Gone to hell in a handbasket

When I last wrote, I reported that the three CAT-scans I had on Monday had determined that I have a badly crushed L1 vertebra (L1 is the red vertebra in the illustration), and “something” on my left kidney. That something could be a hematoma from the fall, a tumor, or a cyst. To determine which, my internist ordered an MRI, which is scheduled for tomorrow, Thursday. Today, I’m to have a prerequisite blood test to verify that my kidneys have recovered from the injection of the contrast medium on Monday, the test being necessary because more contrast medium is to be injected tomorrow.

The internist’s office called yesterday morning (Tuesday) to let me know they had faxed a referral to a surgical neurologist. I immediately called the neurologist’s office to make an appointment, only to have someone named Toni tell me in her chipper voice that the referral hadn’t arrived. After a second referral was faxed, I called Toni again, but had to leave a message on her voicemail. She didn’t call back, despite being told that my situation was urgent. I called her again this morning. She said she still hadn’t received a referral. so I gave her the name of the person who had faxed the TWO referrals, the exact times the referrals were faxed, and the name of the person in her office who had taken the referrals from the fax machine and delivered them to her; at which point Toni said, in her, by now, maddeningly chipper voice, “Oh, here they are,” and made my appointment.

I think that what was going on for Toni was that she wanted me to be a good boy and quietly wait my turn in line, no matter how long it took, but, as I told her: “I’m in terrible pain; I’m getting almost no sleep; I can’t even do light housework; the only way I can take the edge off is to combine Fentanyl and oxycodone, drugs that are dangerous when combined; all this plus I look pregnant because I’ve gone from having two bowel movements a day before the accident to having none since the accident, suggesting the likelihood of abdominal nerve damage. I really need to be seen.” This was way more information than Toni wanted to hear, and some of the chipperness left her voice.

If you want to know what’s it like to feel powerless, be in desperate need of medical care but not actually bleeding to death. Of course, there are good office staff, and I try to have fun with them. I was talking to one just this morning. When she called me to say, “I have the answers to all of your questions,” I responded, “Okay, what is the meaning of life?” Earlier this week, another had asked, “Do you have other issues?” and I said, “Oh, but do I ever have other issues, but I don’t think you can help me with them.” Maybe she was kidding me back when she said, “Well, I’ll certainly do my best.”

I take a fall

I kicked a ladder out from under myself yesterday and fell six feet, landing flat on my back. Luckily, I didn’t land on the ladder, or my tools, or the heat-pump, or the border of the patio. I couldn’t believe it when I felt the ladder going. Fifty years of using ladders without an accident, and now this!? I was pruning an apple tree at the time, and tried to grab the branches as I fell. My upper body was surrounded by them (which was probably why I lost touch with the fact that the ladder was leaning), and I was fairly confident that I would succeed, but I didn’t. I then realized that I was irretrievably falling, and that, given my height, it was going to hurt, and then it hurt. The jarring was incredible and the pain instant, but my first problem was that I couldn’t breathe.

When I finally caught my breath, I made sure that my parts would move, and then I lay there wondering if my neighbors had seen me fall, and hoping they hadn’t because I am NOT the kind of idiot who falls off ladders. The day was turning to night, and the air was getting cold, and all that I had on were coveralls, so I wanted to get indoors as soon as possible. I began the journey on hands and knees as gyrating strings of lightning filled my vision. I didn’t think I had hit my head, so I assumed the pain was the cause of the visual effects. I made it to the back door, but couldn’t lift my hand to open it, so I had to lay on my side to reach for the doorknob. I got back onto hands and knees and crawled across the laundry room in the direction of the kitchen. When I came to the single eight-inch step between the two, I couldn’t raise my arms high enough to cross it, so I returned to my side and tried to inch my way over. I got my head stuck in the corner under the open door (it's bottom being at same height as the kitchen floor), and lay there or a long time shivering (the laundry room being unheated and me being on the floor), hurting, wondering how to get out from under the door, and hoping I could make it into the kitchen before Peggy came home in about an hour. I hoped this partly to spare her the shock of finding me, but also because shivering on a hard floor was making the pain worse. 

It being news time, I thought that the TV might distract me from how much I hurt, but I would have to get up that step to get to it. I reflected on the fact that most people would be praying about now, and that I would too if I had the least idea it would help. Finally, my body began to move as if it had a plan of its own, so I let it take over. After numerous attempts, it made its way into the kitchen (I don't know how). It didn’t even try to get back onto hands and knees, but inched along on its side, its goal being a chair in the adjacent den. We passed the TV remote, so I turned it on, but immediately lost the remote, and had to settle for a movie about a little girl and her pig. As my body crawled along, I wondered how it was ever going to into that chair. As it turned out, it couldn’t. I was disappointed, but had to give it an A for effort.

