The prequel: A Shaky Start
The bit before part one of a twelve (or so) part series
“Well Bronc, I’m enjoying poor health, but at least I’m enjoying it.”
Robert E. Noah 1920-2006
This was the most common response to the question, “How are you doing, Grandpa?” from my maternal grandfather, Robert “Bob” Edward Noah (“Like the ark”). He was the titular head of the matriarchy that was the Noah family. Or as Grandpa would have put it, “I’ve been under the petticoat law my whole life, Bronc.” Those of y’all that know me in real life and/or those who have read this newsletter from the beginning know that he is the source of the title of this blog. He would often say “I’m too early old, and too late smart” about himself. He never thought he was very bright. Mainly because he didn’t know cursive writing and he only went to enough high school to play football for the Wheeler Mustangs—a team he rooted for until the day he died.
He had a canine tooth knocked out while playing football that I always thought made him look rather rakish. I wish that I had a picture of him in his Mustang uniform—I’m sure someone in my family has one somewhere, but I don’t even know whom to ask. Here he is in the late Sixties or maybe the early Seventies dressed up in his Sunday finest for his official Southwest Church of Christ elder’s portrait.
I got carried away on an earlier draft of this post and started to write Grandpa’s entire biography. I will save that for a later day. Just know how much we adored that man in our family and how much he gave to all of us. How he was handy and hard working. How he was kind to strangers and the well-known alike. He had tons of charisma, hundreds of jokes or sayings for every occasion, but he was never obnoxious with it. He could listen as well as he could talk. He was not an attention hog. He could hang in almost any social situation. He loved his food and the people who prepared it or served it to him. He was so beloved by the servers at the handful of restaurants that he frequented regularly that several came to his funeral. In Yiddish he would be called a Mensch. In our vernacular he would be called a goodun.
Grandpa was not all sweetness and light. He was an early adopter of Fox News (nobody’s perfect). He had an unbridled dislike that toed the line of hatred for the Dallas Cowboys that was puzzling to me in childhood—I mean what kind of native Texan hates the Dallas Cowboys? It makes total sense to me as an adult who now hates the Dallas Cowboys. To be fair, I hate the entirety of the National Football League, but I really hate the Cowboys now. Better stop here before I go into a rant about the evils of sports (especially professional American football). Actually, I hate college football even more—if that is even possible.
I have written this longish intro for a reason, and that reason is that almost every time that someone asks me how I am doing I think of this response in my head. Unlike Grandpa I am not enjoying my poor health, so I rarely say it out loud.
I may be deluded, but I don’t believe that I am actually in poor health. Sure, I have diabetes, hypertension, lymphedema, bipolar disorder, asthma, ADHD, and a whole host of lesser ailments and conditions, but I don’t consider myself to be in poor health. After all, I am mostly mobile. On the whole I can handle my own activities of daily living, although there are times when I cannot manage even them. I exist somewhere on the astral plane of health precariously balanced on a thin wire between the abyss of poor health and the dreary and shabby comforts of fair health. I would grade my health a solid D minus, much like the D minus that a creative and merciful Mrs. J raised from an F so that I could graduate high school without repeating Economics in summer school. Thank you, Mrs. J, I really needed that! I cannot imagine how bad my life would have gotten if I had to retake that class in summer school. I despise both Micro and Macroeconomics. Don’t even get me started on Freakonomics.
It is not Mrs. J’s fault that my lifelong antipathy for Economics began in her class. I blame Economics itself. The dismal science is more than dismal, it’s almost complete horseshit. It is considerably less scientific than astrology, well-witching, or even ear candling. I would put more faith in any agreed upon pseudoscience than I would most economist’s prognostications. I better move on before I rant on and on about the evils of economics and economists further. I will gladly beat this dead horse until it becomes a puddle of glue, but I will be merciful on you gentle reader and relent.
