08 - The First Man Who Saved My Life

Hey there, guys. Sorry about the slightly longer delay between posts from the last one to this one... the truth of it is, writing that story out affected both Kathleen and I more deeply than either of us had anticipated. For her part, she thought she was just out to set the story straight and let everybody know things she'd kept to herself before; instead, it turned into something of an inward Dive To The Heart, a term I've borrowed from Kingdom Hearts that I think perfectly captures the action of deliberately submerging yourself into the darkest corners of mind and memory. She found things there that were not lost so much as cast away. For my part, I underestimated the relief I would experience from letting go of the weight of it all... the lingering result of years of feeling untrusted and generally suspicious in the eyes of people who had no real reason to be treating me that way. That has no reflection on those people, since many of them were not even actively treating me poorly and may never have even had negative thoughts about me at all, for all I could possibly know... it is instead a manifestation of how I felt about myself, for keeping such a secret for so long at cost to myself. Years of reflexively resisting feeling proud or happy for my actions that night, since either of those would be too visible, left me with an opposite reaction to the tale at first; I actually felt uncomfortable in the telling of it, this secret I had kept for so long I had to cut and sweep away the vines and roots of habit before I could unearth and lift it out. Now I feel a little freer. Maybe a lot.

My best friendship had a pretty exciting beginning, and I should be allowed to feel a little pride in what I learned about myself that night. Right? I mean... I acted like not just a human being, but a pretty decent one, and during a period where for years I'd grown used to thinking of myself only as a sort of anti-academic sex-seeking-missile shaped vaguely like a young male person.

It's nice to have another impression of myself to replace that one.

Anyway, yeah. It was a bit heavy, but what worthwhile endeavor isn't? I think we are defined to the greatest degree in the shortest amount of time by the choices we make when there are no real stakes or cost, just the desire to self-examine. Life forces us all the time to make decisions with consequences, and we're all defined by those choices one at a time and all together... but it is the ones we enact ourselves, without life standing over our shoulder threateningly with a billy club, which get us the most mileage in character development per minute and brainpower terawatt spent. The boy who goes out for football because his dad always wanted him to be a player like he was, he learns a lot about himself, sure. But the kid who goes out for the team when his parents couldn't care less what activity he chose, he feels the weight of every minor decision along the way differently, because he's acting (and knows, feels that he is acting) on his own steam and nothing else. No safety net, no timely assistance... just himself, gazing into the mirror in his mind and making decisions based on what he sees, or wishes to see, reflecting back. There's a purity there. He succeeds or fails on only his own expectations, and emerges from either outcome with a sense of the power of his own will, its limits and total acreage.

It was good that Kathleen and I opted to tell that story now. We didn't have to, and nothing was going to break if we didn't, and that is precisely why we were able to learn so much extra in the doing of it. So thank you, Walking Buddy, for coming along with me for that bit of side journey. You didn't have to do that, just like you didn't have to show honest curiosity and ask to hear it if you're among the ones who did, and I appreciate that as well.

Every one of you has brought such light into my life and stoked the fires in my furnace beyond even my considerable ability to explain, and that's saying something, because I know words like "elucidate" that I wanted to use instead of "explain" just now in this very sentence. I stopped myself only because I don't have a monocle or any other traditionally-recognized license to act like that much of a pompous toolbox right here in front of you for no reason. Flexing one's vocabulary, just like flexing one's muscles, might be a semi-unconscious habit to those who spend a great deal of time working it out as a hobby or a job, but that doesn't make it socially okay to do it everywhere you please unless you want to look like a complete meathead. Or in my case, an arrogant jackanapes. See, I used different words to further illustr-ohokayIseeyougetit.

Let me tell you about Dr. Blay. You can follow that link there and get the address of his little clinic in Harrisonburg, but a Google search won't turn up too much more than that. This is, I discovered, because the good doctor does not waste too much time or money on advertising or promoting himself and his business; he's a bit too busy helping people who don't have any insurance. In fact, Dr. Blay does not take insurance. He exclusively assists people in the Harrisonburg area who cannot afford to go anyplace else for help, and I never would have known about him if chance hadn't had me sharing my frustrations with the near-complete lack of help I had received from the emergency care clinic I had already visited, with my friend Rosemary.

Which technically makes her The First Woman Who Saved My Life.

Rose told me about this doctor she'd been directed to by word of mouth when she had first moved to Harrisonburg and had no job or insurance, and what a great job he had done with her. Coming off of having just wasted my father's money on the emergency care clinic visit, I was initially on the fence about spending more money again, but I immediately saw the (potentially fatal) flaw in that logic: if I was disappointed at not having gotten the help I'd sought the first time, my need for that help could only have risen as more time passed. It was not less important that I get a second opinion now due to cost concerns, it was more important that I get it due to time constraints. My neck was swollen, the lump was there being all silently threatening and darkly mysterious and whatnot, I had rashes appearing and disappearing like sasquatch sightings in the great northwestern forests, and I was tired of not knowing what was going on with my standard equipment loadout. I was only going to spend so long looking like a football player from the shoulders up; I had my completely non-existent love life to consider, after all. How was I going to continue sabotaging myself from getting decent dates if I couldn't even effectively criticize my own looks because they kept changing on me?

