my way through cabinets and drawers, item by item, for hours, when dishes may be left un-washed next to the sink.  It's less useful and more of a cleaning obfuscation.)  I couldn't explain any of this, though, because I knew she didn't have any compassion and because I was so far past my stress threshold that I was afraid anything I said would come out in a strangled half-sob, half-maniacal guffaw worthy of a Batman villain.

Actually, now that I think about it, if Ben Affleck can play Batman, I think I could make a pretty good villain.  So if any big, important movie casting directors are reading this, have your people contact my people.  I'd make a pretty good PenGwyn, seeing as I can bring my own personal flair to the name.  But, I probably can't be Catwoman because I'm allergic to cats.  Bummer, right?  Well, I'm sure we could still work something out.

And now, back to my point.

The next day, I got another phone call from the same woman.  She started out with, "Okay, so the doctor said I can read the report to you, but you're going to have to make an appointment if you want it explained."  Okay.  I get it.  I need to make an appointment. 

As soon as she said there were four points on the report, I knew I was going to have to write it all down.  This may seem less than helpful until you recall that Google's most important feature is allowing all of us to ensure we are actually dying of the worst possible diseases before we even step foot into a doctor's office.  Your knee hurts because of a car wreck?  Actually, no.  You have cancer AND ebola.  That's some pretty crap luck. (Obviously, I had a fun evening planned.)

To be extra considerate, the woman on the phone was spelling certain words for me to be sure I got them all down correctly, except I began to notice that she was spelling out normal words like l-a-t-e-r-a-l and skipping the medical terms, as if she thought I was some kind of idiot savant.  So you're going to spell out joint, but you're leaving popliteal up to me?  Gee.  Thanks.

And then she got to the part I couldn't understand at all.

Lady:  Number four is *mumbles* fat pad edema....
Me:  I didn't catch that word in front of fat pad.  Did you say Hoss, like Bonanza?
Lady:  No, *mumbles*
Me:  Okay, can we spell it out?  Hostas?
Lady:  Not essssessss, effffffs.
Me:  Oh, so Hoffa's fat pad?
Lady:  Yes.
Me:  I didn't know my knee had a fat pad.
Lady:  Well, I don't know what it means, either, so you're going to have to see the doctor.
Me:  It would be nice to know the hows and whys of the gangster's abode in my knee.  Who would have thought Jimmy Hoffa was in there all this time?
Lady:  That's why you're going to have to come in.

Clearly, she was done listening to me at that point.

And then I got some messages from my dad.

Dad:  What did the doctor's office say?
Me:  Well, there was some stuff about MCLs and cysts and unimportant stuff like that.  Oh, and I have a phat pad in my knee, and Jimmy Hoffa lives there.
Dad:  In other words, you didn't understand what they told you.
Me:  No, I wrote it all down.  Hoffa's fat pad edema.  I think it makes perfect sense.  Edema means swelling.  If you had a supposed-dead teamster hiding out in your fat pad, it would be swollen.  See?  I don't even need a doctor.  What I need is the FBI.
Dad:  Or maybe some sleep...?

I guess my dad could be right, but whenever I do get to go to the doctor, it would be nice if they could explain how a mob boss got into a fat pad when he died more than a decade before I was born.  Maybe Jimmy Hoffa is a Time Lord.

Hold on to Your Potatoes!

Paper is a hot commodity at my house.  It just doesn't exist.  Well, of course, there are books.  I have books on every wall, on the floor, in my bed, on every horizontal surface... If I could stack books on the ceiling just to fit more of them in, I would.  But writing paper is so scarce that any time I chance upon a notebook, it's like finding the lost city of El Dorado.  

Except, I seem to have some sort of dementia when it comes to notebooks.  They're all filled up, by me, but I have no memory of the things I've written.  I'm talking NO memory.  Like, there are plenty of inside jokes that I don't even understand, and they were *my* jokes.

I'm the girl who hates lists and couldn't write one to save my own life (or make grocery shopping easier), yet I have scores of notebooks filled with lists and words and doodles I don't even remember making.  And, they're all ridiculous.  Things I Would Teach a Parrot to Say, Inappropriate Songs to Sing at My Funeral, numerous bucket lists, books to read, old words that should make a comeback, the countries of the world in alphabetical order....and it goes on and on.  (People who have sat next to me at meetings sometimes must have wondered why I have Azerbaijan in my notes, because they must have missed something.)

Today I found a notebook I don't even remember seeing, let alone writing in, but I found a list of things I should do with my life.  At the top of the list, I wrote "Know All the Things!"  and then crossed it out and wrote, "Damnit, Google." next to it.  At the bottom of the page was a list of pros and cons for becoming an archaeologist.

In case it's too hard to read, the pros say *My name is already Jones *I could find a good man, and *I hate Nazis.  The cons are *I don't have enough Asian friends *Maybe he wouldn't be a Time Lord, and *Sometimes it is snakes.  Apparently I decided the cons outweighed the pros in this case.

My favorite part is the fact that I believed having a kid that looks like Data from the Goonies follow me around yelling "Doctah Jones!" was more of a pro than finding Biblical artifacts.  

