Heavy Metal

For the last year at least, I’ve had a swollen sternoclavicular joint, and if you don’t know what that is, it’s the joint at the end of your collarbone in the middle of your chest. No one can figure out why it’s swollen, and it’s extremely painful, so I was sent to see a rheumatologist who ordered an MRI. When the hospital called to schedule it, they told me not to wear any metal and asked me if I had any metal in my body. I ran through a mental catalogue, at which point, after having made a detour into a delightful reverie about becoming a human forklift, I determined that I was metal-free. I had carefully considered the surgeries I’d had over the years, and I assumed if a surgeon had left any metal in me, I would know it by now and therefore could enter the MRI tunnel without any worries.

I was WRONG. I am FULL OF METAL.

And how did I arrive at this horrifying conclusion? Well, I recently had an upper chest X-ray as a precursor to the MRI, and on Thursday, I was able to access the report through the radiology clinic dashboard. It was pretty humdrum, and I was getting more than a little miffed once again at the liberal use of the term “unremarkable” (although I was pleased to note that my lungs are apparently “well-aerated”) when it said this: Cholecystectomy clips noted. I was like “What the f*ck is a chole-thingy?” so I googled it, and it’s when you have your gall bladder removed, and I did that about 20 years ago. I realize I’ve just made it sound like I reached into my own abdominal cavity and pulled it out myself, and if that did indeed happen, you will note that I would have accompanied the pulling out of my gall bladder with a flourish and the words Abracadabra, but a surgeon did it, and he was a terrible magician. And I KNOW this because in the same way that a terrible magician would accidentally sit on the top hat and kill his rabbit, this person left METAL CLIPS inside my body. I’ve been setting off the airport security alarms for years and telling them it was MY BELT when, in fact, I am a human IED.

According to my research, there are different kinds of clips for this—some dissolve and some are permanent, but the issue is that no one even asked me if I wanted to become a cyborg, and normally I would have said YES, but in this case, there’s no upside—I mean, it’s nothing AT ALL like having forklift arms, and I was initially very upset (not to mention worried that an MRI might dislodge them, and then I would be slowly stabbed to death from the inside while I was in the MRI machine), but then I remembered the latest Suicide Squad movie. There was a variety of new characters, including a guy called Polka Dot Man, who could shoot polka dots out of his body and eviscerate people with them. Polka dots are a stupid weapon, but you know what’s not? METAL CLIPS. So now I’m going to write to James Gunn and suggest that, if he ever does another Suicide Squad movie (doubtful because both versions received terrible ratings), there should be a new character introduced. Her name is Heavy Metal and her superpower is shooting sharp pieces of steel out of her body:

Criminal: Who the hell are you?!
Heavy Metal: My name is Heavy Metal, loser.
Criminal: You look rather unremarkable to me.
Heavy Metal: Prepare to die.

Skin Game

Before I start, I’d just like to say a huge thank you to a couple of people. First to my mother—Happy Mother’s Day and thanks for being a great mom! Next to D. Wallace Peach of Myths of the Mirror, a wonderful writer and supporter of writers who just posted an awesome review of my new short story collection Dark Nocturnes, which you can read here. And finally, to Susan Richardson of Flowering Ink and A Thousand Shades of Green, also a wonderful writer and supporter of writers, who’s been reading stories from Dark Nocturnes out loud every week on her podcast. The way she reads them gives me chills, and I WROTE them! You can listen to her podcast here.

I’d also like to say a huge thank you to the universe, because after receiving some disappointing news last week while I was out thrift shopping, I thought maybe the universe hated me, but then no less than 20 seconds later, I turned around and saw this:

The universe loves me. And understands my obsession with drippy, impressionistic paintings of Paris. Thank you, universe. Now off we go…

Not long ago, I had to renew my health card. For those of you who don’t know what a health card is, it’s the card we have here in Ontario that you show at the doctor’s or the hospital or whatnot, and then you don’t have to pay for anything. Everyone in the province gets one at birth and it’s funded through income tax paid by residents and businesses. And for some reason, it’s one of the few things that can’t be renewed online anymore, which meant I had to go into a Service Ontario office (similar to the DMV) and stand in line. I went in the afternoon, and when I walked in, there were only 5 people ahead of me, and the three at the counter were finished quickly. But the next guy in line didn’t know what his exact mailing address was and insisted on looking at Google maps and stood at the second counter calling three other people to figure out the best place to mail him something, and then the woman at the third counter just WALKED AWAY. Which left one poor woman available for the rest of us. But still, she was very efficient, and about twenty minutes later it was my turn. She looked at my health card and said, “No problem. Your driver’s license is coming due at the same time—do you want to renew it now as well?”