...Ladies?

I called and made an appointment; the nurse asked if I wanted to come into the office right then and there. Nonplussed (I was in my pajamas at the time, and hadn't yet taken my daily shower), I asked if there were any times available the following day; she made me an early appointment, and I hung up feeling satisfied. Maybe this time I would get some real answers.

The next day I left with twenty minutes to spare and headed toward the clinic. Unfortunately, I had neglected to maintain situational awareness: JMU's grand move-out day was underway, and the streets were choked with the parents of every person who ever lived or drank beer from a Solo cup, ever. I waited at each traffic light between my duplex and Main Street for two or three cycles apiece, and by then realized I was going to be late for my appointment. Drawing my phone from my belt holster like a wild west cowboy, I mentally put on my best Clint Eastwood voice and redialed the number from the afternoon before.

"Dr. Blay's office, Dr. Blay speaking," the man answered. I forgot to be Clint Eastwood. Did I just call a doctor's office and get the doctor himself on the phone?

Not that Doctor. Regrettably.

I informed him that I was driving behind every human in existence in a massive lemming exodus, and he very kindly told me not to rush or put myself in danger, that he'd be glad to see me whenever I arrived. I thanked him and hung up, feeling a bit whimsically comforted about my upcoming visit; it was a bit like calling what you thought was the DMV and instead getting a friendly neighborhood barbershop, who could handle your DMV issue for you. However, he wasn't the boss of me, so I drove extra recklessly the rest of the way just to do it. (This isn't actually true, Mother. In fact, I drove like an old lady, which is to say delightfully slowly and with an ever-increasing need to pee.)

Dr. Blay's clinic, the Cooks Creek Clinic, was so unobtrusive I actually drove right past it thinking it was a regular house. This wasn't too difficult to do, as it sat at the corner of a highway and a side street that was otherwise lined with just regular houses. The clinic itself had clearly been one of those everyday houses until it was converted to save lives and uphold a kind of bygone economic era that already felt like justice. When my GPS told me quite cheerfully that I had arrived at my medical facility at the corner of Cornfield and Cow, I doubled back and finally located the building. I identified it pretty much entirely by the handicap-access ramp running up the side of the house to the high porch. I, however, took the stairs, because I am a man (who had to pee very much like an old lady who'd been driving too long).

The reception area had once been the kitchen. The waiting room was a living room. I asked to use the bathroom, and was shown to a small half-bath. Everything was very quaint. Two other people, a young Hispanic man about my age and a middle-aged woman, waited in the waiting room when I emerged. The only remaining chair was a rocking chair in the corner, and it was all just too Mayberry in total for me to handle anymore. I sat in the rocker, picked up an issue of Better Homes and Gardens, and surrendered to the sense of old world values and domesticity. I had never felt less like I was in a doctor's office. Maybe a doctor's grandmother's sitting room; the only thing missing was a bowl of hard candy.

When Dr. Blay came out to see me, he shook my hand and led me down a side hall to what might have originally been a bedroom; this room, unlike the waiting area, felt fully medical. The bed in the center was covered with paper, and was clearly an adjustable patient's examination bed. Along the wall were cabinets full of medical supplies. Everything looked disinfected and purposeful. The disarming sense of folksy homeyness fell away, and was replaced with a hospital-like feeling immediately, but this wasn't alarming at all; in fact, the progression from the one to the other only added to the sense of competence one hopes for in a medical visit. Dr. Blay told me to have a seat, and started by just plain old asking me what was wrong.

I told him a brief description of all of my various symptoms, and he listened very patiently, never interrupting me or moving to examine me physically as I spoke. When I hesitantly pulled out the handwritten chronology I had written, a listing of each of my symptoms arranged by the approximate date they had begun to show up over the past few weeks, he seemed delighted that I had prepared in such a way. He took it and read the whole thing, both full sides of a college-ruled legal pad sheet filled with handwritten text, and nodded periodically, jotting notes on his chart as he went. I looked out the window while he read it, remembering the way the emergency care clinic doctor had glanced at the page and then handed it back, as if it were beneath his notice to try and read my semi-legible handwriting for once. That doctor had only asked me to summarize for him; Dr. Blay seemed intent on gathering as much information as possible. I remembered that Rosemary had mentioned that she thought or heard he had been an Internal Medicine specialist at a hospital somewhere before he'd opened his own clinic; if that was true, he was specifically trained as a diagnostician, a thinker about the body and it's problems as much as a fixer. I thought to myself, This feels right. This is the man I needed to see.

When he was finished, Dr. Blay asked my permission to examine me. He listened to my breathing, he examined the swelling in my neck and the lump, and then asked me a series of questions about my symptoms, building off of the information I had written. He had been paying close attention to what he'd read, and each of his questions were identifiably specific to one purpose: he was seeking links between the symptoms. I hesitantly mentioned that I had heard there was a mumps outbreak recently in Virginia, which I knew often started with a swelling of the neck, and he nodded, then shook his head. While it seemed to fit, he said, there were other symptoms that didn't match up. He looked thoughtful for a minute. Then he asked if I would consent to let him do an EKG on me.

