Slow days

it isn't all bad, of course. take yesterday morning: sun flooding the kitchen and mo gone to work, leaving me to my quinoa and david gray -- an actual CD played through speakers, not an earbud track: an unformed day brought to you by my new theme song, "life in slow-motion."

while I was watching, you did a slow dissolve...
life in slow motion, somehow it don't seem real

i do seem to be moving so slowly i might dissolve. it's hard to get used to. no one has ever accused me of being a dawdler. one of my graduate students refers to me as "a woman of instant execution." i am fatally attracted to a clean inbox; i honor fordist efficiency; and i always believe there is room to accomplish one more thing before the minute/hour/day/week is up. to take 15 minutes to unload the dishwasher, because every dish is a separate, left-handed trip, is deranging. the 90 minute shower is a new and alien experience. how it can take a person over 20 minutes to dress in the morning i can't fathom, but it does, every day.

for these reasons, i don't find my days long. even when I do nothing, they are full. but it's more than that. i am on good terms with solitude. watching sunshine move across hardwood floors, reading books, thinking, blogging, walking to the neighborhood flower shop -- all of these things make me deeply happy, particularly when they unfold at a junkie's easy pace, on a smooth percocet plane.

one of the unexpected pleasures of convalescing has been music. i walk a lot -- can't drive -- and when I do, i listen to a broad range of music. normally, my tunes are running-trail functional: the scissor sisters, lady gaga, new pornographers, and a Much Music dance album from the 90s keep me working out. when I walk, I listen to fanfarlo, vintage joni mitchell, the new gorillaz album, iTunes impulse buys like chile fuerza, new yorker darling esperanza spalding, eric clapton unplugged. stars, always. the shins, of montréal, conor oberst (all his projects), the mixed tape andrea made me with the BeeGees and fine young cannibals.

i see things when i walk, too.

i have seen odd little houses in my neighborhood:









and houses with cheerful trim:










and artworks' yellow and black display.












i have seen late afternoon sun turn industrial space soft and beautiful:

and i have seen the spring come in this year. it takes place so imperceptibly you can't believe anything is happening, yet winter has dissolved, and the world is different.

How to know the body

i keep thinking about the photos my surgeon showed me. they were circular images printed eight-up on a glossy 8.5 x 11 page, two across and four down. showing me these pictures was his answer to my question "what exactly did you do to my shoulder?" i thought he wasn't paying attention to my query, but within a few seconds of shuffling he produced this sheet of photos, stapled to a series of other, narrative documents about the surgery. to him, these pictures were the answer.

the images would have been taken by an autoclavable arthroscopic camera inserted through a small hole in my shoulder at the beginning of the operation, when the team was deciding how to proceed. they have the beautiful precision of a high-resolution digital camera, if the slight blurriness of an extreme close-up. the bones were luminous and white (so, this arthroscopic camera must have a light source?) and there was, oddly, no blood -- in fact, no red at all. flesh, it seems, is putty colored. to me the most startling thing in these photos was amount of space in the shoulder: i had thought it must be densely packed, like an electrical socket with its confusing capped wires, but it appears instead to be hollow, like a mouth. the joint was photographed against a murky and distant-looking background of puce tissue.

the beauty of these photographs to me was almost entirely abstract, like a mona hatoum installation. i could not even begin to orient the images i was seeing with the body i inhabit. the surgeon pointed to one photo after the other and i pretended to understand, but i didn't -- at least, not in the way he did.

my experience of my shoulder has nothing to do with reason or causality. some days it feels good; other days it hurts a lot. some days i make great progress on my exercises; other days I can barely move. i cannot directly connect one day's activities to the next day's sensations. there is only an uncertain connection between painkillers and pain. while i can see a definite improvement over the last four weeks, it is virtually impossible to parse that improvement into shorter periods. healing is an uneven, illogical, and intuitive affair, and i often find myself yearning for the certainties of science.

the certainties of science, expressed with a certain geekiness and large, gentle hands are part of what i fall for in my physiotherapist. (i have written before about my crush on "oliver.") you could call it transference, this belief that if i endow him with preturnatural healing powers, and if i put myself under his spell -- the spell represented by physiotherapy's advanced knowledge of bodily kinetics, together with its mystical language ("med load," "tenodesis," "suture") -- i will be healed, wholly and completely. my role in this transferential relationship is to believe, to adore, and to adhere: to be the best patient possible.