And that seemed like the smart thing to do since I was there anyway, so I said, “Sure.”

She filled in some information on the computer, then looked me straight in the eye and said, “Do you want to be an organ donor?” And I was really taken aback, having an actual person ask me this, instead of just ticking off the box on the back of my license, and I froze.

Me: …No?
Woman: Really? Are you sure?…OK.

And then I felt terribly judged and also remembered that I’d had laser eye surgery and now my eyes were pretty good and might help someone else, and also that my kidneys and liver had passed their latest tests with flying colours, so I said, “Wait! I changed my mind. Yes, I’ll be an organ donor.”

She kind of sighed, and said, “It’ll take me a minute to get back to that screen. Hang on.” Then, after a few minutes, she asked this bizarre follow-up question, and my blood froze. “Do you want to donate only for life-saving procedures or also for medical research?”

MEDICAL RESEARCH?! Like I’d be one of those cadavers that medical students experiment on? Would they give me a terrible nickname like Gangrene Greta or Basic Body B*tch or take selfies with me? No thank you, ma’am and I told that woman the same in no uncertain terms, but while in my head I sounded determined, it came out a very whispery “Just the first one.”

Woman: OK, no medical research. Now, are you good with everything, or do you have any exceptions, for example, would you like to exempt your eyes, your lungs, your kidneys, blood plasma, your bones, or YOUR SKIN?
Me:
Woman: Great. Now I need to get a picture so stand over there and don’t smile.

Don’t SMILE? You just told me that when I die, someone is going to flay me and then steal my skin and bones. The license hasn’t come in the mail yet so I haven’t seen the picture, but I’m sure I look absolutely horrified in it. Like, imagine this scenario:

Cop: Do you know how fast you were going? Can I see your license and registration please?
Me (gives him my new license): Sorry, Officer, I—
Cop: (returns my license and backs away): I didn’t mean to add to your trauma. Have a nice day. (whispers to himself) Poor woman. Must have been the ‘skin’ question.

When I got home, I was really disturbed and told Ken what had happened. “I didn’t know what to say! She asked me in front of everyone and I didn’t have any time to think about it. But I don’t want them to take my skin! Don’t let them take it!”

And I know I sounded like a big baby but Ken laughed and reminded me that as my survivor, he had right of first refusal over all my body parts.

Ken: Besides, there’s no need to worry about it. You’ll be dead.
Me: YOU DON’T KNOW THAT, KEN!! And don’t forget, if you let them have my skin, you can’t have me stuffed and put me in the living room.
Ken: I wasn’t going to do that anyway.
Me: You’re so mean.
Ken: It’ll just be one small empty urn on the fireplace mantle…
Me: You better hope I die first.

Recent Movements

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve been having a harder time getting over jetlag. I’m fine going overseas–I can stay up as long as I need to and then my body adjusts to a new clock. But on the way home–it takes weeks before I readjust. And a certain bodily function seems to have a clock of its own, one that takes forever to revert back to regular movement, and has been waking me up in the middle of the night, telling me it’s actually morning. If you don’t know what I’m talking, the following will soon make it clear.

Today’s topic is something that we’re all very aware of. We do it every day. We were fascinated by it as children—in fact, some children like to make art with it. As adults, we examine it, consider it, pretend it never happened, or fixate on it, but we rarely discuss it. It goes by many names: dump, turd, doodie, dingleberry, fudgebunny, rosebud, or in my own family’s case, trump (which makes sense, considering…) Yes, I’m talking about poop. Admit it—we all, in our own way, are interested in this subject, at least our OWN subject. Most people really don’t care to think about other people’s sh*t—well, their LITERAL sh*t anyway. In fact, most people are FAR too interested in other people’s figurative sh*t for their own good, and are always happy to express their opinions on things that never concern them.

