Saturday, May 17, 2008
Ghostly heart attacks, cancers and other assorted ills have plagued me for the last 31 years. Could the cause be my beloved job?
Nov 12, 1999 | What diseases have I had during the last 31 years? Brain cancer, heart attacks, liver disorder, kidney dysfunction, blindness, tumors in the throat and stomach, melanomas, hypertension, boils, cysts, athlete's foot, incontinence, loss of sexual desire and temporary insanity. Dr. Waldman never kids me about my latest suspicions of cancer or heart attack, realizing that I am seriously convinced I'm dying again. He dutifully puts the wooden stick in my mouth and peeks in my ears with the same solemn demeanor as always, sometimes ordering an MRI, a chest X-ray or a blood test. The answer is always the same: nothing. He has become an expert on nothingness.
Last week it was a lingering constriction of the throat that left me gasping for breath in the middle of the night and forced me to my desk to write another will. I was convinced it was cancer of the esophagus. As usual, I left everything to my two sons and my younger sister. There are so many wills lying around that when I ever do die, it will be like a treasure hunt to find the latest one. Waldman ordered a barium swallow, prescribed a strong antacid pill and discussed backpacking with me. I walked out of his office feeling stupid, though he reassured me that "it's important to check these things out." I asked him when I had started seeing him, and he finally said, "1885, no, 1985," after leafing through the thick folder.
Can't I get through a year without thinking I'm dying of something? Being a health freak, I exercise regularly, drink herbal St. John's Wort and meditate. Friends say I should stop living alone, get a dog, spend more money on myself, drink more champagne, gain weight, go to more foreign movies and have more sex. It is good advice, I suppose, and all except not living alone would be easy to accomplish. But what the hell, I think, this is who I am.
Nobody has solved the problem of the relationship between the mind and the body, of course. From Descartes up to the present, philosophers have argued about the mind and body: Were they one physical entity, two different kinds of physical entities or two completely distinct entities working according to different laws? The debates have generated much more heat than light. Who cares? My head is connected to my body. I know that much from looking in the mirror. And I swear, every time I'm dying both my head and my body feel bad.
This week bolts of current are passing through my chest like I'm being roasted in the electric chair. I pop up from near-sleep in stark panic, clutching at my chest with both hands, and then rise up to pace rhythmically and read New Yorkers for hours. Even the cartoons don't help.
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