That Time I Almost Died Part VII

December 2008 (I think this string of blogs was titled “The Apotheosis of Payne”)

My body and psyche have capitulated, so when I return to the U.S. for Christmas, I will be remaining there for at least a few months while I seek First World care. The hope is that a diagnosis and treatment plan will be reached quickly, and that I’ll be back to reasonable health and London town by the spring. 

Back to business: Dec. 11th return trip to the hematologist: Not only was PMR ruled out, but another theory, B-12 deficiency, was checked off the list. In fact, my B-12 reading was one of the only indicators that was slightly high.

The hematologist showed me a computer screen clustered with bloodwork jargon that was supposed to illuminate us both. Evidently, nothing kooky dared show itself, which brought the doc to a new theory: hepatitis c. I felt like saying, "I’m flattered you think I’m happening enough for hepatitis C (the C stands for cool), but let’s face it, I’m not that outgoing.”

Instead I said something about how square my life had been, making hep C astronomically unlikely. I could see by the doubting smirk on her face she didn’t believe me. I protested, citing all the important stats of my boring life. With each word, her face became ever more scrunched and skeptical. This is the only time I’ve ever had trouble convincing a woman I don’t get laid much.

We went back and forth on this point, then she began to speculate wildly about tapeworms and rare liver diseases. Once I half-convinced the hematologist that hep c was a long shot, she offered a very unappealing Plan B; a bone marrow biopsy. My reaction must have said a lot, because she tried to backpedal a bit by saying: “I don’t think you’re as sick as you look."

The word biopsy is a downer at 89. When you’re 29, it leaves you vegetative. Maybe I'm just accustomed to the diagnosis roller coaster, because some of the initial shock value was lost on me. What replaced it was a very specific kind of resentment. Age 30 is just around the bend for me, and I couldn't help but think of how I spent my 20s: loitering in comedy clubs with comedians I mostly disliked. Comedians are a twisted and often very unamusing bunch. If you like people who take a Type A approach to annoying everyone around them, hang around comedians. If you want to be around a bunch of wannabe peacocks who think saying they have a fancy tail and actually having a fancy tail are the same thing, find your way to a comedy green room. If you like people with more tics than a woman who has been sexually trafficked, visit an open-mic.

The comics I started with also became great friends. Unfortunately, they were a small minority of...oh...let's just say single digits. The majority of comedians I’ve met do nothing but put several exclamation marks on a business that can only be described as heinous.  Don’t get me started on the bookers.

I spent my 20s in such company, all because of a delusion about “making it" in comedy (I can't even write it without cringing!). A poor choice on my part. But hey, any chump who bunny hops toward a mirage deserves what he gets.

I guess I should say a few words about the idea of public, socialized healthcare. Go to any scandalous online newsstory about healthcare, and you’ll find a spate of comments like, “Yeah, what do you expect from for-profit healthcare?” This statement states nothing whatsoever, but by blending vague cynicism with what sounds like industry jargon, it lets its author play the role of informed commentator. All that’s lacking is a misused Latin phrase. Referring to “empirical evidence” while providing no actual evidence or even demonstrating that you know what empirical means is another winsome tactic.

Hard not to laugh at Americans cheering on government conscripted medicine. Given how abominably government performs in all its other functions, why would anyone trust, let alone insist, that we turn over healthcare to government officials? A giant government system is a giant government system. It doesn’t matter if it’s the military or medicine, stealth bombers or stethoscopes, the results from plus-sized government are the same; lethal and inept. The same process (and underlying assumptions) that strands you in Iraq enables medical bureaucrats to hit the snooze button on your cancer treatment. Government healthcare is the collateral damage do-gooders have deemed acceptable. Health redistribution doesn’t work any better than wealth redistribution.

Yes, I’ve had wacky healthcare experiences in America. At age 12, during a family vacation in North Carolina, we stopped somewhere to eat BBQ ribs. I managed to get a splinter of rib caught in my throat. I wasn’t choking; it was just a scratchy obstruction. We were near Cherokee, North Carolina, an area which comes complete with live Cherokees. We pulled up to the first hospital we saw. Turns out, it was for Cherokees only, and I was turned away (had it been an emergency, I believe they would have been compelled to treat me).