There I was almost a month ago—Thursday, August 8, 2022 to be precise—climbing out of an incredibly bleak depression. The worst depression in memory that did not end with me being hospitalized in a psychiatric ward. We talked about that last week, so I will not belabor it further. I was sort of feeling myself again after being utterly checked out of my life for most of the summer. I woke up at a reasonable hour, fed the kitties, fed a Jennyfur and a Germy, took my morning meds, and retired to my blue recliner to play the daily challenge on Microsoft Mahjong on my iPad. After that, I put away the game instead of playing and disassociating for several hours straight, as had become my custom. I decided to take a shower for the first time in almost a week. This was so that I would not be thinking about how gross I was during my online therapy session at eleven. Also, I like to be clean when I talk to Cherie—even online. After all, I would not show up to her office smelling like a trash can full of hot dogs unless I accidentally fell into said trash can on the way to her office. Even then, I would just go home and shower and scrub until I reached the dermis. No reason to subject anyone but my fellow Red Line passengers and the dogs on my walk home from the station to that particular miasma.
Getting out of my chair seemed strangely tiring, and it took me several tries to finally get out. Once I finally got out of the chair I felt so out of balance that I could not stand still, but had to walk the two or three steps to the couch I assumed that the fatigue and lack of balance was just because I had slept poorly the night before. A couple of weeks prior I had gotten this strange message from my iPhone:
Initially, I was not alarmed by the information contained in this message, but only that my iPhone was keeping such a close eye on me. I should have paid more attention to the message and called my doctor. My body had been feeling strange as of late. I had this feeling in my extremities that could only be described as itching from the inside. It was not painful, but it was so irritating that I was constantly fidgeting to get even a second or two of relief. I probably should have called a doctor then, but I ascribed it to a strong bout with the “heebyie-jeebies” that plague my mom, sisters, and me in the evenings before going to bed. I am a preternaturally avoidant man and I can ignore almost any symptom.
I stood next to the couch until I felt steady then went to take my shower. After I undressed I went to weigh myself on the bathroom scale out of curiosity. I have been very gradually losing weight since the early days of the pandemic though I have been eating like it was my job and a big deadline was coming up and I really needed to pack it away. I was definitely not dieting. When I stood on the scale I was far too wobbly and unsteady for the scale to get a reading. It just alternated between a few different weights before giving an error message. I thought, “Hmm, this is peculiar”, but I did not seem alarmed. I proceeded to take my shower noticing that my legs and feet were a bit shaky and that I needed to brace myself a few times on the shower stall’s wall. Again, I chalked this up to being tired. Even though it was mildly fraught with slight danger, I should have relished that shower. I dried off, put on clothes, and had my appointment with Cherie. I was not alarmed enough at this point to tell her or Jennifer about my new fatigue and instability.
Later that evening as I was leaving the kitchen after taking my night meds with a glass of milk, I started to lose my balance and fell into the bookcase that demarcates the end of the kitchen and beginning of the living room. I was able to catch myself and did no damage to my self or the bookcase. Unbeknownst to me at the time, Jennifer had seen my right hand visibly shaking while I reached for a napkin at dinner. My father-in-law has hereditary tremors, and later on she said that for a second it looked like Frank or his Uncle Z (who had very strong tremors) reaching for something. I, of course, did not notice. I went to bed early to hopefully get good restful sleep so I would be “normal” the next day.
I was not “normal” the next day. Far from it.
More next week.
p.s. This newsletter/blog turned three on October 2nd. I cannot believe how much this once sort of silly newsletter/blog about an old dog trying (and failing) to learn some new tricks morphed into the confessional mental health and wellness newsletter/blog that you all know and (hopefully) love. Thank you to those who have been here since day one, to those who have just found me, and everyone in the middle. I love all of y’all. Sincerely.
p.p.s. I want to have a little Zoom party in the next couple of weeks to mark the third anniversary and to celebrate something as yet undisclosed. I will have more info next week.
Thank you, as always, for reading.
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Yes, "know & love" is the right description - even when the post isn't filled with sunshine and puppies, I appreciate your style and depth. (And a post like this is easier to read because I know you're safe at home, out from under the worst of it... so that's good.) Thanks for serving up these slices.