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March 2005

Tuesday, March 01, 2005

I have been sick for close to a week and a half now. It started two weekends ago with a really bad stomach flu which lasted from Friday until Monday. I had one of those weekends where I didn’t know whether to sit down or kneel when I went to the bathroom, for lack of a better description. Needless to say I dropped about 5 pounds and remembered what it was like to not keep anything down, I was miserable. Just when my stomach began to feel better, however, I caught the famous February cold, or as I’d like to call it, Malaria. This was a nasty one, working it’s way down from my head to my chest, knocking me out literally all week and through this past weekend. Only today was I able to wake up and not feel tired and achy after spending an entire night awake and miserable.

Being sick and staying at home I learned a few things about the world that I usually don't have a chance to notice. For one, television turns itself off, or at least all notable programming ends at 04:00 AM. After 4 AM they should not call it TV anymore, they should just call it "Body by Jake meets Chef Tony's Knives". Anyone up that late and not because of a cold deserves to get suckered into anything a guy with a tall hat has to sell him. So in between momentary lapses of consciousness -- known as naps -- I went out and got myself a Gameboy. At least I had what to keep me busy through the overnight lonely hours of laying awake sick.

It has been a real nostalgic week with this little Gameboy -- because it reminds me so much of my childhood and how much I used to love playing it. I can remember countless family vacations or roadtrips or other times of boredom where all I had to keep me company were my good friends Mario (and his brothers), and of course, Zelda.

So this week, even though I no longer had my mother down the hall to take care of me -- with her homemade soup -- or my brother to keep me company at night with his jokes, I felt like a little kid again. I was able to take a trip back to my childhood while I tried desperately to get to the next board, find the magic sword or save the princess from the evil dragons.

It made a mean cold bearable.

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Today I flew down to Ft. Lauderdale for another Joe Namath Arthritis Huddle program. This will be our third one for the year, with another 17 to go. Not bad if you’re counting frequent flyer miles, but also fun to meet people in all kinds of places. Especially warm places.

This winter has been especially long. We’ve had all kinds of crappy weather and I think I speak for the collective human race when I say that spring couldn’t come fast enough. I’m happy to see the sun staying out longer and longer – like a teenager pushing curfew. Every minute past 5:00 I’m happy to see a shadow or two. And that wasn’t a reference to groundhogs. I think they’re dumb and no better at predicting the weather than Al Roeker.

Last night I met a guy who was telling me all about his wife’s medical history. I think bursitis was the only chronic condition she didn’t have. Her list of conditions went on and on, and remarkably (but not surprisingly), her husband knew every single drug she took. I thought it was so nice to hear how well she was being taken care of by her husband, and how much he worried about her health. He recounted story after story about surgeries, lung capacities, inflammations, drug interactions, and on and on. I sat and listened – partly in amazement and partly out of curiosity.

You know, they say you have everything when you have your health. But last night I realized that even if you don’t have your health, it is possible to have everything if you have someone who loves you and who can take care of you. And that makes the pain go away while you’re laughing and loving and counting your blessings.

Monday, March 28, 2005

Last week I was expecting a routine checkup with my cardiologist – and for him to tell me that my slightly irregular heartbeat was fine and that he’d see me in another three years. That wasn’t exactly what happened, however.

What I have managed to do is to have a higher cholesterol count than my combined SAT score in high school. And ideally, I’d like a cholesterol count as low as my combined GPA in high school!

What I remember thinking at the time of the visit with the doctor was "well, sooner or later this would happen" because of all the crap I eat. And exercising 3, sometimes 4 times a week could never clean out the junk in my body. Grilled cheeses, hamburgers, steaks, mashed potatoes…the list went on and on. So I got my early early early wakeup call. And high cholesterol is ultimately a measure of preventive medicine – because I wasn’t at any immediate risk.

But once the news settled in, the diet took shape, and the lifestyle began changing, I grew very angry. I guess I was most angry at my body for doing this to me. How dare it tell me what I can and can’t eat? How dare my body ache and hurt and require medicine every day of the week? This angered me and upset me and then angered me more.

So no more grilled cheeses, no more cheese steaks, no more french fries. Long term it’ll be nice, I could use a trimming down, but short term it has been very difficult. What I’ve tried to do is stop being mad at my body and start cooperating with it. High cholesterol obviously means I wasn’t doing the right thing, so before we add another pill – since the real estate in the pill case is at an all time premium – a serious spanking of the diet needs to occur.

Worst case, I’ll marry a vegan.