No news is good news, but it’s still no news

I called my primary care physician today to find out the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything, but my blood tests had still not been fully processed.  Something about Vitamin D taking a lot of time.   That’s some vitamin, that Vitamin D.

Today in my American Literature class we discussed Transcendentalism.  For the uninitiated: transcendentalism was a 19th century way of life proposed by Ralph Waldo Emerson and carried out by men such as Henry David Thoreau in which self-sufficiency and a connection with nature are espoused to be the cornerstones of spiritual enlightenment. 

On the one hand, this is an admirable philosophy, and one which the granola-hippie environmentalists (he typed with affection) of today embrace whole-heartedly.  On the other hand, it is at its heart anarchistic and potentially selfish. 

Emerson and Thoreau, in their strident defiance, protested what they viewed as egregious sins of government: slavery and war.  Thoreau put his money where his mouth was (so to speak) and refused to pay taxes to support such endeavors.   Admirable?  Sure.  Successful?  Well, we’re still talking about his act of civil disobedience 150 years later, aren’t we? 

I have a cast!

For my production of A Doll's House.

Not for, you know, my leg or anything.

Carry on.

Odd ends

1. In today's well-publicized speech to the nation's public school children, Obama urged them to work hard and stay in school. Ironically, this message went unheard by many children because their parents kept them out of school, fearful that perhaps the President of the United States was going to...I don't even know what.

2. I saw the neurologist today. He showed me my MRI films, which were on CD and accessible via a nifty computer program that allowed him to zoom in and out. He confirmed the radiologist's conclusions about cerebral atrophy and then told me that I could have any number of conditions, many of which were near impossible to diagnose in their early stages. Yay. He also told me that I should take a multi-vitamin and a baby aspirin daily. I will soon need to purchase a separate suitcase just for my pills.

3. Tonight we are holding auditions for A Doll's House! I am very excited about this play, especially in this vibrant translation by Frank McGuinness. The character of Nora Helmer has always fascinated me. We'll see how it all turns out.

4. I am currently reading Deborah E. Lipstadt's moving memoir History on Trial, which concentrates on her trial from a few years back in which David Irving, Holocaust Denier Extraordinaire, sued her for libeling him as, well, a Holocaust Denier Extraordinaire. Lipstadt's book reads like a thriller. The reader is given access to the cold realities of Auschwitz, the bizarre intricacies of English legal system (where the burden of proof in a libel case is on the defense), and the obsessive delusions of several notable historians.

5. I'm also reading Karin Slaughter's A Faint Cold Fear. It's my first book of hers, and I'm love-love-loving it.

Here, have some funny

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I’m at a loss

So this morning I went to the lab for my blood work.  The lab was a branch of LabCorp, a nationwide company which specializes in, well, drawing blood, collecting stool samples, etc.  Quite a racket, eh?  I signed in at the computer kiosk in the waiting room, took my seat alongside the other ne’er-do-wells, and forty-five minutes later my name was called and I was handed a urine cup and – well – I think you can fill in the next two minutes on your own, can’t you?

(Sorry about the “fill” pun there.  Sometimes I can’t help myself.)

Then came the moment of ugh.  I took my seat and the lab technician stretched a tight band of rubber around my right arm (the left one having already been stuck yesterday for the poisonous MRI dye) and found the vein and dug into it with her needle and then filled four vials with my scarlet syrup.

Yesterday I had a cotton ball taped to my left arm.  Today I had a a cotton ball taped to my right arm.   My colleagues must think I’m either a vigorous donor or a heroin addict. 

Meanwhile, I now have an appointment with my neurologist for Tuesday at 10:15am.  If he needs to stick me with a needle, he may have to go for my jugular.  And then my colleagues will think I’m a vampire’s familiar.  Great. 

My brain is smaller than your brain

The reason for my absence isn’t laziness, although that would have been a predictable and appropriate guess.  Nor is the reason for my absence a result of any sort of apathy. 

Here is the real reason:

My brain is smaller than your brain.

No, wait, it’s true. 

For the past few months, I’ve been exhibiting progressive tremors, slurred speech, and some rather upsetting short-term memory loss.  Naturally, this news has had me terrified, if only because it was adversely affecting my writing (a boy has his priorities, after all).  It’s not that I have been short of ideas.  I’ve just been unable to communicate them in a traditionally successful manner. 

So today I had an MRI. 

Ever have an MRI?  Boy, they are fun!  Imagine lying down in a coffin.  Now imagine a family of goblins banging on the coffin with dull hammers.  Meanwhile, you cannot move at all, and a potentially lethal dye is pumping into your arm. 

That’s an MRI.

The great good news is that the radiologist is not concerned by the results of the scan.  According to my doctor’s receptionist, who relayed the information to me, the only abnormality he detected was mild cerebral atrophy…

Say what?

Apparently, in patients with cerebral palsy, one neurological indicator of the disorder is, in fact, a decrease in the brain matter tied in to motor control.  In other words – yes, my brain is in fact smaller than yours. 

The radiologist believes that the atrophy is long-standing and thus no reason for alarm (i.e. it is not the cause of my recent symptoms).  So now my primary care physician is scheduling me for an EEG and tomorrow morning I’m going to have blood work done. 

Please don’t worry, though.  I’ve a feeling that, at the end of the day, the basis for all of this will be determined to be nothing more serious than 1) stress or 2) the increase in my daily meds.  

As an interesting side note - and maybe someone can explain this - now that I have confirmed proof that my brain is smaller than normal, I am feeling a sudden need to conquer Europe…

Flu!

Yes, I have the flu.

No, it is not the swine flu. My symptoms match up with just your average garden-variety aches, fatigue, sniffles, shortness of breath, and sore throat. Fun.

But, to quote Monty Python, I am feeling better.

As it so happens, this is also the first week of classes. I have Creative Writing on Mondays & Wednesdays at 11:30am, Acting I on Mondays & Wednesdays at 4pm, Introduction to Theatre on Tuesdays & Thursdays at 4pm, American Literature I (1600-1865) on Tuesdays & Thursdays at 5:30pm, and A Doll's House rehearsals at night (starting next month).

In other words, better to be sick now than next month.

Unless I also get sick next month.