For a while now I have been noticing the new emergency room series called The Pitt (a play on Pittsburgh, the high intensity and grit, and the fact that ER’s are on the lower level of hospitals) on my Hulu feed. Then my trainer, who is a grad student in kinesiology working towards his Physical Therapy certification, told me I had to watch it, so I did. I loved it. It was incredibly realistic, perhaps not in the pace of the inner city ER action, but certainly in the range and description of human maladies that walk into an ER seeking urgent care. Like all good series, the ensemble cast is compelling and relatable, so I highly recommend the show (one and a half seasons so far) and dare you not to binge it. I will note that a neat thing about the series is that it takes a chronological approach that takes you through hour-by-hour in a day in the life of a big city ER. But this week, I have just had my own episode in real time that has been the cause of extra reflection about the progression of life for me on this hilltop and it has made for my own little melodrama that I want to relay. I will break from my normal random walk approach to storytelling, something some readers like and others tell me they suffer through to get to my punch lines. I will start by listing a series of events that I experienced this week to give you some clear foreshadowing, and then I will tie them together as a chronological story (like The Pitt does), and end with my philosophical ponderings. You will be living my little trauma through my eyes.
– I exercise in the mornings, write a story, do some gardening, do a few hours of expert work, and watch some TV. That’s my routine day. Lots of time on the iPad, lots of time outside, some time in the truck doing errands, and lots of TV time.
– I take a motorcycle ride mid-week with a few pals and ride out 2 hours, lunch and ride back. It clears my head and moves my soul through the California hillsides.
– It’s spring on the hilltop, so I have some planting and garden refurbishment projects on the go that require new plants and lots of bark mulch spreading. My EV pick-up truck is very handy for this, as is my power wheelbarrow.
– I get trained in my home gym twice a week by Albert (my middle name namesake). We do weights, bands, kettlebells, battle ropes and generally core workouts for an hour.
– Kim and I take 30-40 minute walks with Buddy in the neighborhood each day, me in my cargo pants, t-shirt, Kiziks and Newzill compression socks, and Kim in her floppy sun hat (very Kate Hepburn-like).
– In the house, Kim works on her show direction and staging and does every puzzle known to modern man, I chase the cobwebs of my personal and professional thoughts on my iPad, and Buddy tries to distract both of us with his toy fetching and tugging.
On Tuesday morning, I started my day at 7am with half and hour on the treadmill (3% incline at 3.0mph) and then trained with Albert for an hour. We focus on my upper back and core, but also do some weights and bands for shoulders and arms. It’s a hour with a decent amount of sweat, warmed up by that treadmill pre-session and generally is the sort of thing any person my age tries to do these days if they are being “good”. Nothing heroic, but a solid workout with professional, directed emphasis for my particular needs. After a breather and some story writing and on to the garden.
I went out to two nurseries and one garden supply store with neighbor Winston (my truck is very handy for those in the hood without one). Winston is in his mid-80s, but lean and in good shape, though he moves a bit like a guy his age in very cautious steps (I find myself being increasingly deliberate in my steps as well). I also went to two pot places for ceramic and synthetic pots. We brought back two loads of plantings and a a few tons of bark mulch, as well as a half dozen pots (only one really heavy one). The workers at those establishments load the truck, but we have to unload ourselves. After helping Winston get his stuff unloaded, I unloaded my pots and plants onto the area in the garden where I will plant them, and then jumped up in the truck and hefted the bags of mulch over the side onto the pathway like a rancher manhandling bales of hay (It feels very manly though 40 pound bags of much grasped with two hands isn’t all that challenging except in the repetition…and I did 20 reps that day). My afternoon of story writing and expert work, followed by an evening of TV while Kim was off rehearsing engaged my mind and rested by bones. I went to bed late with some Advil to preemptively ward off the day’s physical exertion and only got a so-so night’s sleep for some reason.
