A Writer’s Diary Entries From Early April, 2002
by Richard Grayson
Thursday, April 4, 2002
7 PM. The last thing I wanted from seeing the doctor today is three new medicines, but that’s what I got.
The fire in my stomach grew worse during the night, and of course it’s acid reflux, or gastroesophageal reflex disorder (GERD), so now I have Prevacid for that.
Since it was probably the prednisone or the naproxen that caused the problem – and it probably didn’t help that I’ve been reclining when I eat or that I’m tense – Dr. Frank gave me some Vioxx, a COX-2 inhibitor that he says will be less harsh on my stomach. He also prescribed a muscle relaxant that is weaker than Flexeril.
So I’ve already put away my prescriptions for Flexeril, Cataflam, naproxen and Vicodin.
Dr. Frank, a 35-ish osteopath with a goatee, is supposed to be a gifted manipulator, and he did some work on me. I’m supposed to see him in three weeks, and if there is no improvement, I’ll need an MRI to see what the matter is.
It’s funny, but now my back hurts again. Well, Dr. Frank did tell me that it might be sore from the manipulation.
From his examination, Dr. Frank thinks it’s my L5-S1 disc, which is what I had assumed. I guess it’s possible I’ll need surgery.
Anyway, this is all pretty discouraging, and I feel kind of depressed. If I hadn’t gotten the stomach trouble, I would be feeling more optimistic.
As it is, Dr. Frank suggested that my sciatica was probably a little better than it had been. That’s true. At the moment I don’t feel any pain there, though I do have a lot of the pins-and-needles feeling.
Anyway, last night I enjoyed watching TV and I slept about the best I have in a week. I even had a flying dream, which always makes me feel good.
When I got to school, I worked on getting the fall semester ARP teaching assistants hired, though I still have about half a dozen left to hire.
After I returned from the doctor, Patrick was waiting for me in my office. He had a poetry reading across the street at BCC-Central.
He’s been avoiding the surgery on his carotid artery because he doesn’t want to go through it again. Patrick hopes they can just scoop out the plaque. He told me he takes nine or ten prescription drugs every day.
I feel sheepish because Patrick has all these life-threatening conditions (diabetes, cardiovascular problems) and all I’ve got are annoying conditions like sciatica and acid reflux.
Patrick and I talked a lot about BCC. South Campus is growing, but due to budget cuts, they can’t add faculty or classes.
The new issue of P’an Ku is almost ready to be printed; Patricke received a lot of prose and poetry but little art this term.
We also talked about Barbara Nightingale, Judy Nichols, Vicki Hendrick, Mercy Moore, John Biays, John Childrey and other BCC and FAU English faculty.
I was so glad he visited. He invited me to his house for dinner on Saturday night.
It’s really good for me that I go to work every day. and see people. As I wrote yesterday, at school I routinely pass about 75 to 100 people I know by name now, and I like being friendly.
It will be nice next fall when there is a new first-year class. I can deal with them from the start.
It’s weird that just as I’m feeling comfortable about my job – for example, I’m no longer nervous about tomorrow’s exam-writing workshop – I’m feeling so bad physically.
Aunt Sydelle called and reproached me for being a kvetch. Then she proceeded to kvetch about her mouth sores, her headache, her stomach problems and lack of appetite.
I weighed 140 in the doctor’s office and 138 at Publix. Patrick did remark that I got thinner, but hopefully I’m not looking too drawn, though I think I’m looking a lot more my own age these days. I’ve got two months before I turn 51.
This afternoon I handed in my BarBri registration stuff, so now I’m set for the bar exam preparation, though I’m going to try not to think about it for the next month. Instead, I’ll concentrate on finishing the term as ARP director and concentrating on getting well.
Hopefully, I won’t have to go back to the NSU Health Clinic for another three weeks, but Dr. Frank said he could give me an injection if the pain is really bad.
I hope that the next time I see him, this sciatica will be much better so that I don’t need another corticosteroid shot.