At any rate, I’ve come to realize that I may just be weirdly interested in poop. It started years ago, when I was in the hospital after having major surgery. In the bathroom, there was a chart that had images of different kinds of poop on it, and descriptions of what each one meant. Like there was the “normal” poo that looked like a sleek log, then there was the bulky poo that looked like really long, dry cookie dough and was described as “a sausage shape with cracks in the surface”, which meant the person was somewhat dehydrated. (If you’re interested in more of this, just google “Bristol Stool Chart”—I know you’re saying out loud “No way”, but we both know you’ll secretly look at it). Then, a few years ago, I saw a giant poo in the doorway of a defunct sushi restaurant in town. Right away, I was like “Whoa! That’s the biggest poo I’ve ever seen! Also, its owner needs to drink more fluids.” Later, it was still there and I tried to point it out to a friend, but she was like “No! You need to stop. I do NOT want to see an unhomed person’s poop.” I realize some people are just really uncomfortable with random feces, but this was like World Record stuff—it literally haunted my thoughts for days, and every time I passed the doorway, even though it was long gone, I pondered the size, and diet, of its owner.

Sometimes it occurs to me that just maybe I should keep my fascination with poo to myself, but I can write about whatever the hell I want, and you can judge me, but you can’t argue with the fact that deep in your secret heart, you also think poo is, if not cool, at least interesting and informative. Seriously, nobody is watching as you nod and smile. Or when you look into the toilet in the morning to inspect your offering. The other day, I felt the urge, and afterwards I snuck a peek. My reaction? “Huh. Impressive!” Then I giggled a little, because I said it out loud, but no one else was in the bathroom to hear me.

And please don’t try to tell me that you have never passed judgement on your own sacrifice to the porcelain god, because we all do it. We’ve all gone, “Holy hell! What did I eat yesterday?” or “Why doesn’t corn digest like regular normal food?”, “Alcohol sure does a number on my bowels”, or just “Good one!” I think the world would be a much happier place if we all discussed our poop on a regular basis—after all, no matter what colour, gender, or religion you are, it’s something we ALL have in common. I was thinking last night about how best to use modern media to bring us all together via bodily waste and I came up with a TV show that would address the issue :

A beach scene. People in uniform milling around. A body lying on the sand. Camera pans to a large poo beneath a palm tree. Cut to Danny.

Danny: It’s not looking good, boss.
Horatio: Tell me what you’ve got, Dann-o.
Danny: Large male, judging by size. Probably a vegan, based on the amount of broccoli and self-righteousness smooth texture. Well-hydrated. Looks like the Number 2 Killer has struck again.
Horatio: (gazes sternly into distance). I’m making the Number 2 Killer my Number 1 priority. He won’t get away with this shit again. Let’s roll.

Camera cuts away and credits roll to the sound of “Squeeze Box” by The Who. The title appears: CSI: Excremental.

I know, right? There’s also a twist on the new Sherlock Holmes drama which I call “Alimentary”. It’s the same basic premise as CSI: Excremental, but with more deductive reasoning:

Sherlock: I’ve come to the conclusion that our victim is indeed a beet farmer.
Watson: How could you possibly know that?
Sherlock: For God’s Sake, Watson—look at the colour of his scat. That slight pink tinge is a dead giveaway. Have I taught you nothing?!

So the next time you secretly poke through your dog’s crap with a stick to see if he ate some tinfoil, or jump with joy at your baby’s ginormous diaper dump, know that you’re not alone. Here’s a vintage cookie jar for you that looks just like the poo emoji.

Weird Thoughts and Whatnot

On Friday night, I couldn’t sleep so I started composing this week’s blog post in my head. As you may recall, I’ve been seeing this acupuncturist/chiropractor type guy for my chronic shoulder pain, and I’d given up on the acupuncture on the grounds that lying on my stomach with needles in my back for an indeterminate amount of time was stressful. So a few weeks ago, I went and asked to resume shock wave therapy (which is NOT electroshock therapy, just to be clear—it’s a type of air-compressor driven jackhammer that’s theoretically supposed to break up the calcium in your tendons), and his response was “No problem, kid.” And let me just remind you that the acupuncturist/chiropractor type guy is probably in his early thirties if that, and I am a woman who is quite beyond middle age and in no way, shape, or form, a kid. (Slight tangent: as I was composing this in my head, I was calculating how old I would have to be if 58 was middle-aged and realized that there was NO WAY I would get to see 116 years old unless there was some kind of modern medical miracle that occurred during the next few years, and then I started calculating how much time I had left and the answer to that was BEST CASE SCENARIO 25-30 YEARS and then I freaked myself out at how short a time that seemed and then I had to wander the house in an existential panic until I could go back to bed. Second slight tangent: I have a very dear aunt who has always called me “kiddo” ever since I can remember, and that’s fine because she’s older than me and she’s family and also she reads my blog and I don’t want her to think I don’t like it when SHE calls me kiddo).