(quick aside: this terminology, borrowed from psychotherapy, is imperfect. i don't recall ever feeling exactly this way about my parents, which is typically taken to be the ur relationship reenacted in psychotherapeutic situations. i have never heard anyone else talk about the relationship between physiotherapists and clients. nonetheless, transference remains the most compelling explanatory framework i have.)

on wednesday, it was hard to play my part. the shoulder hurt a lot. i lay on my narrow PT bed and tried to do my exercises, without much success. oliver stood at the head of my cubicle for a moment. "quiet today, huh?" he watched me struggle with the sixth repetition, and he probably saw me start to cry. then he did the most astonishing thing: he came and sat in the chair next to my bed. he described the surgery for me in the fullest terms i had heard yet. he told me how my body was healing. he said "you have every reason to be in pain."

in the days following our wednesday appointment, i became more and more amazed by his kindness and intuition. on friday i asked him how he came to respect the body so. i told him i understood the seduction of science, the lure of diagnostics, prognoses, crisp pictures, big words -- but that his treatment on wednesday suggested something different, a patience and a gentleness they don't teach in university. so how did he come to possess it?

he smiled and said, "through the science."

Better

working again this year has brought several moments of concern. whenever i have a bad spell, i worry that i am sliding back toward madness and despair. i scrutinize every thought, fret over every action, put the sharp knives and bourbon away.

i thought i'd return from my long time off with profound thoughts and insightful Rules for Living, but it's not like that. wasn't it gertrude stein who said, "knowledge is what you know"? knowing runs deep, like an orientation or a sensibility, and not like a list -- which means it's not always on the surface, available for a casual check-in.

still, every once in a while i get a glimpse into the before and after. today, in the middle of pulling together a presentation for tuesday, i went into my amazon.ca file. i know there are better ways to organize ideas and keep track of books, but i use the amazon shopping cart to store things that intrigue me, but not enough to shell out money for. i decided i was ready to move the following from "save for later" to "delete":

• julie jensen, i don't know what i want but it's not this
• barbara winter, making a living without a job
• nicholas lore, the pathfinder: how to choose or change your career for a lifetime of satisfaction and success
• barbara sher, i could do anything ... if only i knew what it was

i'm not quite ready to delete every day's a weekend: an insider's guide to early retirement and exotic travel by newton hockey, or bob clyatt's work less, live more: the way to semi-retirement -- but it's a start.

Exposing my self

i've been wandering around all day in a fog. over the last hour or so it's occurred to me that it's because i'm tired. my feet hurt. my knees hurt. my hips hurt. okay, all of that can be traced to dancing in ridiculous heels last night -- but the outside of my forearms? my neck? i guess it's like this when tension leaves the body.

what i've realized during the last hour of slow consciousness (see slow food, slow growth) is that although i am tired, i am also really and truly better than i was a year ago or two. it's not just that i didn't pass out in the middle of the night and rip my forehead open, as i did at the end of exposure '07. and it's not that i find this easy: although i wrote breezily a few days back that i had lost track of my identity as dr zwicker, that kind of emotional dislocation is profound, for me. this week of supreme highs (bathhouse) and fears (will people come to the festival? will they like it? will our small board survive it?) and frustrations (which aren't worth rehearsing) and fragmentation (from 9-9:30 i'm schlepper, from 9:30-11:00 i'm teacher, from 11:00-1:00 i'm hzwicker@ualberta and zwickerhzwicker@gmail, then dr zee, then doctoral supervisor, then, starting at 4:00, professional lesbian, then sombre audience member) and neglect (does walking to the car count as exercise? how many nights a week is it ok to eat trail mix for dinner?): this kind of disaggregation is precisely what the doctor didn't order.

