Furiously Happy (28 page)

(
Courtesy of Brooke Shaden
)

 

It's Called “Catouflage”

For the past several months I've been getting these giant goose-egg bumps on my head. I called my sister (who was an EMT for several years) to ask if she thought they were cancer. Lisa sighed and said I needed to stop thinking everything was cancer, as it was more likely that the bumps were silent twins I'd absorbed in the womb who were just now starting to sprout into new heads who, she hoped, would not inherit my habit of calling her at three a.m. to ask if they had cancer. Then she hung up because she has a terrible bedside manner. Or maybe her EMT license had expired and she wasn't allowed to diagnose cancer over the phone anymore. I don't know. I sort of preferred the job she had before she was an EMT, when she was a professional clown, because she always had candy in her pockets and if I was sad she'd make me a balloon poodle.

The bumps would appear almost overnight. They were the size of itchy half–golf balls and eventually turned into smaller bumps, which I assumed were hives from my anxiety disorder. My shrink agreed but suggested I visit the dermatologist next door just to make sure it wasn't something more serious.

A few days later I went in for the exam and the doctor glanced at my scalp and said, rather dismissively, “Oh, that's just a folliculitis staph infection.” Then I stared at him and he explained, “Your rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease, which makes you more likely to get infections like this. Take these pills.” I explained that I was concerned because I'd always heard that staph could be super deadly but he said, “You'll be fine. It's like acne, but on your scalp. No one ever died from acne.”

I thought he was being awfully nonchalant and he thought I was overreacting. I pointed out that he had just told me I have a staph infection spreading toward my brain, and he was all,
“Where are you getting this from? You have a rash on your head,”
and I clarified that my brain lives in my head, and I was a little concerned that I had to point that out since
he's
the one who's supposed to be the doctor. Then he shook his head in almost the same way Victor does, told me to stay off the Internet, and walked out of the room to call in my prescription. Of course, I immediately pulled out my phone to see what he was so afraid of my looking up because I'm pretty sure “Stay off the Internet” is code for “I fucking
dare
you to Google that shit.”

“This is a terribly lazy way to tell me I'm dying,” I thought.

When the doctor returned I showed him my phone accusingly and asked him why he was prescribing medication that treated “malaria, anthrax, and cholera.” He told me that was
exactly
why he didn't want me on the Internet and pointed out that this specific medication was also used for treating acne. And he's right, but it's still disconcerting. It's like taking a pill for a stubbed toe that also cures the plague and grows back missing arms. I was getting mixed messages. Was this a serious medical affliction that I should be getting pity and bed rest for, or was it nothing? He assured me it was “
mostly
nothing” and told me to take the malaria pills twice a day. Then I showed him a weird bump I've had on my leg for the last eight years and he said, “Yeah, that's just a bump,” and then I started to question whether this man was even a real doctor.

Regardless, it is nice to hear “No, it's not cancer” and I suppose it's also nice not to have to worry about picking up malaria, even though it wasn't really a worry I had before this appointment.

The most unsettling part of the visit, however, came when the doctor casually asked if I'd ever considered having any work done, as they were having a special on Botox. Then I stabbed him in the knee with a pen. But just in my mind, because you can never find a pen when you really need one. In reality I just told him that I wasn't a fan of paying money to inject paralyzing poison into my face and that I was actually quite proud of my laugh lines, which I view as a badge that tells people I'm not an asshole. He countered that it was really the frown line between my eyebrows that he'd focus on. I pointed out that I'd gone through a
lot
of living to get that frowny wrinkle and I wasn't about to erase it now.

“MY HUSBAND
MADE
THAT LINE,” I said, with a defensiveness that surprised even me. “This line represents every time I have ever argued with him about everything in the damn world. It's a line that says, ‘Don't cross me or I will cut you.' It's practically a medal for time served
and I EARNED IT
.”

He nodded (surprisingly easily) and went back to filling out my chart.

“But,” I admitted, “I
would
be okay with you taking that weird bump off my leg. I don't have any personal relationship with that bump.” He looked at it closer and told me that he could remove it but that it would leave a big hole and a scar. I decided to pass because it seemed wasteful to pay to have a different type of disfigurement when I could just keep the one I accidentally grew for free.

As the doctor walked me out he told me to “stop worrying so much” because it's possible that some of the rash actually
is
hives caused by nerves, and I made a note to tell my shrink the breaking news that the medical world finally found the cure for my severe anxiety disorder and that the prescription is “Just stop worrying so much.”

My God
, we've come so far with science.

Later I called Lisa to get a second opinion and she reminded me again that she wasn't a doctor, that we lived in very different time zones, and that she was going to start turning off her ringer after midnight, but she perked up when I mentioned my leg bump because she realized that she has the
exact
same bump on her leg. I asked if she'd ever had it looked at and she was like, “
Why would I have it looked at?
It's just a bump, dingus.” And that's when I realized that she would have made a great doctor. She told me that it was good I was on malaria pills because with my luck I probably already had malaria anyway, and she had a point. She also said that I should have the surgery to remove my leg bump because then I could use the hole where it had been for people who wanted to do body shots out of it. I was pretty sure no one would want to drink alcohol from my scarred, puckered leg hole and she said, “Come to LA. There's always a market for something.” She's probably right, but I suspect that the people who would
want
to get drunk out of my leg hole wouldn't be the people
I'd
want to have getting drunk out of my leg hole. That's just one of those truisms of life. Lisa said that I'd never get a job as a living leg shot-glass with that attitude. I'd like to think that job doesn't exist with any attitude.