At any rate, I’ve become increasingly—I don’t know, it’s like a simultaneous combination of amused and annoyed—by his constant sobriquets and Peleton style encouragement:

“You did amazing today, kid!”
“You’re a trooper—great job!”
“Fantastic work today, milady!”

And so on. And it would be awesome and cool if I actually DID anything aside from lying on my stomach and counting to 600 very slowly until he comes back to take the needles out; otherwise it just seems like hollow praise. But then last week, I arrived just as he was coming out of his treatment room and he greeted me thusly: “Uh oh, here comes trouble!”

I looked behind me to see who he was talking to, but it became quickly apparent that IT WAS ME. Me? Trouble?! Does he not know me at all? As we all know, I don’t have a single real bad-ass bone in my body! But then, at this point in the mental composition of this blog post in my bed, I started to fall asleep, and dreamed that I was writing about a couple who made cute pet videos and in one of them, a cat got mad at a dog for sniffing her, and the caption in the video read, “Stop touching my genitalia with your nose!” and then it occurred to me both in the dream and as I began to wake up again that the word “genitalia” doesn’t sound anything at all like what it is; in fact, it sounds like an old-fashioned word for something very festive, like if you said that “the whole regiment was decked out in their best genitalia” or “the halls were festooned with merry genitalia” or whatnot. And the whole thing was so funny when I pictured it that I laughed out loud, and Ken rolled over and muttered, “What?” and I said, “You’re snoring again” and he went back to sleep while I kept silently giggling just like a little kid and maybe my acupuncturist/chiropractor guy is right about me being trouble.

Very Superstitious

Things have been weird lately, like, if something could go wrong, it does. From sudden expensive car repairs to Kate and my parents all getting covid, to Ken almost being rushed to the hospital after a chlorine gas incident, bad luck seems to be hounding me. The other day, I started to wash my hair and the cold tap handle disintegrated right in my hand.

Then later my wine fridge suddenly stopped working so we took it apart, cleaned the fan and tested it—still nothing. Then I forgot it was still plugged in:

Me: Do you think there’s something wrong with the motherboard?
Ken: Maybe.
Me: That wire looks loose.
Ken: Don’t touch—
Me: OWWWW!! I just got electrocuted! Why the hell am I even bothering to wear my lucky underwear?!

Yes, my lucky underwear seems to have run out of good luck—no matter how often I wear them, I can’t seem to get a break. Like two weeks ago, Ken and I were at Werq The World, a touring drag extravaganza. We’d met some of our favourite drag queens, then settled in to watch the show. Suddenly, I felt a pain in my side. I tried to ignore it but it kept getting worse, until there was no doubt. I had another kidney stone. I made it through the show, but now I’ve gone through yet another round of X-rays, ultrasounds (I have to drink HOW MUCH WATER?!) and CAT scans. And I can’t even get a specialist appointment until the 15^th.

But I don’t want to sound whiny. In fact, I’ve been doing some research and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m bringing this all on myself with a variety of bad luck symbols that I’ve been encountering lately.

1) Broken Appliances

See above. I was shocked. Literally. Stupid wine fridge.

2) The number 666

Thanks to the Wiccan healer I used to work with, we have two booths at the antique market with the number 666. And I have to regularly open them to get out spells and black candles and crystal skulls and whatnot. So maybe I’m exposing myself to curses that I’m not even aware of:

Customer: You know Satan isn’t bad, right? Like, he’s only doing his job.
Me: Kind of like me.
Customer: What?
Me: Did you want the red skull or the blue skull?
Customer: Ooh, is that a chicken foot keychain?

2) Stopped clocks

As you may remember, I have 53 clocks in my house at current count and only 16 of them work. Maybe it’s time to get rid of the broken ones. (Because it’s TIME. Get it?) Apparently, according to a “feng shui coach”, who is basically someone who comes into your house, takes your money, points at things, and claims they have bad chi, “broken things won’t bring positive energy into your life.” That’s very judgmental, KIM. I love ALL my clocks, and I’m pretty sure the charge on that wine fridge was positive.

3) Dried Flowers

I saw this on Realtor.com. The caption underneath a photo of dried flowers says, “Dried flowers will suck the life out of your home.” And wouldn’t you know, I recently cut some hydrangeas from my garden and put them in a vase to dry. Apparently, I have created an energy vacuum, which sucks (Because vacuums suck. Get it?) and also, do actual real estate agents really believe this sh*t? Like if I was selling my house, would Darla from REMAX take my hydrangeas and throw them onto the porch in a superstitious frenzy whilst stomping on them and screaming “Only live flowers in this house!!”?