Don't know where my comedy goes from here. Do know I need to get funny again. Hope I'm haven't become permanently pretentious. If I have, hopefully I'll recognize it and quit jokes forever. I'm not cut out for confessional folk comedy, and neither are crowds.

That Time I Almost Died Part IV

"Has anyone in your family ever dropped dead?"

These were the sympathetic words of the hospital attendant when I reached Royal London Hospital. "No," I replied, "probably because they were never asked such a terrifying question."

Before boarding the ambulance (I had collapsed in the office), I had been told Royal London is one of the city's better, newer hospitals.

The morbid question and answer I had with the hospital attendant about my symptoms did little to allay my fears, though the talking helped ease my disorientation. I was wheeled into a wing and left sitting in the wheelchair. After maybe an hour, they repoed my wheelchair and left me to lounge on the chilly, awkwardly bent metal benches. With all the waiting people do in hospitals, you'd think it would occur to someone to install therapeutic chairs, rather than furniture that's likely to extend your stay.

I eventually got up to find the restroom. I had to wait a while to use it - it was occupied by some dude smoking a cigarette.

I think it was around three hours before a doctor came and lead me to an examination room. The examination table looked fine, but the plastic chair beside it contained a brown puddle of indeterminate origin. I wasted no time pointing this out to the doctor. It's not that I'm a snob. I like greasy spoon diners. I do not like greasy spoon hospitals. The doctor grabbed some plastic for the floor and advised me to leave my belongings there.

The doctor was quite thorough, and for the first time in my diseased voyage through the British medical regime, I was treated to an examination that featured follow-up questions! They must have thought I was a celebrity or something.

This doc's hypothesis was that I was suffering from an underactive thyroid, a condition I believe is fairly manageable. He extracted several tubes of blood (he even used a tourniquet!) and told me he was going to consult with another doctor before discharging me.

I can't remember exactly how long he was away, but when he returned with the other doctor, it was immediately evident from her body language that she was a lot more concerned than he. One of the first things she said was, "Are you always this thin?" She poked all around my body and kept saying I had muscle waste everywhere, not just in my back and shoulders. She was even more systematic and detailed in her approach, and had a follow-up query for everything I said.

She then changed gears from laser precision to stammering vagueness, and somehow I just knew she was going to mention an HIV test. Sure enough, the long, anxious monologue about why she was broaching the yet to be identified subject began. She probably thought she was being clever, but to me it was like hearing your grandfather tell a bad book joke where you already know the punchline.

It's not her fault, of course. Thanks to the PC lynch mob, doctors now have to watch their step when their examinations take them into territory that might offend the PC Theocracy (which is even more farcical in the UK)...hence the dog and pony show about HIV. In fact, the explanation doctors have to provide as to why they're testing you for HIV actually exceeds the total amount of literature on the disease itself.

Curiously, those same PC theocrats are the ones who bleat the loudest about religious groups stunting science with their actions against stem cells and the like. But just watch what happens to a doctor/researcher who relies on established stats about disease susceptibility.  

The doctor finally concluded her tortured waltz with the question of whether my sexual history was female exclusive. I confirmed that it was, and recounted the extremely ordinary stats of my extremely ordinary hetero antics.

She said she was leaning towards discharging me, but wanted to consult an outside doctor. When she returned from the consult, I was told they felt I needed to be admitted to the hospital. The good news was, NHS ("not for profit healthcare") was finally taking my condition seriously and responding like real doctors. The bad news was: they thought the condition was serious enough for them to respond like real doctors. To illustrate what a turnaround this was, after my emergency Nov. 11th, 2008 GP appt. (the one following my first semi-collapse), I'd been granted an appointment with a specialist for Jan. 5th, 2009.

