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I increasingly feel that I need to do something.
Now by “do something” I don’t mean going to fly a kite in the park, skip stones across a lake or, maybe most sadly, do my laundry. I don’t mean going to see a movie, building a model ship or (sorry sweetie) the “doing something” one does when they go out dancing. I’m not even talking about the higher-minded doing something of the write-your-congressman or volunteer in your community variety.
Sometimes, “doing something” is as simple as going to see a doctor.
Simple maybe. Easy? Not so much.
For me, going to a doctor has all the appeal that going to school has to a dumb person; why bother when you know you’re just going to be yelled at? And that simile is as apt as they get, as any medical professional apprised of the facts would see me as very dumb, indeed.
While it’s unlikely that I’d be the ONLY middle-aged, near two pack-a-day smoking, alcohol-soaked sex addict they ever encountered, I’d like to think I’d be the BEST. Few of my fellow self-destructives go the extra mile by piling avoidable vice atop post-avoidance pre-existing conditions, not the only nor least of mine being a generally over-wound nervous system which full-bore, balls-out catastrophizes where casual worry would suffice.
Then again, I had more than my share of doctors—and some of the best New York City and environs could offer— just a few years ago. What it all amounted to, apart from a cloud shrouded mountain of bills, was just about nothing. But there I go with the rationalizing again, as educated as that rationalizing may be (and damnit! There I go again).
Currently inspiring this internal do something-ness are two coworkers: one about my own age and the other a mere sprite of twenty eight. The former was suffering from unexplained nose bleeds (an acute enough situation it may have brought even me to the doctor’s door). While the cause of the bleeding was deemed benign, very high cholesterol levels were detected. Since choosing life, he’s been on a healthy diet, has greatly reduced his drinking and as a byproduct even further reduced his waistline. The later was having some trouble with his vision and did, to my mind, the most outrageous thing as a result: he had his eyes examined! He was fine, and probably just needs to look away from his computer monitor more often, just as you do. So what’s the point?
Here were two men dealing with some health issues who actually did something about them, in one case discovering a potentially deadly condition that otherwise would have gone undetected, at least until the heart attack. The other guy just got to relax, which alone is worth the trip.
Perhaps it’s knowing that no physician on earth will ever again grant me the gift of relaxation, as in “relax, it’s nothing to worry about,” that keeps me off as many exam tables as often as possible. Perhaps that why I’ve constructed a State of Denial so well furnished and robustly protected it could credibly petition for membership in NATO.
Certainly I could plot a more responsible course without the intervention of the medical establishment. I could tell myself that I can wait another 15 minutes, 30 minutes then an hour or more for that next cigarette. I could remind myself that while Joe Six Pack is as celebrated an American weakness as playing the lotto, nobody ever talks about Joe Twelve Pack. I could at least try to stop eating, when I eat at all, like a cannabis crazed college boy at the snack counter. I could, but will I? Will I ever?
They say the odds of quitting smoking successfully increases 86% “after the first heart attack.” It sure worked for my mother.
Yet here I sit, a half-centurion still dragging around an adolescence that should have been allowed to retire, poor thing, decades ago. I sit, and fret, feeling a new twinge of pain here…and there…sometimes here AND there. There are times when I suspect I have a cold or upper respiratory infection of some kind or another, but after thirty five years of playing the Marlboro Man, how can I tell? The similarities between flu symptoms and those of a bad hangover are profound, as well. And is it that stomach bug that’s been going around or just the aftermath of the psychotic sandwich with processed meat, hot peppers and too much mayo I awoke to create and devour at 3AM?
Most often, I simply don’t know. And truth be told I like it that way.
Who wants bowel cancer, for example, when eating like a fool is more likely the cause of distress? Who would trade a mere hangover for renal failure? Or a perfectly normal smokers’ cough for the far more sinister COPD? As I’ve said on these pages before, not ME, that’s who.
“Damn doctors. Nothing’s ever wrong with you until they diagnose it.” My grandfather, who lived deep into his 90’s and at one time sat on the board of our largest local hospital had far more respect for veterinarians than for MDs ("their patients can't tell them where it hurts"). It’s possible I don’t come by this bias without a genetic predisposition for same.
But again, that’s just the smoke being blown, by me, up my own arse. I don’t like doctors (outside of emergencies) for the same reasons criminals don’t like cops. Period.
So what does it all mean, then? What is Illuminaught being, children, that’s more important than just being stupid? That’s right. He’s being selfish.
What can be more selfish, after all, than killing oneself out of stubborn adherence to habits bad that produce feelings good, albeit feelings as temporary as a Mayfly's courtship.
Due to unfair societal expectations in the area of domestic gender roles, it should be stated that my female companion, a lovely, centered and far more disciplined individual than myself, owns no smear on this relentless canvass of He Knows Betters. First, because He darn well does know better. Second and finally…
A dispassionate observer, including your garden-variety medical practitioner, could look at this entry and define it as, ahem, “a cry for help.” That it may well be. However a bear with its paw caught in a trap is crying for help, too. Those closest to me, like other well-intentioned campers, soon find what happens when they try to “help” the bear, cute and furry though he may appear.
Can everybody say, “mauling?”
This one’s on me. And me alone.
And speaking of this one’s on me, it’s still Happy Hour. Have a seat.
For as more than a couple friends and acquaintances have actually, honestly said during past periods of attempted lifestyle management: “I liked you better when you drank.”
Shit.
Popular and perfectly logical wisdom says you can’t please everybody.
The longer you live, the more you learn you can’t please anybody.
And maybe, maybe that’s why I just go ahead and please myself. As unpleasant as the consequences may ultimately be. Because any alternative would mean that I have to...
do something.
PS and an unrelated aside: To those motorists I see on a regular basis; how are those McCain/Palin bumper stickers workin' for ya'?