4) Walking Under A Ladder

I do this all the time, because one of my booths at the antique market came with a ladder across the top to put or hang stuff on. I’m back and forth under it several times a week in order to restock my booth, which is making the ladder spirits angry, according to google.

5) A Black Cat Crossing My Path

Ilana is a tuxedo cat, so she’s mostly black with a white bib and paws. And she crosses my path continually, begging for treats and tummy rubs, which I’m happy to oblige because she’s so sweet, even though the tummy rubs usually end in her grabbing my wrist and biting me. Because she’s a cat, and that’s what they do.

6) Pointing Towards Feces

I saw this one on Wikipedia. It’s an English superstition, which doesn’t surprise me. And I actually did this a while ago, because I have to clean the bathrooms at work, and one of the toilets was super-gross, so I came out all disgusted and pointed in the direction of the bathroom/poo while exclaiming to my boss, “You don’t pay me enough to clean crap like this up!” Also, I don’t know WHY it’s bad luck—maybe people got sick of Sir Archibald Dungheap continually pointing at people’s poo and describing it, like “Pish posh, tally-ho, that’s a remarkable shade of ochre!” and then they beat him to death with broken clocks.

At any rate, it’s possible I’m looking at this the wrong way. After all, my car got fixed by our wonderful mechanic neighbour, Kate and my parents both recovered quickly, Ken didn’t have permanent lung damage, I ordered a new tap online, and I can drink lukewarm wine as easily as the cold stuff. Now if only I could pass this kidney stone quickly, that would be lucky. Knock on wood.

Silver(be)ware

Last week, I brought a box of silverware home from my booth because the knife holder thingy had detached itself and I wanted to repair it. The silverware and the box are heavy, so instead of lugging it all the way back to the antique market, I decided to post it on Facebook Marketplace for $70. The ad was a picture of the silverware, the box, the hallmarks etc. and the description read as follows: “Gorgeous 1928 hallmarked Bruckman German silverware. 12 dinner forks, 8 dessert forks, 8 teaspoons, 7 large spoons and 1 large serving spoon, and 11 knives with never-rust blades. Comes with box. Located in Drumbo Ontario.”

Two things happened as a result. First, I was inundated with all the usual stupid questions:

Is it silver?
Is it silverplated?
How many pieces are there?
How old is the set?
Is it English?
Where are you located?
Is it sterling?

I was asked that last question several times, because apparently there are people out there who think you can buy an entire set of solid sterling silver cutlery for $70, and not the ten grand it would actually be worth. So I updated the ad to include the rider, “Obviously, based on the price, this is high quality silver plate, not solid sterling.”

The second thing that happened was that I realized that there are a LOT of people who think you can buy and sell priceless objects for veritable pennies (or even free), based on the ads that some people are posting:

1) This is a picture of a piece of wood with the word “undies” written on it in what looks like black crayon. The description reads, “If you turn this down you clearly dont know art.” After considering for a while, I’ve come to the conclusion that people who DO know Art are aware that he regularly runs out of underwear and is reduced to begging for ten dollars’ worth of it on the internet. But the description is a little ominous. If I DO turn the request down on the principle that Art is a grown-ass man and should get a job to fund his foundation garment issues, is he going to come after me and drag me out to an underwear store, forcing me to buy him a pair? And for ten dollars, it will be only one pair—have you SEEN the cost of undies these days? The whole thing seems a little aggressive to me.

2) Of course, the opposite of aggressive is passive-aggressive, and I think this ad fits that bill perfectly. While it SEEMS incomprehensible, I think it’s just a very clever way of getting sh*t out of your house without having to move it yourself, like “If you want this free thing, I’m not helping you move it, but you and your friends can come get it. By the way, I have a sore back, so don’t blame me for expecting you to do all the work, I mean this thing is FREE after all.” But the best part was that at first, I looked at the ad really quickly and thought that Louis meant that the buyer and their friends would need to carry it on their backs, and I know it’s free, but you can’t MAKE people do tricks for you without a little more incentive. Like, throw in a “free away” couch or something, you know, sweeten the pot.

3) Then we go from aggressively passive-aggressive to quantum mechanics. Apparently this is not just a simple mirror, it’s Schrodinger’s Mexican Punched Tin and Talavera Tile Mirror. Currently, it’s in a large box where it is simultaneously free and not free. But seriously, why do this? If you don’t want to give it away, put a price in the box that asks you for the price instead of being so ornery about it, like “It’s NOT FREE, BRENDA. I KNOW IT SAYS FREE BUT IT’S NOT. GODDAMMIT.”