but i'm ok. i'm not great. in particular, i'm still bothered by that perennial sense that i should have done more; it grieved and guilted me to leave the party last night, for instance, knowing how much work it would be to take it down, and i can't believe i forgot, literally forgot, to go to play on friday night after the amy fung event at the ARTery. i feel uneasy, unsettled, uncertain -- all those "un"s suggesting that i don't feel any identifiable thing, just the opposite of many things. my sensitivities are dialed up, so i still don't know whether i'm right to be upset about the unlimited business, and i am spending way too much time fretting about people who are, really, tangential to my life (but did KW seem out of sorts to anyone else this week?). i don't know what i'll do with all this unclaimed time on my hands, nor how i'll survive without sending and receiving a hundred exposure-related emails a day. i worry, what if my sense of self really is predicated on being indispensable to others?

as i pause and read the paragraph i just wrote -- slow consciousness, remember? -- i'm struck by the repetition of "not knowing." apparently, i find it emotionally dangerous not to know. (my name is heather, and i'm a control freak....). but it's puzzling, nonetheless. isn't the unknown one of the main things to love about art? and isn't risk built into dealing with people? i'm all about grooving on folks who are unlike me, and i love seeing a painting or a photograph or a performance or a room -- the starlite lounge last night comes to mind -- that startles or intrigues or comforts or moves me into a different mental and emotional space.

it's odd, then, homeopathically odd, that the things that scare me the most are the things i seek to do. i probably should have been a bank teller, not a teacher who falls in love with her classes right before they end. i should work on safe events like the olympics rather than start-up queer arts and culture fests. i should make friends with the old and settled, not the up-and-comers who regularly leave this city.

"expose yourself" was the slogan of this year's festival. it's only now, as i spend a day musing and loitering, that i really understand that challenge. i'm pleased to discover that i'm well enough to meet it.

Who what where when

in about 12 hours the second annual exposure festival will be half over.

it's a fantastic festival. loud and queer was a sellout; james loney was incredible (i blogged about it here); and i've just come in from screening the incredibly moving she's a boy i knew, by vancouver film whiz gwen haworth, also in attendance to field questions and comments from the audience. tomorrow we deck out the bathhouse with art for a one-night extravaganza that has buzz all over -- well, actually, all over the country: the rumour is that CBC is running the story nationally.

but i am tired.

i knew from last year that this week would be tough, but knowing is not the same as living fatigue. my days are peppered with paying artists' cab fares, chasing down films that don't arrive, finding a stepladder, troubleshooting stanchions, speaking to media (a special hell, for me -- remember, i don't like vacation snaps), and trying to keep everybody else's spirits up. over in another email account, i still have my day job to attend to, and i feel worryingly distant from my colleagues and students this week. dr zwicker, i wonder: who's that? if it weren't for ted's can-do and mo's just-don't, i don't think i'd be standing at 10pm this monday night.

how tired am i? going to a command-performance queer meet-and-greet this afternoon, i found myself sharing an elevator with a woman from the united way, heading to the same event. dammit, i thought, small talk 31 floors before i'm ready. i did what i always do in such circumstances, which is channel my sister, the fund development officer who can chat up anybody. as the elevator doors closed on us, i arranged a pleasant look on my face and said, "united way! november's a busy month for you, isn't it? one of your busiest, i think i've heard. barb, is it? let me introduce myself, i'm heather zwicker. i teach in the english department at the ufoa but this week i'm also the board chair for exposure, edmonton's queer arts and culture festival." she looked a bit uncomfortable, like she was trying to find the right words to say. quick: be chipper. what would shannon do? "it's a multidisciplinary arts and culture festival," i said, "and hasn't it been a fantastic week in edmonton? salman rushdie was here on thursday, and thomas king spoke at city hall on saturday -- oh, and the university mounted a historical production of orfeo on saturday, did you catch that? i didn't, i was actually giving a paper at the parkland conference, but i heard that it was stunning, and i'm sorry i couldn't have been two places at once, because the films they showed as part of the festival of ideas sounded just phenomenal." i smiled super-brightly, then paused to inhale. she seized her moment. "sorry to interrupt," said barb, reaching for the door open button, "but i think the elevator isn't moving." and indeed, there we were, right where we started. just tireder.