It was past time for Brewsky’s supper, but he was so weirded-out by my behavior that he didn’t even cry. When Peggy came home, my body and I were on the floor in the dark, me wondering where the remote was, it trembling, and both of us watching a little girl sneak a pig into her school desk. Peggy had been shopping, so, not wanting to upset her, I asked about her trip, and she showed me her purchases. Since I never lie on the floor in the dark watching what I calljunk TV, she finally asked if I was okay. I told her what had happened, and asked her to find my glasses and gather my tools. She came back in saying that she couldn’t find them all. I suggested that she look in the tree. 

That chore being done, she brought me a 1’x’3 plywood platform that I had made for some long ago project and then saved in the thought that I would probably need it it again for one thing or another. It being four inches tall, I thought that maybe I could use it to get myself high enough to transfer into the chair. With much help from Peggy, I succeeded. I then had her bring me a jar to pee in. I also had to shit, so, again with much help from her and with the aid of a walker that we had bought when she hurt her own back (and then kept in case we needed it again), she got me onto the pot. I sat there thinking about how glad I was that this wasn’t our first date. I couldn’t push to get the shit out, so, giving up on that project, I had her help me to bed. I lay there for two hours, high on oxycodone and listening to relaxing music from the '50s, but the pain never let up, and ice packs, which usually help pain a lot, didn't help any. I had her move me back into the den where I became nauseous, dizzy, and shivered while sweat poured off my body. I thought I might faint, but the sickness passed, and Peggy brought me my supper. We watched two episodes of Cheyenne (1955). It was either that or Peter Gunn (1958) because both DVD sets had just arrived, and I was eager to watch them.

She kept bringing me ice packs, but they weren’t helping, so I asked for a heating pad, and it did help some. After supper, Cheyenne, one Aleve, and a whopping dose of Neurontin, she helped me back to bed where I more or less passed out from the Neurontin. Without it, I don’t know if I would have slept at all. I only had to awaken her once for my pee jar during the night, so that was a relief. Now, I’m up, and here I sit, dependent upon her for everything.

Tomorrow (Monday), I will see if I can get in to see my primary care doc. He’s good about same day appointments (a rarity in America), so I’m confident that I can either see him or someone in his practice, and maybe get a steroid shot. Today, I’ll try to get some movement back. I can use my arms, and bend my knees and back, but that’s pretty much all I can do without the pain stopping me. My biggest worry is kidney damage because that’s where the pain is, but, so far, I haven’t passed any blood. I thought of going to Urgent Care, but would need more help than Peggy could provide without endangering herself, and I sure as hell don’t want to pay for an ambulance or ask friends to help if I don’t have to. Mostly, I just don’t want to go.

Later: I came back and found a video for Peter Gunn. When the show comes on, the red sparkly-looking things in the photo pulse in harmony with the music, making for what is surely the most intense beginning for any show that was ever on TV. I would even call the program surreal, film noire at its best. The above album made the Top Ten. The style of jazz was popular in L.A. in the '50s and is called West Coast Cool.

Update on Monday. The doctor thinks I might have broken one or more vertebra. He ordered stat blood work, stat x-rays, and a stat CAT scan. These tests took four hours because the CAT scan people wouldn’t do their job until the blood work people had done theirs. Their concern was that my kidneys be okay because I had to drink one kind of contrast and have another kind injected through an IV, and both are excreted through the kidneys. Now, I’m home waiting for test results…

My internist’s physician’s assistant called as I was writing the last sentence (nice things happen to nice people, which is why he called at such a fortuitous time). The x-rays and CAT scan showed that my L1 vertebra is crushed to half its normal size (which is a lot), and that I have either a cyst, a tumor, or a hematoma on my left kidney. He ordered an MRI on both the vertebra and the kidney, and said he would try to rush it through, but since it requires insurance pre—approval, it might not happen today. He also referred me to a surgical neurologist to be evaluated for (what else?) surgery. As for the kidney problem, I’ll be seeing a nephrologist if it’s a tumor. Otherwise, it will just require a periodic re-evaluation.

As for how I’m doing, I can’t get even reasonably comfortable in any position, but the longer I stay in a position, the more uncomfortable I become, so I spend a lot of time switching between sitting and standing, being still and stretching, standing and walking, etc. It takes a long time and a lot of painful effort to switch positions in bed, and it’s a much bigger hassle to get out of bed, especially after a few hours, and then when I’m out, I need help to walk until I get limbered up. And, of course, there are my usual pain problems which were being helped by QiGong, something that I can no longer do. As for the good news, at least I can walk now. It’s not pretty because I’m stiff, guarded, tentative, and hunched over, but at least it’s walking. Presently, I’m in slightly less pain because I took a stiff dose of oxycodone (the narcotic that’s found in Percocet) an hour ago.

I’m bummed about the test results, but don’t know enough to know how bummed to be, and am good at not letting my fears run away with me. As for Peggy, she’s in tears and nearly frantic, but she has the ability to bounce back from negative feelings with amazing rapidity. It’s also true that her reaction is partly determined by my own, so if I stay centered, it helps her to stay centered. Fortunately, years of experience (including three cancer scares) have made it easier for me to stay centered, at least in regard to medical problems.