In other news, good news that is, I had my regularly scheduled mammogram on Thursday morning, and the results came back yesterday, congratulating me that my boobs are still just fine. I wouldn’t have thought otherwise, but I work with a woman who styles herself as a Wiccan healer and a few weeks ago, my shoulder was really bothering me, so she offered to do a “Wiccan healing therapy session” on it at work. This involved me sitting in a chair and her breathing deeply, waving her hands around and then pressing them down on my shoulder. During the “treatment”, she suddenly stopped and asked, “Do you have any problems with cysts in your breasts?”

I said no, and she continued very ominously, “I’m detecting quite a few on the left. You should get it checked out.” And while I don’t believe that anyone, even the MOST qualified Wiccan healer on the planet could magically detect a boob issue, she DID cleanse the back corner of the antique market of the dangerous presence that she detected back there. Well, she THINKS she did, but *whispering voice* it’s still there…

Not The Sharpest Tool In The Shed

It’s been a weird week—or at least weirder than normal. On the upside, I discovered that my last novel The Seventh Devil was part of a list of best spooky reads that appeared in October on a well-known book review website, and I didn’t even know about it, so that was cool. And my publisher likes the sample chapters I sent him for the sequel, The Devil You Know, so I have incentive to keep writing. On the other hand though, I’ve been plagued by intensely specific dreams about my new antique business, particularly one in which I was at Staples trying to buy supplies to frame pictures of old book pages from Alice In Wonderland with black silhouettes of rabbits superimposed on them. At one point, the salesperson and Ken began having a conversation about them working together on a different project while I used the photocopier and compared prices on fancy price tags. It’s exhausting—I mean, if I have to work all night as well as all day, what the hell is the point of being retired? And speaking of working, I had a disturbing incident in which a feverish coworker who’s a rabid anti-vaxxer/anti-masker came right up in my face on Monday to tell me that he was sick and needed to sign out. Apparently he’s been sick for days with all the symptoms of COVID, but he refused to get tested because he doesn’t believe that COVID is real. Needless to say, I was a little upset. Luckily, I was double masked and triple vaccinated. My best friend was able to get me a rapid test and thankfully, I was negative. In addition, I saw this magazine on the newsstand dated January 10^th.

Did no one tell them? Was her death a secret? And while I admire the mid-December optimism, I really think they should have pulled the copies, or at least changed the cover once the lovely Betty White had passed away on December 31. But I did manage to find some amusement this week, especially after seeing the following ad for a set of axes:

Emergency Room Convos

I haven’t been motivated to do much this week, because I’m still struggling with the same health issue as last week; in fact, I was at the hospital again on Friday, I’m exhausted, and I still haven’t seen the object of my disaffection. The only bright spot in the whole ordeal happened after I had seen the doctor. I was getting dressed and overheard this conversation with another patient. Apparently, half the population is having kidney issues as well, judging by this, and the two other women in the waiting room who were also there with suspected kidney stones:

Doctor: So what brings you in today?
Patient: A few days ago, I peed in a snowbank and the pee looked really dark.
Doctor: And…
Patient: I got worried so yesterday I peed in the snowbank again. This time it was red.
Doctor (completed unfazed): What shade of red? Dark red, bright red…?
Patient: Pretty dark. At least it looked pretty dark against the white snow.
Doctor: OK, I think we’ll need a sample.

I just hope the guy wasn’t freaked out by having to go in a cup instead of on his favourite snowbank.

Stoned: 3 Vignettes

“You rocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!” Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

No, not all of these stories are about marijuana, but it’s an apt title considering how recently I’ve been plagued by stones in a variety of ways. This first tale is, however, about my terrible relationship with Mary Jane…

1) When I was a teenager, I tried weed a couple of times. I didn’t particularly enjoy the experience—it made me feel overly anxious and stressed out rather than all mellow and funny like the movies of the 70s and early 80s had promised. I’d never touched the stuff since, aside from using CBD oil and THC cream on my shoulder topically, but recently my daughter got a vape pen. “Do you want to try it?” she asked one evening before we were about to watch a movie. So I did. 10 minutes later, I felt absolutely no different. “Give me another hit,” I asked, and she obliged. Suddenly, and almost immediately, everything went dark and I felt myself sinking slowly onto the kitchen floor, where I lay for several minutes while everyone tried to figure out what to do with me. I was finally able to make it upstairs where I lay on the bed giggling in a panicky kind of way, while Kate kept me company. After about half an hour, I felt stable enough to put on pajamas and go back downstairs, but I still have no idea what movie we watched. Ken can’t remember either but that’s not because he was also stoned—he’s just old and has a bad memory. As for me, I won’t be imbibing again.

