TheBanyanTree: What I did on my birthday

[tobie at shpilchas.net]

It’s Thursday, the 19th of July, 2018 and here’s the news.

	
Dear folks of the tree,

	My birthday was last Sunday, and a rousing one it was.  Before the 15th, I received an email from my best friend, titled, "It’s a day of special grace".  We’ve been the closest of closests for all our lives (well, since I was 14 and she was 15, brought together by a mutual crush on a sallow youth with a heart of coal).  When I was able to, I answered her with this.


What I’m doing today:

	Since Friday, I’ve been on another planet. I got up this morning to say happy birthday to a barely recognizable swollen bruised face.  I spent all night in the ER Friday/Saturday scaring the other people in the waiting room. Luckily I had an advocate with me who kept going up to the desk and threatening them that they’d best take me back there: "She’s got a raging infection in her head and is allergic to all antibiotics. If it spreads because you can’t see her fast enough ………… ".  The appropriate antibiotic for this is something that I took ten years ago and gave me Clostridium Difficile (note the word, "difficile", meaning it is difficult to make go away). So cross continental conferences with physicians were necessary to figure out what to do. The result is that I’m taking two toxic antibiotics to make sure I don’t get sick. Isn't there something wrong with this?  That conference did not happen at the ER. That happened when I was back home and had to consider what to do with the Rx they’d given me for Clindamycin.  The ER doc was not very inspiring. His answers were meant for someone who doesn’t ask questions.

	It all started with what seemed like a repeat of a fairly recent syndrome where a tooth kind of bothered me only to stop bothering me a day later. I even had my dentist check it all out and was told everything was fine.  In this case it was my back left upper molar, which in my mouth I think is tooth #15, though I could be wrong.  So it bothered me a bit and I told myself, "well, this will go away in a day like it did before."  But it didn’t.  And then it got a mite better and I tried to forget about it.  After all, my birthday was coming up, what self respecting deity would hale bad luck down upon me at this precise time in the year?  Evidently, I am not dealing with a self respecting deity.  This one is shameless.  Wednesday night I didn’t sleep because it was so painful and I vowed to call the dentist as soon as they opened shop.  Which I did. They got me an appointment for 1:30 pm.  But by 9:00 it was clear that I wasn’t going to make it to 1:30.  They squeezed me in at 9:45.  The X ray made my dentist sad.  She referred me to an endodontist    and here comes the name:  Dr. Phuong Quang, and you may pronounce that:  Fong Quong.  Yes, that’s right!  

	So Thursday, I went to Phuong Quang.  She re X-rayed and told me, "This is severe."  She also pointed out a tooth one tooth away that looked like it was in the same condition but wasn’t presenting yet. "That one really needs to be done."  So she did a root canal Thursday between 11:30 and 2:30.  It took a while.  She said it didn’t want to stop draining so she had to stuff it with antibiotics, close it up, make an appointment for two weeks from then at which time she’ll also do the other tooth.  When the anesthetic wore off, the pain was worse than when I’d gone in. By the next morning, I thought I’d go crazy. But there was a momentary lull. That happened during the precise moment that I’d returned to Dr. Quang to have her open the damn thing and drain it again. Well, MAAYBE it’s a little better.  I went home and my head exploded.  Called my doctors and the endodontist. Everyone told me to go to the ER.  And that’s where I realized one could easily go out of ones’ mind if put through enough pain for long enough. 

	It’s Sunday and I guess I should be happy birthdaying.  But it ain’t in me.  I haven’t eaten in three days and can’t fathom food. I think I caught up on some of the lost sleep last night.  But I’m in another world.  At least I’m not having to take awful pain meds right now.  I’m just watching the slow descent of the drainage pool at my left jawline.  I have JOWLS.  No, I have JOWL.  The people in the waiting room at the ER were so wonderful.  I don’t mean the doctors or nurses. I mean the other patients or those waiting for patients who’d been taken in.  I didn’t really see any of their faces because I was doubled over moaning.  A nurse had come out to comfort me by saying, "It’s just one of those nights. Some people have been waiting here for three hours. Just be patient." That didn’t help. I realized that in three hours, if it kept up, I would be: 1) dead  2) 5250  3) guilty of murder.   I looked at the nurse and said, "I don’t think I can make it."  They took me in shortly after that. I remember seeing a chair they wanted me to sit in. It had wheels.  I couldn’t make it to the chair.  It was anonymous people in the waiting room that swooped me up and supported me to get me into the chair. I think I must have burbled thank you as they wheeled me away.

	Thank God for IV pain meds.  Isn’t it dangerous not to feel something that your body is telling you is deadly?  Nevertheless, the CT scan of my head showed the infection hadn’t spread to the bloodstream but was confined to …….. my head.  Poor Meyshe was so worried about me.  All that time, I kept thinking about how I’d left my 98 year old mother and my 31 year old autistic son at home without me caring for them while I went off to take care of myself. Who would take care of them if something bad happened? I mean to them.

	Saturday morning I got home at 3:30 am and tried to get into bed. Not as easy as one would think. I was too muddled to arrange the sheets and blankets. I kept being afraid I was going to die during the night.  Irrational, but perhaps useful in some atavistic way.  Don’t the lions come when you’re weakest? Or some other tribe with their clubs and teeth.  When I came out of my room at 9:00 or so, I called for Meyshe, just to show him I was back and still functioning as mom (little did he know).  He sounded rapturous.  "You’re home?!"  	"YOU’RE HOME!!!!"  He rushed out of his room and hugged me — maybe too hard — but what the fuck.  How could any person on earth be so glad to see me?  It was very touching. It’s actually making me cry.  But then, I’m pretty emotional right about now.

	I did have the energy to make menudo.  Tripe soup sounded like the very thing.  I hope I can eat it.  
	


I hope after reading this that you all feel specially lucky.  Isn’t it true that the worst of luck, the most wretched of daily journeys makes a terrific story later?  You just have to pay attention.  The thrills and reason for living are all around you and continue to startle in strange and beautiful ways.  This one was in the "strange" category.


Love,

Tobie
Still alive at 71








"I'm Jewish.  I have OCD; and I'm not afraid to use it."    THS


Tobie Shapiro
mailto:tobie at shpilchas.net <mailto:tobie at shpilchas.net>