Never say another mean thing to yourself

i go to this sweet wednesday morning yoga class. it's tiny, usually just three or four of us -- and no, i'm not going to say where, 'cause i don't necessarily want to share. our teacher is terrific: wacky and funny and curious and talented and honest. she's just what you want on a wednesday morning.

i'm quite surprised to groove on this class, because it's very casual. make that extremely casual. and i'm not just saying that because i came up through iyengar yoga, a tradition based on nit-picking exactitude and dead seriousness. iyengar is yoga for protestants, perfectionists' yoga: if you're not being constantly corrected, you're just not doing it right. i first checked out chantelle's class because what's a sabbatical for if not taking yoga on weekday mornings? plus, being near zocalo and the italian centre, it would provide a built-in alibi for any consumer splurges. i didn't really know what a vinyasa class would be like, but i figured it would be self-improving to learn. when i found out vinyasa means flow, i almost fled. BKS and Gita definitely do not approve of "flowing." the next surprise was music. yoga to music? and we're not talking ShantiOm sitar-and-tabla covers, either: chantelle blasts dave matthews, ruthie foster, vintage U2, and colbie caillat.

there's always a lot of laughing in chantelle's classes, a certain amount of chitchat/catching up, as much ranting as necessary, and i usually get teased for analyzing everything. above all, there's a lot of learning. there's something about the immediacy and forthrightness of our time together that means we tackle our questions directly, whether they're about the optimal positioning of your shoulders in a dolphin plank, the name of a given muscle in the rotator cuff or the pronunciation of a sanskrit word. there's no singular agenda, and so we all teach and learn together. it's the paulo freire ideal, in action.

if you've read my earlier comments on yoga, you'll know that i'm not much on the non-physical bits. so when chantelle came back from a workshop with rolf gates and brought his book meditations from the mat into the class, i was nonplussed. turns out, rolf has smart things to say. i don't mind rolf. but what i really love is chantelle herself. at the end of last week's class, she said to us, during sivasana, "never say another mean thing to yourself." the fact of it was shocking enough: it's a terribly intimate thing to say to a collection of women. but the idea behind it is so shockingly revolutionary that it's had me thinking all week. what would that mean, to make a commitment not to say mean things to yourself? how telling is it that my first reaction is, but what will we -- my selves -- talk about, then? could you think mean things about yourself, and just not say them? if you stopped being mean to yourself, could you still be mean to other people? and how long is "never," anyway? what if you started by not saying anything mean to yourself for, say, a week. uh oh: what if you did start that way? far from being the end of a conversation, it might just be the beginning.

Migraine

the day started off normally enough. i let the skylights guy, glenn, in at 9 and headed off to my 10 AM appointment in st albert. by 11:30 i was starting to feel the warning signs: a little tightness in the neck, sinus pain, a sore jaw. but we were out of coffee beans, and the shop was right there, so even though i was starting to feel migrainous, i made myself run the errand. which took longer than i expected. by the time i was driving back into the city, 12:15, i knew i was in trouble. or, rather, in retrospect it's clear i was in trouble.

the thing about migraine is, i start making bad decisions. poor judgment, not a visual aura, is the first sign of danger. and the trouble with poor judgment is that i don't recognize it as anything out of the ordinary. while this migraine is working itself up into a real state, i'm still living my regular life, acting as though i am my usual competent self. in this case, i'm wondering whether i should stop at the grocery store now or later -- and, as if it's the most natural thing in the world, noting at the same time all the possible places to pull off the road should i need to throw up. because by this time, vomiting is a real possibility. the pain in my right temple is hot. i keep thinking, in the back of my mind, that if i could just pull out my eyeball, things would get better. in the front of my mind, i'm trying to decide on the best route to my 1 PM physiotherapy appointment. i drive through intersections with my hand over my eyes. it occurs to me, briefly, to wonder whether i should be driving at all, but what are my options?