I was given a bed and a heart scan, which came back normal. After stewing for several more hours, I was examined by a third doctor. She was even more hollistic than the others, There were more questions, more tests, and more obvious concern on her part. Eventually, she departed to phone a neurologist. When she came back, she said one theory the neurologist had was that I may have a rare form of migraine that appears in the limbs instead of the head. She then told me that all of the bloodwork that had come back so far had proved to be normal. I had another emergency appt. that Monday (Nov. 17th.) with my GP, so the doctor wrote a letter for me to hand to that quack. I was discharged around midnight.

Monday morning (Nov. 17th) I went to see the NHS ("not for profit healthcare") GP. First thing she noticed was, "You're limping." She was right, I was, and had been on and off for a few days, despite no obvious leg injuries. She then opened the letter from the third hospital doctor (which I hadn't read) and suddenly adopted a much more serious demeanor than she'd ever taken with me. According to her, the bloodwork that had come back over the weekend had revealed nothing unusual. She then said she’d have a neurologist call me to book a slot for the following Monday (Nov. 24th) for a scan of my head and back. As I was putting my coat on to leave, using the same tone you’d expect from someone telling you to remember your umbrella, she said, “It may be MS.”

How’s that for bedside manner? Here I am with seven days to wait before I see the neurologist, I still haven’t had a single brain scan, and as a parting shot she decides to namedrop an incurable illness. She may as well have said: “I know we haven’t done any tests or anything. I just thought you could use a sleepless week."

That Time I Almost Died Part III

In 2008...


When your general wellbeing is in freefall, it's amazing how quickly you just adapt to the latest symptoms. Ailments you shouldn't be adapting to you shrug off simply because you've forgotten what it's like to feel normal. For instance, I never used to mind cold weather. In fact, I was hot all the time and was the type who wore gloves maybe twice a year. But since October, I've been unable to keep warm. 55 degrees and I'm bundled up in a winter coat, gloves, scarf...and I'm still frozen.

People are like, "Mike, what's with the outfit? Going on a ski trip?" 

"Nope, just picking up my dry-cleaning."

It's quite dangerous, because you cease recognizing the gravity of symptoms you should be taking seriously. Instead of sprinting to the doctor, now when some new and sinister wrinkle materializes, I react the way you do when you find out someone's cousin is  from your hometown. "Really? Hmmm. How 'bout that? [Cue nondescript nodding]."

Probably the worst example of this is my recent weight loss. When I moved to London, I weighed about 130 lbs., a weight I've maintained since I was 18. I'm now down to about 114; a level I haven't seen since I was 14 and 4' 10". Strangely, this wasting away of my body didn't really alarm me that way it should have. Again, I just adjusted. Belts that droop to my crotch, suits that look more filled out on the hanger than on me...no problemo. Who made the rule that says undershirts have to be tight?

I mentioned I'd been having dizzy spells. Well, things came to a head the weekend of Nov. 7th;
I'd booked a weekend trip to Budapest. I was supposed to leave on a Friday, but on the train ride home the night before, I was having a hard keeping my balance. Immediately, I began picturing how this would fly in an unfamiliar city with an unfamiliar tongue. I opted to can the vacation, eat the losses, and do some touristy stuff around London instead.

On my day off I decided to hit the National Gallery. While there I suddenly felt faint and wobbly and had to flop onto to one of the Gallery's couches to get my bearings. I tried to make it look like I was just overwhelmed by the unfinished Michelangelo I'd been viewing.

The Monday following my museum episode, I had a bloodtest appointment with NHS ("universal healthcare"). It had taken weeks to secure, and fortunately, happened to be scheduled for when I needed it most. My appt. was at 10:52 Monday morning, so as per my GP's counsel, I consumed no food or water after 12:00 the night before.

I had the blood drawn, and was told the results would take 7-10 days and that I would either have to drop by the clinic or make an appt. to get them. Inconvenient yes, but thanks to my weekend wipeout, I was at least able to secure an emergency GP appt. for the next day.

