Playing Fair and Being Kind

This post is about the human side of life that can be uplifting as well as disappointing. Maybe not so much disappointing as grounding or sobering.

Yesterday morning I was lying in bed after a night of fitful semi-conscious activity. I had trouble catching my breath and there was a tension in my upper chest that was worrying me. I thought about lungs being congested with nicotine and tar and being brittle and black with no way of transferring oxygen from the air sucked into the blood stream network that laces around and through to feed my cells and muscles. My thoughts became more and more morbid.

My heart didn’t really come into the mind game I was playing but in retrospect I think the heart could be the source of these symptoms. After all the heart is pumping the oxygen enriched blood to replenish that which is burned in motion and processing other bodily functions. If the multitude of monitors that are outlying don’t get all-clear signals regarding oxygen levels from their various sensors then major events begin.

I was concentrating on my lungs due to the fact that I had begun smoking cigarettes at the age of 13 when I entered high school and continued almost non-stop until the age of 35 when I stopped altogether. I know that even though I stopped long ago the chances of everything reversing are slim. Many times throughout the past decades I have wondered just how improved are my lungs since cessation of smoking. I have read and heard many differing opinions so the best I could ever do, outside of cutting open my chest for an exam, was to ‘hope’ things were improving. During these same past decades I have gotten indications that things were not improving. I took up long distance running and my breathing always lagged my other systems during training runs. That is my muscles generally would be fitter sooner than the lungs after a period of training runs.

Another indicator was the test given by industrial licensing agencies that determine lung fitness for the wearing of cartridge type dust and solvent masks. The test is known as a PFT or pulmonary function test. My results were not as good as I hoped even though I was certified to wear a cartridge air mask for work when I was building wooden boats. I wore the dust mask nearly always as result of reading an article in a trade magazine. The piece was published posthumously, written by a woodworker who rarely wore a mask and was a weekend hobbyist. The dust he breathed was the kind that contains fungi, usually found in spalted wood such as burls that grow on trees and make beautiful patterns in wood turning. At any rate I was conscious of my work habits in the shop and whenever I used solvents.

Just the same there was an uneasy feeling over the years that my lungs were my weak spot; that they were contaminated and fouled. So these thoughts were in my mind during the night. I got about 5 or 6 hours of sleep and by the time the sun was up I was certainly not feeling as chipper as I like. I was determined to call my primary care physician to make an appointment to discuss all of this. I did. The receptionist at the clinic gave me a choice of times and I picked the 11:45 A.M. I didn’t have time to eat anything. I needed to clean up and dress before leaving. Besides this was a fasting day for me and I figure I could survive a few hours without food. Well, during the drive from Boothbay to Brunswick I was not quite awake and I was a little drowsy and droopy. By now I wasn’t sure if my condition was due to a lack of nutrition, worry, or if I was in the process of having a heart attack and that I was slowly dying at the wheel. It really was a mix of worry and amusement for me. My sense of humor kept me on the road and pointing in the right direction.

My visit with the Doc was and always is an event that I totally enjoy. Dr. Roy Nakamura is a clear thinking and caring person. I was lucky when I chose him from the list provided by the HMO. Roy and I have established a good working relationship over the years and he knows what my philosophy of health is. I established early on with him that even though I was advanced in years that I was not to be treated as a declining individual. All maladies were to be addressed as important to eradicate from my being. I was not to be left as ‘good enough’ with any conditions due to my age. I told him I was going to outlive him and he better treat me as such. Of course this conversation was held in very good humor.

During the office time with Roy I began to feel a bit woozy and I mentioned it. I told him I wasn’t sure if I was suffering an attack of some sort or if I was just hungry and that my blood sugar had dropped. It was now after noon and I still hadn’t breakfasted. He looked at me with the look I am accustomed to; you know, “WTF!!!” Roy gave me his best advisory look and told me that I should eat something and then he wanted to know if I wanted something right then. I told him I’d better eat something right away because I felt hungry and I was also getting dizzy. He got right up and told me to wait saying he thought he could find a banana immediately. I was so grateful when he returned with the banana. I pulled the peel off as he left again to find the nurse. She was sent to find apple juice. By now I am feeling so moved by their wonderful and caring behavior. I felt like an orphan. The nurse returned with a small boxed juice with the straw sticking out the top and I pulled on the straw like a starving calf. I didn’t realize how hungry I was. By the time she had returned I had eaten the banana and I was in better spirits. The juice went down fast and I was beginning to return to normal. I think they saved my life.

While I was alone in Roy’s office with the banana my mind flashed to a scene in a filmed play written by Samuel Beckett. The play is “Krapp’s Last Tape”. John Hurt plays the role of Krapp. There is a scene where Krapp suddenly remembers something and begins rummaging in his desk drawer. He is bent over at the waist and his arm is deep into the back of the drawer and the noise of papers and other items being pushed around is loud. Then after about ten seconds of his rummaging he stops and seems to have found what it was he was looking for. He slowly straightens and withdraws a banana from the desk drawer. It is quite humorous because he is so serious and relieved. He then methodically, but absently, peels the banana and sticks it into his mouth almost halfway up the end. His attention remains absent from the action which is quite mesmerizing. This is the scene that passed before my eyes in Roy’s office. I was “Krapp” eating that banana. How rich is my life.

The rest of my visit with Dr. Nakamura was spent getting schedules set for blood tests, chest x rays, schedule for my annual physical with him within two weeks, stress test, pulmonary tests. I was greatly satisfied with the visit and I left to go home. It’s been about 24 hours since as I write this. The symptoms persist; a reduction in the chest pain make me feel more relaxed. However, I am feeling cared for and my friends have been supportive with calls and comments on line. My life is indeed rich. I think I will add a poem to the end of this post. One written when I returned home early in 2013 from a road trip and found my wife had left with many of my belongings. That is another story.

Peace out.

DEFIANT

Defiant,

I feel the fire in my heart,

Fear and anger fuel this hand,

Fully charged I scribble, race, try to put face to feeling,

Loss versus relief,

Pain versus joy,

Titans clashing within, struggling for advantage,

Maneuvering to gain leverage,

Straining and grappling to be heard.

There is no known villain.

No visage to target.

Only this putrefying and rotting wail

Living under my heart,

Living under my heart – hiding there,

In a hole of resentful misery.

A warrior-being, wild with life, earth, and sky

Rushes to rescue,

To salvage,

To push back the antagonist,

Feel it honor my being in the Hero’s Realm!

How grateful for this life!

For those others and those ways

For preparing me!

Wrestle on, Fuckers!

G. M. Goodwin

1/21/2013