i suffered my first migraine when i was 8. i remember lying face down on the bed i shared with my sister and picking at the bright yellow chenille bedspread. the texture of the bedspread was troubling under the influence of a migraine, but what i really remember is how unbearable that sunshine color was. ever since, i have done my bedroom in soft, soothing colors. some people decorate for romance, some people for sex, some for the civilized pleasure of reading in bed or the less civilized pleasure of watching TV, but i have always decorated for migraine. we go back that far, megrim and i.

and my bedroom is where i want to be right now. correction: where i need to be. i don't remember the last ten minutes of the drive. i don't remember pulling into the garage. my sinuses are abscessed and my stomach is spasming. my right eye is watering. i know where i am now, i have been in this hell before. time for the rules, things i have observed when i am well and that i have promised myself i will believe when unwell. rule number 1 is that migraines give you bad judgment, so you have to follow the rules. rule number 2: make simple lists.

item 1: cancel the physio appointment. i am sheer will now, not body, not mind. i walk past the couch without looking at it. i am going to my study. there is a business card with the physio's phone number on it. i will pick up the phone and dial the number. i will explain myself efficiently and apologize. i will offer to pay for the session. i will rebook later. the phone call will not take long, and then i can get to my precious drugs. but there is a snag; i am asked to hold. "of course," i say, courteously. inside i am screaming. when the receptionist comes back i stumble over my name, then recover and say, professionally, that i have a 1 PM appointment with glenda, that i'm very sorry to call on such unforgivably short notice, but i am developing the sort of migraine that means i can't drive, let alone -- at which point the receptionist cuts in and says, "i get migraines too." "you do?," i say, "really?" under normal circumstances i greet these declarations with skepticism. lots of people use the term "migraine" as a synonym for "bad headache," the kind they take 2, maybe 3 aspirins for. it is emphatically not the same thing. today, however, i find myself weeping with relief. "then you know," i say. "yes," she says. "do you want to rebook later, when you're feeling better?" it is a tiny miracle; i am not alone in the world.

item 2: cancel my 2 o'clock meeting. how. i have no phone numbers. it requires email. email requires the computer. i do not let myself think about how it will hurt, because it must be done. i open the computer. i wince at the blue light. i squint. and then, using my touch-typist fingers, i key a perfectly chipper note saying why i can't meet, apologizing, and closing with the upbeat promise that i'll be back in touch as soon as possible. email cancellations -- and i've had to do a lot of them, i've grown good at them -- make me feel utterly fraudulent. i feel guilty. i think there should be more to show on the screen for the agony i feel. there is such a disconnect between my bodily experience and my verbal representation that people must assume i'm faking it. which in turn reinvigorates the bad judgment and makes me wonder whether i shouldn't soldier on. okay, i can't drive, but maybe i could just take a cab? at this point, i remember the first rule. this is why i am not allowed to think when i have a migraine.

item 3: drugs.

but before i can get there, glenn, the guy installing our skylights, appears at my study door. if the first mystery of migraine is that even after all these years i don't recognize when i'm getting one, and if the second is the guilt i feel at cancelling meetings when i am ill, then here is the third: shame. i am so ashamed to feel ill that i can't stand for glenn to know. i muster everything i have and ask, cheerfully, "how's it going up there?" his lips move in answer and there is sound coming out, but i cannot follow it. i have no idea what he's talking about. the veins in my head have dilated, and sulfuric acid is careening through them. mechanically, i follow him up the stairs. my drugs are upstairs. to follow glenn is to get closer to my drugs. he is showing me something: apparently he has plugged a piece of equipment into our bedroom outlet. i think he is asking whether this is allright. i don't know what the answer is. why wouldn't it be allright? but what if it isn't? it's too much responsibility. i nod, a bad idea. my brain hits my skull and i wince anew. i try to avoid talking. the less i say, the sooner i will get to my drugs. this migraine is a bad one.