Okay, so it is a pretty good pro.

If the Shoe Fits...

I was at what was to be my last appointment at the chiropractor when a woman walked in who commanded all the attention in the room.  Her heels clacked on the hard floor, and she talked on her cell phone, loudly, about what a horrible day she'd had.  And even though she was late for her appointment, she would go before me.

When she sat down, I snapped a quick picture at her unbelievable shoes.

Her shoes weren't the only unbelievable part of her get-up, though.  She was wearing an outfit of clothes that were a couple of sizes too small so as to accentuate her features.  I have to give it to her - the overall effect on her was much better than it would have been on me.  If I wore clothes like that, it would be less "Hey, look at my curves!" and more "Hey, it's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man!"  But I digress.

She went into her room, and the chiropractor attempted to tell her that she had significant spine and hip rotations that would need to be worked on.  And then he mentioned the shoes.

Doctor:  I'm not saying the shoes caused all of the problems, but they will add to it. 

Lady:  Yeah, but, my feet don't hurt.

This was the part where I wished he would have broken into a rendition of Dem Bones so that she could understand how her foot bone eventually connected to her hip bone and made it unhappy somehow.  Every sentence she said from that point on started with "Yeah, but..." and got louder and louder as she tried to defend her shoes and her lifestyle.

The rest of us just sat and waited, getting to hear it all.  As the door opened, the conversation had not ended.  Maybe I was feeling brave because this was my last appointment to see the chiropractor or any of these people, or maybe my eye-rolling muscles were feeling tired and over-worked. 

Doctor:  Whenever you wear heels, your body is tilted forward.  In heels this high, you walk like...

Me:  A Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Doctor:  I was going to say you walk like you're tilted on a ski slope.  All of your muscles are tight and eventually going to be damaged beyond repair.  Walking like a dinosaur isn't far off.

The girl shot me a prissy, murderous look, but I didn't care.  Everyone in the room felt the same way about her.  I just wanted to have my appointment and then go home forever.  I wouldn't be back, so I wouldn't have to worry about seeing anyone here again.  

But then...after my appointment, the doctor said he needed to see me again next week.  That figures.

Oops.

A Sadist on my Back

I haven't written in a while.  In fact, I haven't done much of anything in a while.  I suppose the last few weeks I have suffered from some depression, caused by my accident and the fact that I haven't won the lottery yet.  In the time since the accident, I had held on to a lot of hope that I was healing, that life would have to get better, that everything would get better.  People keep telling me I'm so lucky, and so I tried to hold on to that.

Then I started having sharp pains in my back and chest like nothing I'd ever felt before.  The doctors knew something was wrong, because I usually list severe pain as a 4 or 5 on the scale, and I was calling this a 9.  Unfortunately, I attempted to Google "left shoulder blade pain."  Don't do it.  WebMD always says you have cancer, except this time.  This time it said dissecting aorta.  I wished it were cancer.  When I finally got to see my doctor, she took my shirt off and moved my arms around.  She said I was having muscle spasms.  Muscle spasms.

Somehow, the diagnosis seemed lacking.  When the pain got intense, my body would contort in such ways that my bra even unhooked on its own.  Try as I might, I haven't been able to re-create that particular move, but once I do, I'm going to market it.  I mean, this all has to be worth something.  I told the doctor I was going to call the muscle spasms Annie Wilkes, because that sounded more in line with what I was actually experiencing.  I would have been far less surprised to hear that a maniacal sadist had taken up residence in my trapezius and was ready with a sledge-hammer when I needed a good hobbling.

I am your number one fan.

Nothing has really helped the pain, so I've sort of retreated.  I haven't cooked or baked, even though I love doing those things.  I haven't really talked a lot to friends, yet I feel irrationally angry with some who haven't reached out to me.

Perhaps this too shall pass, and in the meantime I'll work on finding my funny again.  I tend to find it in margaritas, though I have to warn anyone who drinks with me that I'll probably explain things like the historical significance of des mouches or why the Royal Baby doesn't have a last name.

Speaking of the RB, I bought a commemorative cheese to celebrate the occasion.  That's right.  This child has a limited edition cheddar called Royal Addition.

Someday when I have kids, I'm going to give out cheese instead of birth announcements.

I had been waiting for over a week to try out my new cheese, and it was difficult to leave it untouched each time I opened the fridge.  Today, my dad called to tell me the good news, in case I was not online.

Dad:  You can open your cheese now.

Me:  Really?
Dad:  Yep! The British had a boy.
Me:  The whole nation had a baby?
Dad:  You know what I mean. I'm watching the whole limo thing. Everyone's excited, but not like jumping up and down or anything crazy. You know, they're British.
Me:  Well, yes. I think I want to be British myself.
Dad:  Not me. They live on an island. Scary stuff. Once global warming really takes off, there will be a lot more water and a lot less island.
Me:  Technically all land is surrounded by water, but I guess if I were insane I'd see your point. I've got to go eat my cheese now. Thanks for letting me know.
Dad:  Really, shouldn't you wait until you know the name of your Royal Cheese?

So, I guess congratulations are in order, even if I am waiting to try the commemorative cheddar.