Saturday, April 6, 2002
3 PM. I fell asleep at 8:30 PM and woke up at 3:30 AM, so I got enough sleep even though my stomach bothered me a lot and my leg ached.
I think I might have an ulcer. What’s so uncomfortable is that I can’t lie down, as I am doing now when I’m writing this, without the feeling of pressure in my breastbone.
I saw Dr. Koncsol at 9 AM, after I’d done laundry, grocery-shopped (but stupidly forgot to take the food out of the trunk, spoiling about $20 in frozen food), deposited my $2.25 Amazon check, withdrew $100 at the Bank of America ATM and did some other chores.
As soon as I got into The Psych Team office, my palms began sweating, just as they are now. Dr. K said that’s because I’m one of the hypervigilant people whose adrenal glands get working when stressed. I guess he’s kind of interested in evolutionary biology.
Anyway, on the 240-item true/false Basic Personality Inventory I took, there was one major blip upward: Anxiety. Big surprise, huh?
The test is normed for my age and sex, and I scored 65 on Anxiety, above the 50 baseline, but that is not so high that it indicates I need medication.
I scored particularly low on Denial – “You’re Mr. Anti-Repression” – and I scored within the norm on Alienation, Depression, Impulse Expression (very low), Interpersonal Problems (I am not litigious and like to make nice with people), Social Introversion (I can be alone or with people), Thinking Disorder and even Hypochondriasis and Self-Depreciation.
On the Beck Depression Inventory, which measures the cognitive aspect of depression, I scored a 10 where 1-13 is considered normal, 14-19 is mild depression, 20-28 is moderate depression, and 29- 63 is severe depression. So, according to Dr. Beck, I’m as slightly depressive in my thinking as a person can get and still be depressed.
My diagnosis – again, no big surprise – is generalized anxiety disorder, but in most ways I’m pretty much like the average person.
It seems that except for anxiety, like Henry Higgins, I’m an ordinary man. Dr. K says my anxiety seems to be situational, related to my job and my health problems. I guess that made me feel good.
We need to work on relaxation techniques: “stuff you probably know, like breathing exercise and imagery.”
Dr. K suggested that sciatica and GERD may particularly upset me because they’re a symbol that I’m decaying, like I’m closer to death. He says it’s like how teaching freshman students with their beautiful bodies now reminds him of his mortality: “It used to make me horny; now it just makes me sad.”
Of course, an 80-year-old like Aunt Sydelle is going to think I’m some little pisher for talking about getting old.
Dr. K said I need to do exercises for sciatica – I’ve got some in that library book I took out – and “talk very nicely” to my sciatic nerve. Getting massages and going into the whirlpool (I went in for ten minutes again today) are also good.
Eventually the sciatica will go away, although it will probably recur if I move a certain way. I need to make an effort to distract myself from the pain.
When I told Dr. K that I was thinking of not going to Patrick and Bert’s house tonight, he said to go even if I don’t feel well: “It’s better to get out and socialize. “
After making an appointment for next Saturday at 9 AM, I went to the post office, where I mailed two copies of the new Caracas Traffic paperback to Arizona.
Then I went to Barnes & Noble, where the iced tea of the day was good-for-me caffeine-free apple-cinnamon herb tea.
After reading a little of today’s New York Times and drinking my iced tea until I got chills, I went to my office to check email and look up information on the personality test I took.
I also wrote an ARP update that I emailed to Jane Cross, apologizing for not reporting to her before this and saying that I’ll keep her better informed in the future.
Suddenly I realized that I forgot to take the stuff I bought this morning at Albertsons out of the car, and I hit my head with my hand. “Stupid!” I yelled at myself.
From now on, I need to put at least one bag of groceries inside the car, the way I did when I went to Publix later.
I also went to the public library, where I got five books on stomach and digestive problems and one video.
I’ll be going over to Patrick and Bert’s soon; they are so nice to invite me. It’s weird that I’ve never been to their house before. Hopefully, my stomach won’t be too bad tonight.
Sunday, April 7, 2002
3 PM. I fell asleep at 8:30 PM and woke up at 3:30 AM, so I got enough sleep even though my stomach bothered me a lot and my leg ached.