when glenn leaves, i realize the severity of the situation. i am standing in the bedroom, my oasis of dark brown and cream. i need to lie down for 50 minutes. the drugs will start working in 50 minutes. but in the room next door, glenn is sawing a hole through the ceiling. it is very loud. what are my options? he and his helper are walking garbage out the front door. i will be seen if i lie down in the living room. the spare room is out: more skylights, saws, sawdust. the basement? no, the smell of cat litter will kill me. the closet floor. i could lie on the closet floor. it would be dark there and no one would see me. it would be hard and cold and i know there are nails sticking up, but it is my best bet. i fall onto the bed to consider how this will work.

i am lying on my right side, digging my fingers into my right eye socket. if i could just pull my eye right out ... i can feel dry heaves building, but now that i have taken an imitrex, i do not want to throw up. i try to figure out how long it will take for the imitrex to dissolve into my bloodstream. i wish i had an IV. i wonder whether i should go to the hospital, but now i can't move. now that i have fulfilled all of the jobs on my simple list, and collapsed onto the bed, i cannot move. i am bested. my stomach heaves again, dangerously. i wish i had taken some gravol before i lay down, but now glenn is in the bathroom where the drugs are. i must wait. my eyeball aches. i wonder if there is a world beyond the pain. i lie as still as i possibly can. i get smaller and smaller and smaller while the migraine gets bigger and bigger and bigger. it's ferocious now, and triumphant. it trumpets like a wapiti. it tramples like an elephant. it mauls me like a tiger. it laughs, it dances, it trounces and jigs. i lie even stiller, forcing my head down into the pillow. my hands reek of steel. i wish they were clean. i want to whimper, but that will hurt more. i am on the brink of tears, but crying will hurt more. i grind my fist into my eye socket and try to stop thinking. thinking, willing, deciding are all too much. the migraine has my head and my stomach and i give up my will. now it's just a matter of time passing.

i hear footsteps on the stairs. mo is home. i must have called her. did i call her? i dimly remember, but it is all quite jumbled. her hand on my forehead is cool. she brings me gravol. better, she leads me to the basement, where she has set up a mattress in the quiet cool. i fall asleep, eventually, and when i wake up i can roll over and take my fist out of my eye socket. the drugs are working. i will make it.

for hours afterward, my whole body feels like it's been through a wringer -- a literal wringer, the two metal rollers on an old-fashioned washing machine. i am a limp shirt. i am sore everywhere. everything hurts: my legs, my arms, my feet, my hips, my back. oliver sacks says this is the consequence of being hyper-toned before a migraine; hyper-toning is one of the prodromes he points to. i can't say that i've noticed that. my warning signs are too quotidian to remark, even after all these decades of acquaintance with migraine: excessive sleepiness (but who's not tired all the time?), lapses in judgment, a chill. in spite of our decades-long dance, every migraine is its own event. each one is a terrible surprise. though there is a certain pattern to the pain itself, migraine sneaks up on me more often than not. how can this be, after all this time? how can bodily agony take me unaware, yet frequently? how can my longest and most intimate companion come trailing newness? why can i not get used to migraine as a constitutive element of my life, a structuring influence? -- for that is what they are, even a stranger could see that. why can't i? i can't recognize myself with migraine. would i recognize myself without it?

Mind-body connection

i'm no philosopher, but i was raised cartesian enough to be habituated to a strict distinction between mind and body. "cogito ergo sum" was a way of life -- a way of thinking about life -- long before i knew enough latin to translate it. you'd do things so differently if you believed "i breathe, therefore i am" or "my heart beats, therefore i am" or "being part of a community produces a sense of individual being" (which i don't think has a fancy latin tag, though undoubtedly there's a nice phrase for it in some language).

it's not like there haven't been opportunities to unlearn the subjugation of my body to my mind. for one thing, i suffer migraines. what is a migraine if not a painful reminder that the brain is a bodily organ? likewise, i received one of the best health diagnoses ever from the venerable dr aung, years ago. in chinese medicine, each fingertip represents the function of an inner organ. dr aung clipped a sensor to the end of each finger in turn and together we bent over the hand-held meter to watch the electrical currents register. my lungs, it appeared, were functioning at about 35%, my kidneys struggling for 30% and my liver ticking along at nearly 40. finally we came to the right index finger, connected to the brain, and the dial redlined. "aha!," said dr aung. "you are theenking too mach!"

