Hyper-chondriac (17 page)

“Why?” Steve looked devastated. He was struggling to make his payments as it was.

“To help pay for the web designer and website upkeep,” Mr. Chow answered before shooting me a look of disdain.

Despite the wave of animosity, I continue to go back to the dojo to do my assortment of slow-motion poses. And if I go on a consistent basis, which I try to, I notice a difference. I'm calmer, my spine is more upright and I feel taller. But what makes me feel even better—whenever I see Mr. Chow on that Citibank commercial with Ellen DeGeneres, his posture isn't that good.

6Nancy later called the police and was informed that unless we saw the guy shitting or had witnesses, we didn't have a case.

The 150 mg was starting to kick in and my head began to feel the way it did when I first got on 100 mg and 50 mg way back when. But physically, I wasn't so good. I was beginning to feel the side effects of the Zoloft, just as Dr. Tamm had initially warned me. The 50 mg and the 100 mg had both markedly decreased my sex drive, and the 150 mg all but killed it. The only saving grace was that Nancy was too busy brainstorming with Team Sitcom on the funniest possible quip for a surly neighbor to say right before a commercial break to notice.

Meanwhile, pain in my shoulders, upper back and neck was flaring up again. It didn't take much. Awkwardly holding a grocery bag, throwing a Frisbee, looking over my shoulder to merge. I'd been dealing with some degree of discomfort in those areas for decades, thanks to weight lifting and my street fight in that icy parking lot twenty-three years ago.

This time, I'd slept the wrong way on my neck and woke up in agony. I was barking at everybody: Nancy, my mechanic, the person who answers the phone at Supercuts. No wonder my mother is always so quick to snap; it's hard for the mind to relax when the body's always screaming at it. As the aches contract and close in, time is stretched so that a minute feels like ten and a half hour feels like a day. Impatience breeds. Even on 150 mg.

I needed relief and two or three ibuprofen did nothing. And since I didn't want to mess up my kidneys, as it says on the warning label, I didn't want to go up to four or five. So when I discovered Craniosacral therapy in a health journal at my dentist's office, I jumped at the chance to deplete my bank account even further. According to the magazine, it focused on “reducing tension and stress in the meningeal membrane and its fascial connections to enhance the functioning of the Craniosacral system, a fluid circulatory system that surrounds and protects the brain and spinal cord.” Not going to win any Clio Awards, but worth a shot.

 

I made an appointment and was informed that the initial visit would run me $215. That seemed like a bargain to pay someone to “manipulate the bones of the head and spine and the membranes beneath the skull to allow free movement by the cerebrospinal fluid and balance energy fields.”

As I walked into Craniosacral headquarters in downtown Los Angeles, an older, balding, ultra-stressed guy in a black T-shirt rudely bumped into me, with nary a glance or an “excuse me.” Apparently he had the appointment ahead of me. He was one tense guy and looked as though he'd implode if he was kept in the waiting room a second past his scheduled time. I was hoping that wasn't going to be me in twenty-five years. I considered postponing my appointment and sneaking around in the parking lot so I could see what Oldie-But-Tensey looked like
after
his visit. If he was still a bundle of angst, then maybe this whole thing was a bad idea and I would just leave.

As I sat in the lobby, I noticed a collection of CDs for sale on the front counter. The cardboard display indicated that the soothing New Age music I was currently hearing was composed and produced by Dr. Whitehurst, the very doctor who would soon be treating me. The discs were $21.99 (plus tax), which seems like a lot of money to charge for a guy who already has a lucrative day job and drives a Lexus. For fucksakes, I could get the new Dylan album at Starbucks for half that. I wondered if, under any conditions, Blue Cross covered music.

As I listened to the instrumental mumbo jumbo ricocheting out of the cute little Bose speakers above my head, I hoped Whitehurst was a better doctor than musician. This stuff was unmelodic, monotonous drivel. The longer I waited, the more I wanted to buy up the entire display of CDs, including the one playing, and then go outside and run them all over with my Volvo.

Fifteen minutes later, Black-shirt guy emerged from the examination room. His harried walk had slowed to semi-harried and the scowl had been eased off his face. I would be staying. Although I really wished the receptionist took musical requests.

“Hi, I'm Dr. Whitehurst,” said a slickly dressed fifty-year-old with jet-black hair. We shook hands and I followed him into a room that had a large maroon cushiony table with several smaller cushions protruding from the sides.

“So why are you here?”

I wanted to reply, “To hear some of the worst music on planet Earth.” Instead I summed up my life.

“I'd like to relieve all the pain in my neck and upper back so I can be less tense and get off my medication before I hit 200 mg and I've tried everything. Zoloft, yoga, Kabbalah, anger management, sitting-still meditation, Tai Chi. I'm basically a tense guy on a deadline.”

“Well, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with this treatment.” Then, in an instant, his smile turned into a scream. “Sheila!”

The receptionist who was minding the music warehouse up front entered carrying a pen and pad.

Whitehurst opened one of the cabinets and slid out a giant rectangular Lucite protractor.

“First we need to measure your neck's range of motion.”

The giant protractor had a semicircle cut out from one of the sides where I could insert my head. I was instructed to bend my neck to the left, to the right, forward and back, then rotate it to the left and to the right. As I did, Whitehurst yelled out the corresponding numbers.

“Seventy degrees…sixty degrees…sixty-three…no, sixty-five degrees…” as Sheila eagerly recorded the data the way they do in a dentist's office to measure gum pockets.

“Are those good numbers?” I interrupted.

“No,” Whitehurst shot back. “You were in a car accident, right?”

“No.”

“Well, your neck should be able to turn ninety degrees in each direction. At least eighty-five.”

Sheila looked sad as Whitehurst returned the giant protractor to its cabinet.