The next day--Tuesday--I went to the GP's office determined to make it clear my health was in real jeopardy, and that I needed speedier care. I recounted the semi-collapse and everything leading up to it with as much animation and pantomime as my creaky physique would allow. The last time I had tried this all my GP had in the way of a response was, "Slow down." 

I begged her not to take her own advice.

Miraculously, my "7-10 day" blood results were already in. They seemed to rule out anemia, which was the leading initial theory for the dizziness sector of my maladies. Everything else they for tested for also came up negative; kidney/liver disease, diabetes, etc. In fact, the only thing my GP noted was that my blood showed I was a little dehydrated. I reminded her that the reason I was dehydrated was because she had specifically ordered me not to hydrate myself after midnight the night before. Had I not been given medical instruction to avoid hydration, I would have generously hydrated myself. This revelation failed to resonate. She repeated: "You were slightly dehydrated." I replied again that it had been HER IDEA that I that avoid fluids ahead of the test, and that it wasn't a habit of mine to arbitrarily deprive myself of precious fluids. We agreed to disagree.

She felt the next step was to test my thyroid function, so she wanted to draw some more blood. She said she didn't have a tourniquet, so she would just use a rubber glove to tie me off. Mind you, the room we were in was JUST ACROSS THE LOBBY FROM THE ROOM WHERE I'D HAD MY BLOOD DRAWN NOT 24 HOURS EARLY. WE'RE TALKING ABOUT AN EPIC WALK OF ABOUT 20 METERS WITHIN THE SAME BUILDING. THERE WERE NO DRAWBRIDGES OR FIREBREATHING DRAGONS TO WORRY ABOUT. Follow me on this: which sounds like the more sensible route for a doctor to take; a 20 meter walk and a precise blood draw, or staying put and playing it fast and loose with the old needle and vein? As it turned out, my GP was a risk taker. Apparently GP can also mean Gambling Practitioner.

She tied off my right arm with a common rubber glove (not a joke). Given my emaciated state, my veins were feeling a bit shy. Rather than recognize the error of her ways, she stayed the course and began swatting at my arm piñata-style. As you might have guessed, she failed to draw to any blood, though she did succeed in making my right arm look like a gopher-sacked golf course. Then, and only then, did it dawn on her to make that 20 meter walk across the clinic to fetch the proper supplies. The same nurse who drew my blood the day before wound up doing the honors. My GP said if I didn't hear from her, I was to assume the thyroid tests hadn't revealed anything.

I then requested the results of my first round of tests so I could take them to a private specialist. She told me I would have to make an appointment.

"Can't I just get a printout now?"

"You can, but I'm really behind today, so you'll have to wait in the lobby for 30 minutes."

What could I do? I waited in the lobby for half an hour before a receptionist, not the GP herself, performed the arduous duty of moving her mouse slightly, clicking File, moving the cursor down to print, left clicking, and letting those sweet documents rip.

That was Tuesday. Wednesday passed without incident. I even did a comedy show Wednesday night, my first in a while. I was slightly out of it and blanked a bit on some lines, but managed to have a respectable set. It's really too bad I've been too unable to hit the circuit hard. Given my hideous (read: memorable) new look and obvious frailty, I would now have the all-important POINT OF VIEW.

"Come see Mikey Malaise. You'd be bitter too if the only movement you could count on was falling flat on your face!"

I guarantee if I performed under that banner with the exact same act I've always done, rather than being deemed too dark, bookers would trumpet my act as a "brave learning experience."

Thursday afternoon and evening were kind of ugly, with a recurrence of right arm numbness and dizziness/disorientation. Friday morning I woke up with some light tingling, dizziness, and the occasional star shower in my field of vision. All were short lived.

Then lunchtime hit, and the dizziness came out swinging. I walked out of the office for a brisk stroll in the sunlight, hoping it would restore my equilibrium. No luck. I returned to the office, and now noticed that the ceiling lights were starting to get very dim. I changed floors to make sure it was me and not the lighting. It was me. I went back to my desk and attempted to will away the fuzziness.

Everything faded and I felt myself falling--