Regardless, now I feel old and wrinkly and I probably
would
be considering Botox right this moment if my friend hadn't just had it done and now one of her eyebrows is slightly lower than the other one because it's
too
relaxed. She asked if it was noticeable and I told her no, and that it looked like she was constantly puzzling over something, so if anything it just made her look pensive and intellectual. She seemed fine with my answer, I think. Or she was really mad. That's the bad thing about talking to someone whose face is slightly paralyzed. You never know if they're leaning toward you for a hug or to punch you in the neck.

Lisa groggily took all this in and pointed out that it seemed slightly suspect that my therapist encouraged me to go to a doctor who then made me feel old so that I would be forced to make another appointment with my shrink to discuss the midlife crisis that I didn't even know I was having until he brought it on.

I nodded. “And then when I go back to see my shrink she'll probably rub poison ivy all over my chair so I'll have to keep seeing the dermatologist. And eventually I'd probably start to suspect that I was being played but no one would ever believe that my shrink was poisoning me so Victor would force me to see my shrink
again
to get treated for my ‘
unfounded
paranoia.'”

“
Bingo
,” Lisa said. “Now you're thinking like a doctor. Or maybe a psychopath.”

It was more likely the latter because my shrink is as sweet as pie and has the clear and innocent face of someone utterly unfettered by a guilty conscience. Or, possibly, of someone who has an addiction to Botox that she's financing by sending the dermatologist extra clients.

Either way, I probably need to stop thinking about this. It's giving me wrinkles.

PS: My doctor assured me that staph-infection-of-the-head is easily treated and most likely won't eventually spread to my face, brain, and body, but (just in case) I've been practicing using a cat for camouflage. I call it “
cat
ouflage” because it's more fun to say. Basically I just carry the cat around and put him up to my face to cover any imperfections, blemishes, double chins, etc.

Sadly, I now have to use catouflage to cover up cat scratches as well, so it's a bit of a catch-22. It's nice though because you get to wear fur, but no one from PETA is going to yell at you about it. Unless I staple Ferris Mewler to my neck. Then they'd probably get pissy about cat-stapling. But I would never do that because that would be ridiculous and cruel and would probably lead to even
more
infections, and then Dr.
Yep-that's-a-bump-all-right
would be like, “Yes, I know you
think
these marks are vampire bites but you probably just have an infection from stapling cats to your neck. Stop doing that. Here's a pill for that, and also it cures testicular decay and loss of eyeballs.” So that's why I'm thinking that maybe I should just get a baby sling to put Ferris Mewler in, so that I can wear him on my chest without staples.

Someone get me a BabyBjörn with a tail hole cut in it.

And some bed rest.

And some malaria.

Might as well get my money's worth.

 

We're Better Than Galileo. Because He's Dead.

I have learned that every person in the world is on the spectrum of mental illness. Many people barely register on the scale, while others have far more than they could be expected to handle. Even specific disorders are incredibly individualized. For example, my depressive disorder comes and goes and when it's gone I have a hard time remembering how I could ever have felt as lost or numb as I get during those times. My anxiety disorder, on the other hand, is always with me and comes with all sorts of niggling “bonus” disorders and phobias, like some sort of terrible boxed set.

I struggle with a host of phobias, like agoraphobia—the fear of being in a situation where escape is impossible if things go shitty. I have acute social anxiety disorder (a.k.a. anthropophobia), which is the fear of people. I
don't
have arachnophobia (irrational fear of spiders) because fear of spiders is perfectly rational so I refuse to recognize it as a “disorder.” I also have arachno-anthropophobia, which is the fear of people who are covered in spiders. I made up that last one but it's still a valid concern.

The fear of people is something I think most introverted, socially awkward people understand, but I tend to take it a step further … into a place filled with weird shame. The disorder manifests itself in strange ways, but when I'm having a bad spell I can't make myself interact with the outside world. I even find myself hiding in my own home, my panicked heartbeat in my ears when someone comes to the door.

This would be easier to handle if I were in another room but I'm inevitably home alone and sitting in my office near the front door when the doorbell rings. Usually my blinds are closed but they're always raised a few inches so that the cats can look out at the world I'm avoiding.

“Can they see my feet?” I wonder as I freeze and hold my breath, waiting for whoever is at the door to leave. “Maybe they'll think I'm a mannequin,” I whisper to myself.

I slowly bring my feet up to my chair seat, my knees at my chin. Quietly and in slow motion to avoid catching their attention. Watching their feet to see if they respond to mine, if they've noticed me.

Then I sit there, perched in a fetal position, and feel ridiculous, physically hiding from the world. The cats look at me strangely. I'm being judged by cats. Mostly because they wonder where my lap has gone since it's their favorite chair.

The worst thing is when the person outside waits and rings again. Someone who rings once is just doing his job, but someone who rings twice is a madman. The real psychopaths will keep waiting and sometimes even call our home phone as I sit there, paralyzed, thinking, “The call is coming from outside the house.”