I think I might have an ulcer. What’s so uncomfortable is that I can’t lie down, as I am doing now when I’m writing this, without the feeling of pressure in my breastbone.
I saw Dr. Koncsol at 9 AM, after I’d done laundry, grocery-shopped (but stupidly forgot to take the food out of the trunk, spoiling about $20 in frozen food), deposited my $2.25 Amazon check, withdrew $100 at the Bank of America ATM and did some other chores.
As soon as I got into The Psych Team office, my palms began sweating, just as they are now. Dr. K said that’s because I’m one of the hypervigilant people whose adrenal glands get working when stressed. I guess he’s kind of interested in evolutionary biology.
Anyway, on the 240-item true/false Basic Personality Inventory I took, there was one major blip upward: Anxiety. Big surprise, huh?
The test is normed for my age and sex, and I scored 65 on Anxiety, above the 50 baseline, but that is not so high that it indicates I need medication.
I scored particularly low on Denial – “You’re Mr. Anti-Repression” – and I scored within the norm on Alienation, Depression, Impulse Expression (very low), Interpersonal Problems (I am not litigious and like to make nice with people), Social Introversion (I can be alone or with people), Thinking Disorder and even Hypochondriasis and Self-Depreciation.
On the Beck Depression Inventory, which measures the cognitive aspect of depression, I scored a 10 where 1-13 is considered normal, 14-19 is mild depression, 20-28 is moderate depression, and 29- 63 is severe depression. So, according to Dr. Beck, I’m as slightly depressive in my thinking as a person can get and still be depressed.
My diagnosis – again, no big surprise – is generalized anxiety disorder, but in most ways I’m pretty much like the average person.
It seems that except for anxiety, like Henry Higgins, I’m an ordinary man. Dr. K says my anxiety seems to be situational, related to my job and my health problems. I guess that made me feel good.
We need to work on relaxation techniques: “stuff you probably know, like breathing exercise and imagery.”
Dr. K suggested that sciatica and GERD may particularly upset me because they’re a symbol that I’m decaying, like I’m closer to death. He says it’s like how teaching freshman students with their beautiful bodies now reminds him of his mortality: “It used to make me horny; now it just makes me sad.”
Of course, an 80-year-old like Aunt Sydelle is going to think I’m some little pisher for talking about getting old.
Dr. K said I need to do exercises for sciatica – I’ve got some in that library book I took out – and “talk very nicely” to my sciatic nerve. Getting massages and going into the whirlpool (I went in for ten minutes again today) are also good.
Eventually the sciatica will go away, although it will probably recur if I move a certain way. I need to make an effort to distract myself from the pain.
When I told Dr. K that I was thinking of not going to Patrick and Bert’s house tonight, he said to go even if I don’t feel well: “It’s better to get out and socialize. “
After making an appointment for next Saturday at 9 AM, I went to the post office, where I mailed two copies of the new Caracas Traffic paperback to Arizona.
Then I went to Barnes & Noble, where the iced tea of the day was good-for-me caffeine-free apple-cinnamon herb tea.
After reading a little of today’s New York Times and drinking my iced tea until I got chills, I went to my office to check email and look up information on the personality test I took.
I also wrote an ARP update that I emailed to Jane Cross, apologizing for not reporting to her before this and saying that I’ll keep her better informed in the future.
Suddenly I realized that I forgot to take the stuff I bought this morning at Albertsons out of the car, and I hit my head with my hand. “Stupid!” I yelled at myself.
From now on, I need to put at least one bag of groceries inside the car, the way I did when I went to Publix later.
I also went to the public library, where I got five books on stomach and digestive problems and one video.
I’ll be going over to Patrick and Bert’s soon; they are so nice to invite me. It’s weird that I’ve never been to their house before. Hopefully, my stomach won’t be too bad tonight.
