Gotta Love the Argentineans

I told an Argentinean friend about the the virus that caused my pericarditis in January.

"You are getting old," she responds immediately. "Now you should expect your body to start failing you on a regular basis."

"I'm only 34," I say.

"Well, old age comes sooner to some people than to others," she informs me brightly.

She's not a mean person at all. She's just Argentinean.

ER

Before we discovered the funny pastor, I
entertained myself by taking pictures of me in an IV
and a long flouncy skirt that is so big
it covered the entire room

So I spent the night in the ER and feel completely exhausted. (The previous post was scheduled to appear at that time with the specific goal of reaching Australian conservatives who are awake at that time.) The only reason why I am still awake is because I need to call my department after 8 am to tell them I have cancelled my classes. Thank God for blogging because it gives me something to do while I'm waiting for the department to open, or I would just drop off from sheer exhaustion.

The whole thing started on Tuesday when I suddenly got this weird constriction in my chest that wouldn't let me breathe in deeply or move and that eventually got quite painful. Then this morning I felt a constriction in my throat too, which made me think I was losing my voice. By evening, the chest pain got really bad. I thought I had pulled an oblique muscle because the pain was more to one side, so I never thought I needed to do anything about it. Then I mentioned it on Twitter and @usedphotons (whom I never met but who is a kind, compassionate individual) told me this might be a cardiac event. So I got kind of worried. (Later, it turned out that @usedphotons was completely right and gave me great advice. Thank you, friend!)

We decided to go to the hospital but, of course, the car wouldn't start, and I had to call 911 for the second time in my life. A very nice police officer came (I don't know for what purpose) and then paramedics arrived and took me to the hospital in a real ambulance. While we were driving, I noticed a church that had the topic of the next sermon announced on the board in front of it: "JESUS DIED FOR MYSPACE." That's what it said. MySpace, in one word. I realized that I must be doing really badly to hallucinate in this manner. Then we came closer, and I saw a little addition at the bottom: "in heaven." So the good news is that Jesus didn't die for MySpace (always nice to know) but, rather, for my space in heaven.

Compared with my last hospital stay (which happened when I was 5 years old in the Soviet Union), this one was definitely a space in heaven. Unlike my previous hospital visit, the doctor didn't hit me in the face with a fist. (I can tell the story when I get some rest, if anybody is interested.) So I'm seeing a very positive dynamic here. It was kind of funny that every paramedic, nurse and doctor said "Hi, how are you?" whenever they saw me. I had no idea what the correct response would be. Saying "I'm great, thank you", like I usually do, seemed kind of weird given that I was hooked to an IV and an EKG machine. But on the other hand, I was taught that a lengthy explanation of one's health-related details is not an accepted form of response to such a question. Or is it when you are being rolled in on a stretcher?

It turned out I have pericarditis, which is something like an inflammation of the sac surrounding the heart. It happens because of an infection, so I guess this is what my students gave me in return for the first class of the semester I taught them. I got a stack of prescriptions but the pain is supposed to start going away by next Tuesday when I have to go back to class. Trust me to get sick not when it would have helped (like at the end of the semester) but during week one when I really want to be at work.

While we were waiting for all the tests to come in and all the medicine to work, we discovered this TV channel with a really hilarious pastor. There are not many stand-up comics out there who can entertain quite as well. This made me remember how when I first moved to the US, I kept looking for funny programs to watch. First, I stumbled across Fox News, which I took for a bona fide comedy channel. Then I discovered a channel that kept showing the sermons of these Evangelical preachers whom I, once again, mistook for comedians. Believe me, for a person of my background the last thing in the world these people could be was preachers. This particular sermon was so good that we lingered behind to finish listening to it even after I was discharged.

After we left, we got completely lost. We took a wrong turn in the dark and ended up in a different town. First, we thought we knew where we were because everything looked exactly the same and even the street names were the same. It is both really good and really confusing that all small American towns are so alike.

And now I can finally go to bed.

P.S. Just discovered online that pericarditis is more common in men. How come even my health problems are male?

Work as a Cure for High Blood Pressure

I have high blood pressure, which is hereditary in my family. As I'm completely opposed to taking any kind of medication, I treat my high BP with a change of diet, weight loss, long walks, and giving up on coffee. This summer it was so hot in the area where I lived that my BP spiked to the point where I was almost completely incapacitated for over a month. So I changed my lifestyle dramatically and managed to get to a perfect BP without any medication.

Unfortunately, this semester has been so tough for me that I was forced to give up on all my good habits. I went back to guzzling coffee like a crazy maniac, eating rubbish, not sleeping, and gave up on my walks. Of course, my BP, responded immediately and shot up over the last week. This morning, I felt so sick that I thought I wouldn't be able to get myself to class. I even considered cancelling classes, which is something I never do.

The funny thing, though, is as soon as I started teaching my first class, the BP dropped. I thought about it and realized that the only time I felt great during our Thanksgiving break was the day that I spent in my office working. Have I finally found a cure for my high BP? And does it mean that I will now have to give up on rest and keep working all the time to feel healthy?

Ob-Gyns and Beauty

As if visits to an ob-gyn weren't traumatic enough, the doctors seem to go out of their way to make them even more unpleasant. Today, for example, I discovered that before a woman can be admitted to see the gynecologist, she has to fill out the following questionnaire:

"1. Are you trying to lose weight? Are you interested in taking weight-loss medication prescribed by this office?

2. Would you like to be given Botox injections to improve your appearance?

3. Are you interested in Latisse, a lash-growing prescription medication? **

4. Would you be interested in laser treatments that will remove your wrinkles and crow's feet?"

It seems that some doctors first want to make you sick by filling you up with all this junk and then treat you for the ensuing problems with your health. Of course, I refused and betook my fat, wrinkly self with inadequate lashes to the doctor's office for the annual check-up. When the doctor evinced surprise at how healthy I was, I had half a mind to tell her that I was healthy precisely because I never allowed anybody to convince me to try any of this prescription rubbish, but it didn't seem worth the trouble.

**How anybody can respect a doctor willing to prescribe this junk to people is beyond me.

A Lot of Alcohol Is Better Than None

Turns out it's better to be a heavy drinker than to abstain from alcohol completely:

Even after controlling for nearly all imaginable variables - socioeconomic status, level of physical activity, number of close friends, quality of social support and so on - the researchers (a six-member team led by psychologist Charles Holahan of the University of Texas at Austin) found that over a 20-year period, mortality rates were highest for those who had never been drinkers, second-highest for heavy drinkers and lowest for moderate drinkers.

Researchers will, of course, look for their own explanations of these findings. For me, however, the reasons for this phenomenon are clear: people who prissily abstain from alcohol altogether are as likely to deprive themselves from other good things in life such as, for example, sex. So it's no wonder that their bodies give up on this pleasure-free lifestyle sooner rather than later.