2) A few weeks ago, I was on Facebook Marketplace and saw an ad for a rock tumbler, a “professional National Geographic” model. We’d had a rock tumbler years ago but it broke, and I couldn’t for the life of me remember why we hadn’t replaced it. So I bought this one. It was a great deal, having only been used once, and still had two sets of gems and grit to have fun with. Why on earth would anyone be selling such a cool machine for so little money? I thought to myself. I put the rough gems and the grit in the barrel, plugged it in, and fired it up. Then I simultaneously remembered why we had never replaced the old rock tumbler, and completely understood why a person would sell theirs after one use. If you know me at all, you know that I have misophonia—like Nature, I abhor a vacuum and anything else that makes a loud noise. And this thing functions at the same decibel level as a vacuum cleaner, which I had conveniently forgotten. We started out with it in our back TV room but it was so loud that Kate and her boyfriend put a cardboard box over it to muffle the sound slightly. That didn’t help much, tempting me to throw it out the nearest window, so I put it in our back bathroom, where it stayed for three weeks, chattering away like a small demon, until I’d finally had enough of both the racket, which I could hear in my office, and of yelling, “Who left the bathroom door open?!” I didn’t even make it to the last round of fine grit—I looked at the gems after the second-last polish and declared them good enough. Still, the gems looked nice, and on Friday I went to a local craft store and bought all kinds of things to turn them into jewelry. And because I really like smooth polished rocks, Ken promised that we could start it back up in the summer out back in his workshop.

3) And finally, the stone story that takes the proverbial cake. Almost a month ago, on a Friday night, I woke up in the night in terrible pain. I was about to ask Ken to take me to the hospital when it suddenly stopped. But for the rest of the weekend, I still felt awful. On the next Tuesday, I had an appointment with my doctor, he of the dick-ish bedside manner, about my shoulder, about which he bluntly stated he could do nothing about and to go back to the surgeon*. Then strangely, he asked, “So how is everything else going?” and I mistakenly took this as a cue that I might be allowed to discuss more than one ailment in contravention of his policy.

Me: Actually, I think I might have a kidney stone. I had this terrible pain on the weekend starting here and ending here (*demonstrates*) and I’m still having symptoms, like a UTI maybe?
Doctor:
Me:
Doctor: So I’m retiring in about 3 months and my patients will all be moving to a practice in Kitchener…

And that was that. Until the next weekend, when I got fed up and went to the urgent care clinic where, despite the absence of any infection, they gave me antibiotics. Those were as helpful as my family doctor who, despite my unwillingness, I had to call again the next week, still suffering from a lot of pain. But my timing was excellent! My doctor was away and his locum saw me instead. She ordered a lot of tests, including an ultrasound. But while waiting for the results, last Monday morning around 3 am, I woke up again in terrible pain. And it got worse. AND THEN IT GOT EVEN WORSE. Ken rushed me to the hospital where I saw a very nice, very young, VERY laidback doctor who ordered another ultrasound which showed—surprise, surprise—a kidney stone slowly making its way towards my nether regions.

Emergency Doctor: No wonder you’ve been in so much pain. It’s about 6mm.
Me: How big is that in terms someone my age who was taught the Imperial system can understand?
ED: About a quarter inch.
Me: A quarter inch?! How the hell is that going to come out??!!
ED: Well…

So I’m on a lot of medication and had an appointment with a specialist but the saying “this too shall pass” has not yet applied. The whole thing has been very stressful—the only funny moment was when the ED, having already asked me about past surgeries, including my hysterectomy, followed up with this:

ED: When was the date of your last period?
Me:
ED:
Me: As I mentioned, I don’t have a uterus, so I’d have to say sometime in 2015. Sorry I can’t be more specific.
ED: Oh, yeah, right.

Maybe he was stoned.

At any rate, wish me luck. If things work out, maybe I can make a necklace with it.

*Ironically, I’ve been on so much pain medication that my shoulder feels perfectly fine. And that rocks.