Wednesday, April 10, 2002
6 PM. I got into bed last evening when it was still light out, at about 7:15 PM. While I didn’t fall asleep till around 9 PM, thanks to Ambien and a lack of heartburn and leg pain, I managed to sleep most of the night. Of course I had been exhausted from my previous lack of sleep.
Soon after I woke up, my diaphoresis turned on like a faucet and I started trembling. Yet I still exercised to a Body Electric video and managed to get myself into my dress clothes for work.
Although I felt I needed Klonopin to get through the day. As it turned out, today was one of the better days at work.
I was at my desk before 8 AM, but I had an early meeting with Paul Joseph that made me anxious.
Yesterday I interviewed some people who want to be his teaching assistant next fall, and he told me, “Not Bruce Emerson. I’ll see the others.”
Bruce is a mild-mannered city planner who did mention that he had an episode of unipolar depression earlier this semester.
Paul explained that it was more than that, and he made Bruce sound paranoid: like thinking that the Lawyering Skills and Values class was a plot to overload the students’ minds.
Anyway, although I liked Bruce and know that he wants to be a law professor, he wouldn’t have been my first choice either, as he speaks very hesitantly and seems a little strange.
Paul talked about his problems with his Torts section last fall; I’ve heard lots of complaints about him from students in that class.
Then he went on to tell me what’s wrong with ARP. He said that in going over too much black-letter law and concentrating on “tips to psych out the professor on the exam,” we’re doing things that the law school administration shouldn’t be sponsoring.
Paul said that instead we need to concentrate on analysis and how to outline and other skills, and that I, as ARP director, should be thinking about making changes.
Fuck him. Everyone at the law school seems to have his or her idea of what ARP should be doing, and there’s no way I can please everyone.
But it’s hard for me to deal with the disappointment and disapproval of other people. Maybe that’s something I need to work on in therapy.
For much of the morning, I was thinking, as I have before, that I am the wrong person for this job. Sometimes I almost wish I’d be canned.
Talking with Josh on Monday night – he called me to grouse, justifiably so, about the KGB Bar fashion layout in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine – I learned that Josh hates his own job, yet he seems to be able to separate his life from it.
Maybe if I had more going on in my life other than my sciatica and GERD, I’d feel better about myself. Instead, I constantly kvetch to all my patient friends and relatives from Patrick, Ronna and Mark B to my parents and Aunt Sydelle (though the latter can match me kvetch for kvetch).
Anyway, back to my workday:
Thelma showed me the beautiful certificates of appreciation she’d created for this morning’s ARP luncheon.
Aramark, the food service, delivered at 10 AM instead of an hour later, but thanks to Jonathan, the facilities aide, and Wendy, the custodian, we managed to put the sandwiches and ice in the refrigerator and freezer so that everything was set up nicely when – thanks to Pearl Goldman’s key – I opened the door to the Faculty Terrace.
Only eight of the 18 ARP teaching assistants showed up – among them Alison, Joanne, Damon and Keith, Manu and Danny, Sparrow and Dave (who were a little late).
Pat, Thelma, Linda Leahy (who took photos), Nancy (the admissions director), and Tracy also came. Pat announced the names of the teaching assistants, and I handed out the certificates and tried to say something nice about each person.
I got applause after Pat said I brought organization to the program and that I was doing a good job as ARP director.
Of course, it’s hard for me to take a compliment, but I must learn to do that, to just say thank you. Instead, I think I came off as neurotically insecure. Shit.
At the luncheon, I did eat a whole turkey sandwich, even with the verboten tomato, and I didn’t have much heartburn afterwards.
After leaving work at 4:30 PM, I got into the whirlpool with Shelly, whom I met the other day.
She told me she has sciatica in both legs, the result of a fall when she worked at Burger King – though so far she seems to have no luck in getting workers’ comp to help her out financially.
At this complex, there are some really low-class people who hang out at the pool. Shelly told me that Michael, the skeevy guy who wanted my unused Vicodin, stole some of her painkiller tablets. I should really stay away from these people, the way I ordinarily would.
Hey, I wrote this diary entry without sweaty palms. Anyway, I’ve got to get my laundry out of the dryer now.