Not knowing what exactly that entailed, but on guard for hidden or additional costs, I replied that I would be happy to let him, but that I had few resources and could not afford any expensive additions to his $50 fee. He only smiled at me and told me that it would be included in the regular examination fee, not added to it. I could see no reason not to go ahead; more test could only mean more information. He hooked up a series of electrodes to me after wheeling in a little machine, and I got a chuckle out of him by asking if I was being subjected to a lie detector test on the sly. I assured him that I hadn't lied on the symptom sheet; my disparate ailments really were that awesome. He did me the courtesy of not calling me an idiot, only smiled. I thought that was awfully nice of him.

Once he had gotten the EKG results, his demeanor changed subtly before he even spoke another word. Being who I am, I began a mental readout of the details of the shift and determined that his mannerisms had tensed across the board, indicating concern and perhaps a preliminary shade of dismay. These in turn indicated information which led to a conclusion I might not enjoy hearing, and I was unexpectedly grateful to realize it; it meant that my visit and the extra cost (which I didn't tell my father about or ask anyone else to pay for, but paid myself out of my own meager funds) might turn out to be maximally worthwhile after all. If Something Was Wrong With Me (spoiler warning: 'twas), I wanted to know what it was, not be told that it was nothing again and that a touch of steroid cream would clear it right up. My instincts had already told me otherwise, and I was ready for some bad news if it meant not having to wonder any longer.

What Dr. Blay told me was that something was definitely wrong in my chest, and that whatever was going on in there, it was something someone needed to look at relatively immediately. I asked a clarifying question, if I was being told it needed to be looked at soon, or if it needed to be looked at now. He replied that he could not in any event tell me what to do, but that were it him he would be on his way to an emergency room as soon as he left this office. I reminded him rather stupidly that I did not have insurance, as though perhaps he had forgotten that one defining trait that his entire clientele shared in common, and he again replied quite solemnly that though he could not say for certain he suspected that the economics would turn out to be the lesser of my concerns.

I had heard everything I needed to hear.

With a (mildly internally surprising) lack of fear, I stood up and shook his hand, and thanked him for his candor. I would be taking his advice immediately, and heading straight to an emergency room. He asked if I needed the phone number or directions to Rockingham Memorial Hospital, the Harrisonburg city hospital, and I replied thoughtfully that I would not be going to that hospital. Something in the back of my mind had rolled over sleepily, and underneath where it had lain I found the suggestion that I instead travel a bit farther to Augusta Health, the hospital in which my grandfather had been treated (oh so reluctantly) for an infection in his leg which turned quite serious on him in his latter days back in 2000-2001. I wasn't clear on all of the reasons just yet, but I am no stranger to my intellect accomplishing feats at the subconscious level that my conscious brain has to catch up to. I trust my instincts, because I recognize them for what they are: no mere base id impulses, but rather my brain working on multiple levels at once to create prefabricated conclusions whenever all of the puzzle pieces are already gathered and available... even if I haven't consciously recognized them as pieces, or sometimes even that there was a puzzle needing solving. I don't pretend to understand everything that my mind can do, but I do try to keep up with it when I can; when it quickens to a jog, I'll run to keep up before I need to know where we're going.

Dr. Blay told me that the E.R. would be expecting me, because he would be calling them himself as I was on the way. He photocopied my EKG results and all of his observations and notes, and gave them to me to give to the E.R. doctors so they might have a head start on things. Then he took my card and as he was taking payment for the visit fee, proceeded to extract from me a promise that I would keep in touch with him, and I was again disarmed by just how human this man was. Intuition readout told me that underneath his outwardly calm demeanor and thoughtful words, this man was actually going to worry about me if he didn't hear from me soon, a young fellow he'd known for all of an hour of his life, a life filled with strangers and patients.

It was rather like having a conversation and medical examination from a young Mr. Rogers, now that I think about it. He was, in retrospect, as attentive to how I might be feeling at every step along the way through our examination as he was to the medical specifics of what he was examining and revealing.

It was very comforting, but beyond all of that, it was absolutely and irrefutably informative. I needed to go to the emergency room, and I needed to go now. This was Thursday, May 2nd, 2013, and it was the last day of my life as I knew it, a fact I would remain unaware of for about eight more hours.

Whew... it's gotten late, Walking Buddy. This story marches on, though; soon we'll be caught up to where we are today, and can proceed at a more measured pace from there. How are you doing, anyway? You've kept pace with me for some time now, and I do appreciate the company. This would've been a much darker road to walk without you here to ramble on to as we go. Your patience alone deserves a Nobel prize; the way I string prepositional phrases together into run-on sentences would give a normal person (or an English teacher) heart palpitations.

Next time we'll pick it up from the afternoon of that same day, the last day of my previous life. Meeting my mother at the emergency room entrance, and then a whole lot of sit around and wait that would've made a military man feel right at home.

Until then, Walking Buddy, keep your shoes handy and your legs loose and limber. We've got a ways yet to go together.

- Gabriel, Recklessly Obedient To Authority