I Beg To Differ

This has been a week full of epiphanies, some good and some downright disturbing. For the last several months I’ve been suffering—and it’s no exaggeration to say ‘terribly’—from some kind of shoulder affliction. It got worse during lockdown, what with being at the computer all day long with little reprieve, to the point where I was having trouble sleeping, writing, and couldn’t even work in the garden without suffering the consequences. I’d seen my doctor, Dr. Monteith (not his real name), he of the dickish bedside manner, at the beginning of the year; with minimal examination, he pronounced it tendonitis and recommended physiotherapy. Then everything closed—physiotherapy isn’t much help virtually, which I’ve written about before, and I’ve never been good at following through on things like “stretch with this weird rubber band 5 times a day”. Next, I got a prescription for an anti-inflammatory that made me woozy and didn’t help the pain. Then the world started to open up again, and I could see my massage therapist, but that didn’t help a lot either, even though under normal circumstances she’s magical and wonderful. Finally, I called the doctor’s office at the end of my wits—in a fateful turn of events, my regular doctor was on holiday, and his replacement immediately ordered an X-ray and ultrasound. ‘Immediate’ turned into a month though—apparently there were a LOT of people waiting for appointments and I had to wait until July 31 to get it done. Three days before, I made the dreadful mistake of googling “shoulder pain and cancer” just to see if there was anything to be concerned about, and I ended up crying hysterically when I read about something called a Pancoast tumour:

Me (sobbing): That’s it. I have all the symptoms. I’m going to die.
Ken: You don’t have all the symptoms. It says here the key one is weight loss.
Me: (stops crying): Your POINT?
Ken: It’s been months—you haven’t lost any weight. Weren’t you saying just the other day that you couldn’t fit into your shorts from last sum–
Me:
Ken: Well, one of us is going to die now.

It DID make me feel a little better that I hadn’t wasted away to a shadow thanks to some rare tumour, but that still left the mystery of the incredible pain I was experiencing. I got to the clinic on the 31^st and, despite the crowds, I was seen almost right away by the ultrasound technologist who was very dour:

Me: By the way, I have a latex allergy.
UT: Uh, OK.
Me: It says on the sign at reception that I’m supposed to notify you.
UT (rolls eyes): OK.

Despite her attitude, it was a real treat to have an ultrasound that I didn’t have to drink gallons of water for and then have to hold it in while someone pressed down on my bladder. When she was done, it was off to X-ray, where the technician was slightly more pleasant. Then the waiting began. It was the Friday before the long weekend, so I wouldn’t get any results until at least last Tuesday. And that meant several days of worrying. Finally, on Wednesday morning, the doctor’s office called. My regular physician was back, apparently, and had seen the results:

Nurse: Dr. Monteith says you have calcific tendonitis.
Me: OK, what does that mean?
Nurse: He says you should get shock treatments.
Me: Get what? Won’t that be painful and somewhat brain damaging?
Nurse: Hang on. Sorry, shock wave treatments. You can get it done at a physiotherapy office.

So, epiphany number 1: Calcific tendonitis, which means that I have calcium deposits grinding around in my tendons and muscles, which accounts for the pain. Shock wave therapy is supposed to break them up and help your body reabsorb them.

The second epiphany came on Thursday when Ken picked up the radiologist’s report from Dr. Monteith’s office so that I could take it to my shock wave treatment next week. It says, and I quote: “Calcific tendinopathy involving the subscapularis and supraspinatus tendons, calcification protruding through the humeral head, otherwise unremarkable.”

“UNREMARKABLE”?! Excuse me?! It was signed M. Rooney, and all I can think is it’s Mickey Rooney and this is some kind of joke. Does M. Rooney not know about my outstanding colon AND the lifetime achievement award I received for my last mammogram? I was PERSONALLY CONGRATULATED by the Chief Health Officer for both of those! Well, M. Rooney, you’ve poked the bear in the worst way possible. From this moment on, I VOW to be nothing less than completely f*cking remarkable in everything I do. And if my dentist is reading this—you better get ready for the whitest, most cavity-free remarkable teeth you’ve ever seen in your whole goddamn life.

And speaking of remarkable, my good friend Paul, he of the Notes From The Avalon blog, has just started a new blog called The Desert Curmudgeon. One of the things he likes to write about are weird Canadian TV shows, and even though he’s American, I’ve awarded him honorary Canadian citizenship. His new focus for commentary is on the short-lived 1970s Canadian sci-fi series The Starlost, and he asked me to write an intro to his first hilarious installment, which you can read here. I highly recommend him, and hope you pop over and maybe give him a follow.