A hard taskmaster

The preachers of my childhood lumped atheism together with humanism (which they mistakenly thought was new), Communism, and the status of being a Godless professor, implying that all four were modern fallacies so nearly identical as to lack meaningful distinction. Atheism’s modernity intrigued me because while its protagonists were invariably described as smart and well-educated, its newness also appeared to suggest that it was untrue because, after all, if everyone accepted God prior to the time of Marx, who was “modern man” to reject “Him”? As an adult, I learned somewhat of the ancient Greeks, the thinkers of the enlightenment, and evolutionary theory, and discovered that atheism was very old indeed and even predated theism, which was something that our species evolved into. Despite its antiquity, it has always and forever lacked art, ritual, music, tradition, community, special books, moral teachings, and shared beliefs, all of which were, and are, extremely important to me, and all of which are lacking in my life in any communal sense.

The atheists I’ve known were politically and philosophically liberal and elevated science and reason above other forms of knowing, but such things are not prerequisites for atheism. Indeed, there are no prerequisites for atheism. I find it to be bleak, comfortless, not a belief but simply a negation of a belief, yet much of what I am follows from it because it inescapably dominates my consciousness. Like terminal cancer, I don’t find it something to cherish but something to survive and to learn from as best I can, a hard taskmaster as the saying goes. The only good thing I can say for atheism is that it does infinitely less harm than the alternative, for I’ve yet to hear of anyone killed, tortured, imprisoned, or otherwise oppressed in the name of atheism whereas millions are abused daily in the name of one god or another. If atheism not an inspiration for goodness, neither is it an inspiration for evil, and that alone is a worthy commendation. Even so, I would that there were more to life than a flicker before the darkness. As Tolstoy put it in his 1882 spiritual autobiography, A Confession:

“My situation was appalling. I knew that there was nothing down the path of rational knowledge, nothing beyond a denial of life, but in the other direction, the path of faith, there was nothing but a denial of reason, which was even more impossible than a denial of life. From rational knowledge, it was emerging that life is evil, people know that it is, people could choose not to live, but they have lived and they do live; and I have lived even though I have known for a very long time that life is meaningless and evil. But from faith, it was emerging that in order to understand the meaning of life I had to renounce reason, the one thing for which meaning is essential.”

After years of angst, Tolstoy finally did embrace “faith” as the only path to meaning. While he was correct in arguing that it is only through religious belief that an endowed meaning can be claimed for life, he ignored the possibility of an attributed meaning. For example, the atheist, Bertrand Russell, wrote of the meaning he had given his life: “My whole religion is this: do every duty, and expect no reward for it, either here or hereafter.” Because Bertrand's statement represented his best attempt to engage life with a clear head, I find it far more laudable than Tolstoy's “faith,” which arose from a desperation to avoid suicide.

Would it not seem grandiose to ask for more than Russell, to claim—by virtue of that which is called faith—that our primitive species is favored by God above the rest of the universe, and that God only created the rest of the universe as a boot camp for us to inhabit while we prepare for a place that is infinitely better? Faith is not the humble path it claims to be, but the unwarranted elevation of oneself to the status of being a special friend of the Infinite. By contrast, atheism is the denial of grandiosity inasmuch as it views us as so many meaningless sparks that flash from the darkness but for a moment before falling back into it. This being our situation, can we pronounce as sufficient whatever meaning we are able to create for our lives, or, like Tolstoy, are we condemned to choose between religious belief and futility? If the latter is true, it is surely a pathetic recommendation for belief. Even so, I relate to Tolstoy's existential despair, not because I find life meaningless in the absence of an ordained purpose but because I find life tragic in its finitude. There are days on end when I can't escape the knowledge that all of the good I do today, and all of the people I love today, will die tomorrow.

“There are those who, instead of denying despair in return for superficial hope, deny hope in return for unremitting despair… the choice is made for them by powers beyond their control… For them the reality of death and the passing of things leads to a deep paralysis… They are wise souls, but they are too wise. They do not have the courage to hope, for it takes a certain grandiosity to believe…” from On Depression by Nassir Ghaemi

Indeed. To the extent that grandiosity is a virtue, I am deficit in virtue, but this brings me to the quandary that Tolstoy faced, that is, is it better to honor one's best attempt at rationality, no matter to what depths rationality might lead, or is it better to believe that which will make one happy and productive even if doing so diminishes rationality? I would usually answer in favor of the former based upon the premise that intellectual integrity underlies moral integrity, but there are days on end when I question whether it is the right answer. There are days on end when I think that maybe a little irrationality might not be such a bad thing. Then, through means that I myself don't understand, I regain my center and repent of my heresy, because from what does the renunciation of rationality flow if not from the renunciation of integrity? At least, that is the case for me.

The 1922 era cartoon echoes the still common belief that atheism is a modern phenomenon.