Ok, so this morning I awoke, the first time of several, with a slight to medium sized headache, rolled over and went back to sleep 3 different times. Upon actually waking for the 4th and final time this morning, I noticed that my chest hurt and then it didn't and then it did, sort of like an erratic early labor pattern, only it was in my right chest. Of course I immediately thought, great this is when I finally have to face the fact that my heart is giving out from all the stress, self inflicted abuse and bad genetics that make up my life. Shit. In my own inimitable way I pondered this for a while, you know just long enough to have a coffee and a smoke. I started to mourn the fact that I couldn't screw around anymore with my health, that I would have to actually quit picking up cigarettes and smoking them, not just check no on medical forms when asked if I do or not. I would have to stop surrendering to impulses for spontaneous Ben and Jerry's mini binges, I would have to get serious about whether or not I wanted to stay alive for much longer. While I didn't weep, I did feel a slight amount of grief at all the inevitable changes that I would have to instate into my life if this indeed was "the big one" or even if it wasn't. I have been meaning to write about my friend Bob and this seems like an apropos moment to do so.
I knew Bob for 20 years, I first met him when I admitted him to the hospital to dry out for the umpteenth time. He was about 15 years older than I, had been drinking hard for a long time, was a pillar of the community owning a major business in town and the sweetest racist jerk I ever knew, except for maybe my grandfather. Bob did not suffer too badly during his hospital stay thanks to the latest in pharmaceutical support. He stopped just shy of full blown DT's and was sent on his merry way into the halls of AA, with his alcoholic physician whispering into his ear "If it ever gets to bad, just take a snort or two, it won't hurt you". That same doctor ate a gun a few years later after having his favorite desert one night, vanilla ice cream and vodka.
Bob went to AA, his partner went to Ala-non, and they were regulars at the various meetings in the area, I know because I was too. Bob's initial sobriety lasted a long time, how many years I can't recall. He was able to help run his business with his partner, socialize, and his health and mind were better than ever.
One day, I believe that the siren call of the suggestion whispered by his now dead physician was stronger than all that he had learned in the halls, or maybe he just picked up a drink because that is what drunks do. Whatever the mechanism behind the act, Bob was out of the meetings and into the bottle. His binge lasted about 3 months. Three months is all it took for Bob's brain to go from dry to "wet". Those 3 months of drinking damaged his brain and thoughts processes irreparably and the Bob that we all knew and loved was gone forever. In his place was a man who, while still able to stand, walk, and sit couldn't string more a couple of sensible words together...ever....again.
Bob had trodden what they like to call "the slippery slope" in AA. He entertained the thought that a drink would make it all better, what ever it was. Unfortunately my friend Bob slipped down that slippery slope into oblivion, even though his body kept walking around for 5 more years, the quintessential Bob was gone, a victim of crossing over the line that separates healthy normal brains from blasted out crucibles of wrecked unconnected neurons.
I have been wondering of late if I myself might be on my own slippery slope, comforting my grief stricken self with things that could turn on a dime and bite me hard. Bite me with heart disease, with cancer, with irreparable harm. I have been hedging my bets on this notion, not wanting to have to live out in this post Doug world naked without benefit of mood altering substances like nicotine, caffeine, anti anxiety pills, pain killers, even flirting with wine.
This morning when the cyclical squeezing pain started in my right chest under my mastectomy scar, it became clearer to me that I had a choice to make quickly. Act like a grown up and go to the doctor immediately or dick around and deny that anything serious might be going on, thereby postponing the inevitable. The inevitable grasping at the hill and hoisting myself up off of my slippery slope. Or maybe it is as simple as stepping gracefully off, gently chiding myself for having considered it an option in the first place. It seems to me that all this speaks to the frailty and the indomitable strength of the human heart. It can be broken easily over and over again, mine has been. It can also make bad choices to soothe itself, it can just as easily make better choices to heal it self. It can mourn the loss of the things it filled itself up with to not feel the full brunt of it's breaking, it can love itself in spite of it's failings.
Bob never came back,looks like I will be. I went to the doctor this morning, my blood pressure was through the roof mostly likely from the constant cough of the past 4 months or so, my chest full of rales and ronchi (fancy terms for whistles and buzzes). I probably have pneumonia, probably have had for awhile. I got a chest xray, a breathing machine, breathing meds and an antibiotic. I am pretty sure that I dodged another bullet. Maybe this time I will get the hell off of the battlefield.
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