in spite of all these ... learning opportunities, i remain painfully mental. migrainous. im-patient. unrealistic, idealistic. the connection between mind and body keeps eluding me. however, in this latest diagnosis, vasovagal syncope, i've been given another chance. in fact, i've learned how to name the mind-body connection. it's called the vagus nerve.

from the latin for "wanderer," the vagus nerve runs from brainstem to viscera, branching off at the heart, lungs and stomach along the way. (seriously! and how about this, from our good friends at wikipedia: "research has shown that women who have complete transection of the spinal cord can experience orgasms through the vagus nerve"?) in situations of extreme pain, fear, or anxiety, your vagus nerve causes your heart rate to slow and your blood vessels to dilate. the combination of low blood pressure and blood pooling in your extremities results in fainting. being prone on the ground means that your circulatory system no longer has to fight gravity. blood can circulate back up to the head, so consciousness is restored.

if i understand all of this correctly, it means something like this: physical and emotional distress so taxes the mind-body connection that the normally vagabond nerve centre panics and shuts everything down. fainting -- prostration without consciousness -- is the body's way of recalibrating.

or am i over-analyzing?

Phantom: a true story from the blood lab

a day with a triumph is a good day. a day with a triumph before 8am is -- well, i don't actually know what that's called, since this was my first.

i underwent a blood test at 7:50 this morning without quaking or shaking, without psyching myself up or psyching myself out, without fainting, without crying. i didn't talk maniacally to the lab techs. i didn't even feel particularly nervous. it was like being someone else and getting a blood test done: utterly uneventful. i went to the clinic, they took my blood, i went home.

it is not always like this for me. last time i did a fasting blood test, i worked hard at not wigging out. granted, i hardly slept the night before, but on my way to the clinic (i'll walk, i thought, that way my blood will be thrumming) i started to get nervous. then anxious. then downright scared. but also -- and this is the fatal part -- impatient. how can a self-respecting, professional, propertied woman in her forties be afraid of a banal lab test?

the lab tech -- chinh, i think her name was, and it must be said, she was lovely and gentle and did not deserve me -- could tell i was nervous because when she said to make a fist i whimpered. it's the worst moment: they ask me to make a fist, and my muscles turn to water. even so, when chinh asked if i'd rather lie down i played the hero: "no, no, i'll be fine." she gave me another chance: "it's really no problem to put you in the room back here, we do it all the time." "oh, don't be silly," i said to her -- i mean, myself, "it doesn't even last very long! go ahead."

you can see where this is going, right? i thought i was fine, i said i was fine, but i wasn't fine. on my way out of the cubicle, i passed out, taking chinh with me. we crashed into a filing cabinet and i smacked my head on the floor.

even then my overwhelming sense was embarassment rather than endangerment -- god, i thought, i'm lying on the floor of a blood lab! this is hardly the image they want to project to the outside world. i struggled to get up and out of there, but the lab techs were wise to me now and forcibly held me down. new patients tiptoed fearfully around me while i tried to look serene. someone got me a juice box and i tried not to dribble while i sipped, prone on the concrete floor.

i had a lump on my head but of course my pride hurt the most. that, and my tender inner elbow. the rest of that morning i found myself splinting my left arm. i reached across my body to shut the car door with my right. i twisted around to reach a glass from the upper shelf just so i could keep my achy left arm tucked close.

what with all the mortification and hoopla, it wasn't until early afternoon that i realized what was wrong with this picture: they took blood from my right arm, not my left. i pulled up the sleeves of my sweater to check. sure enough, there on my right was the telltale tape. my left arm was clean. and here comes the really trippy part: even as i gazed down at my own two arms, i could feel the left one throbbing, while the right felt whole and strong.

welcome to the psychosomatic.