In the morning on Wednesday I felt the effects of Albert and the mulch, but mostly in a good way with some muscle soreness. I put in some writing time and then suited up for a cooler than normal riding day up to the Julian area, which is more alpine than desert. I met Len on his KTM at the Circle-K and off we went through the inland hills and ranchland, dappled with sunlight and cloud-cover. It’s a route I know well and I always lead the way with my excellent Chigee CarPlay screen showing me the way. When I ride I am always aware of how my back and hands/forearms feel and all is well. When we stop for lunch at a favorite spot in Wynola, I mention to Len that my hands feel tingly, which I assume is from overworking them the day before in the Albert/mulch program. He says his too and that its due to the colder weather. As I sip my Diet Coke I notice my upper lip feels a bit numb…strange, but body mechanics are funny things and nothing of concern.
When I get home and put the bike up in the barn, I go inside and lie down to rest my weary bones from four hours of riding and I note that my left hand is not just tingling, but my thumb has lost its mojo and feels strangely weak. As I change and get dressed I put on a buttoned shirt since we are going out to dinner and I realize that I cannot button anything that requires my left thumb. I mean I spent 5 minutes trying to button my right cuff to no avail. And my upper lip feels just a numb or more so than at lunch. So I turn to Claude for a quick diagnosis of these strange symptoms and Claude tells me, “Go immediately to an emergency room, you may be having a TIA and time is of the essence”. Shit. I have an expert call with a big firm in Australia in 10 minutes, so I call Kim (she’s out on errands) and tell her I am going to get a neighbor to take me to the ER after my call. She says some version of “Fuck the call, go to the ER, NOW!” I say, NO, IT’S ONLY A 10 MINUTE CALL AND I AM NOT GOING TO PANIC SINCE I OTHERWISE FEEL FINE AND I CAN’T TELL A CLIENT…SORRY, I THINK I’M HAVING A STROKE, TALK LATER! Faraj picks me up and takes me to Palomar ER, looking suspiciously at me the whole way and speaking reassuringly.
At the ER, I check in and Kim arrives. They see me pretty quickly (suspected strokes, are, indeed, prioritized). BP normal but heart rate seems low and jumpy. I tell them that’s the way my low pulse rate rolls, but they don’t trust me and put me on an EKG right away. Huh? Seems normal (like I told them). Ok, let’s take blood to look for telltale cardiac markers. Here’s the best vein, please use that one…OK, turns out I was right after a few false pokes. Doctor does a stroke exam…finger here, finger there, track my eye movements, feel both sides of my face, hold your hands straight out….just like on The Pitt. No signs of neurological impairment. I’m to the X-Ray to check the cardio-pulmonary junk. Put in an IV invade we need it…where is there a straight vein above the elbow that we can use….finally found one and in it goes. Dear more blood, OK, Oops, the doctor changed and said we don’t need that after all since the EKG was normal. If well, let’s run some more tests with it anyway. Off to the CAT scan lab where that IV will come in handy to allow them to put in some die markers to see my head and neck innards as best they can. Now go back out to the waiting room to wait…and wait…and wait (no stroke…no priority). Finally, the doctor comes out and says, no stroke, no TIA, no heart issues, no cardio-pulmonary issues, no blood levels issues, no X-ray issues, no CAT scan brain/neck issues, no brain tumors or aneurysms or anything else untoward. Everything is perfect after 4 hours of poking and prodding in The Pitt. Go to your doctor within 2 weeks and see if you have strained your forearm tendon. What?! What about my upper lip? Shrug. Home for some late ramen and crudités. End of saga.
What does this all mean? The best I can tell is that as we age, little shit breaks here and there now and again. I bet I had a mini-ischemic event even though nothing showed. My thumb is better, but still weak. My lip still feels thick (Kim told me to just keep a stiff upper lip…Ha Ha). But I don’t seem to be dying of anything this morning. So, now that I’ve written a longer than normal story, I will go out and CAREFULLY try to finish the planting and mulching. I will stay off the motorcycle for a few days until the finger tingles leave. And I will try hard not to drool from my less than perfect lip. All in all, we are all always digging our pitts as we go through life and the secret may be to just accept that we are machines that break and just hope that we don’t break too soon or too badly.