“Okay.” Whitehurst motioned to me. “Why don't you lie down on this table, face up?” Seconds after I did so, another series of numbers was transferred from his mouth to Sheila's pad.

“Left ear an inch lower than the right…nose veers off to the right…left cheekbone a half inch too high…”

Thanks for the facial deformity update. Why not just come right out and call me ugly? Or maybe you can write a song about my uneven face for your next album. Oh, I forgot. None of your songs have lyrics. Or melodies for that matter.

“Do you grind your teeth?”

“I used to.” In fact, when I first met Nancy that was one of our bonding moments. We both slept with mouth guards.

“Right part of jaw quarter of an inch lower than left.”

Also, my right shoulder was much higher than my left, my hips were of varying heights, my left leg was shorter than my right, and my feet were flat. How had I ever managed to get laid?

Sheila packed up her pad and left the two of us alone as I sat up and contemplated diving out the window.

“We should talk about how many sessions you'll be coming in for,” Whitehurst insisted. So far all you've done is mock and measure me. How about we complete the first visit and then discuss our future together?

“I'd prefer that—” But Whitehurst cut me off.

“I've been doing this type of work for sixteen years and I'd say there's a seventy-five percent chance of me helping you.”

So only a twenty-five percent chance of me wasting my money.

“Listen, it all sounds good”—I tried to finish my thought—“I'd just like to—”

“I think we should start with two visits a week for six weeks and then take it from there.”

“Look, I don't even know what you do.”

“Of course. Well, after you see what I do, I think you'll be pleased.”

I was starting to get agitated. This small talk was eating into my day and they only validated parking for an hour. After that it was $1.75 every fifteen minutes. I wasn't willing to pay another $7 an hour to listen to this desperate, insecure, greasy-haired Yanni wannabe.

“Great,” I replied.

I noticed a framed Vector Point Cranial Therapy wall chart in back of him as he continued his sales pitch. The poster had a cartoonish profile of a skull covered in a series of dots. Each of the dots led directly to a specific organ: the colon, liver, pancreas, etc. In reality, we were all just fleshy puppets, controlled by a series of meridians that stretched from head to toe.

He had me lie down again on my back.

“Now, I want you to pull both of your feet back from the ankles while you inhale through your mouth and then exhale as you push them forward.”

I began to deeply inhale and exhale while pumping my feet faster and faster and faster, as if I were hitting the gas and brakes of a car at the same time (which, incidentally, is dangerous) while Whitehurst pressed really hard on a series of spots on my head, spending no more than ten seconds in any one place—my cheekbones, behind my ears, under my jaw.

“What's the feet-pumping for?”

“It's called a Cranial-sacral pump. It's supposed to move your cerebrospinal fluids around.”

“Supposed to?”

“Well, there's no proof that it does that, but that's what we think it does. We
wish
we had proof.”

No wonder insurance didn't cover this.

“So exactly how is this supposed to help my neck and upper back?”

“I'm retraining the small muscles along the spine. By remote control!”

“You mean the pressure points on my skull?”

“Exactly!”

He then enthusiastically pushed both sides of my head together as if he were a human vise and my skull a two-by-four, which I'm pretty sure you should never do to a baby.

As he continued to press on areas of my face that had never been exposed to one-tenth the pressure he was applying, it felt weird, but it didn't hurt. He stopped pressing.

“Okay, now how do you feel?” he asked.

I sat up and I had markedly less pain in my neck and shoulders.

“Good.”

He remeasured my ears. They had evened out. My cranium was cooperating.

“Your shoulders have evened out, too.”

“Already?”

“Yes, but they'll probably snap back out of alignment without more visits. Ten more sessions and we'll get you as good as new.”

“Ten?!” The parking alone would cost a fortune. “Let me think about it.” Then after an awkward silence I added, “Are we done?”

“No. I need to strength-test your limbs.”

As I remained on my back on the cushiony vinyl table I raised each of my limbs individually as Whitehurst pressed against them while I was told to resist his pressure.

“Your left leg is really weak. Let's see if we can fix that.”

“Okay.”

“First put both of your hands over your left eyebrow. I know it sounds odd but just do it.”

I felt as if I were playing a game of face Twister.

He then pushed again on my left leg as I tried to resist his pressure. With my hands above my eyebrow, my leg was even weaker.

“Just as I thought,” said Whitehurst, who then yanked a pair of rubber gloves out of his back pocket.

Okay…pumping my feet like a maniac and putting both hands over my left eyebrow were strange enough but when someone abruptly pulls out a couple of rubber gloves, that can't be a good thing.

I thought he was going to give me a prostate exam, of which I've had my fill. I don't know if there's anything more painful. To have some stranger with large hands ram a finger up your ass is bad enough when your prostate is healthy. To have some stranger with large hands ram a finger up your ass when your prostate is inflamed is intolerable. But Whitehurst didn't go anywhere near my ass.

“Open your mouth and relax your jaw, please.”

He then shoved his gloved hand into various crevices inside my head, pressing on the inside of my facial bones, my hard palate and various other spots inside my mouth that only my tongue and some Turkish taffy had ever touched.

“Believe it or not, this'll strengthen that left leg of yours.”

I couldn't answer. He had his hands in my mouth.

“Okay, let's test that leg again.”

He removed his paws from the inside of my head and took off his gloves.

“Hands above the left eyebrow, please.”

I again put both of my hands above my left eyebrow and raised my left leg as Whitehurst pushed down on it. It really was stronger! And I didn't think it was because he wasn't pushing on my leg as hard. This was indisputable.

“Pretty amazing, huh?” he bragged.

“Yes.” I felt great. This was much better than a chiropractor.

“Okay, just one more thing. Open your mouth again.”

Moments after I did, Whitehurst's magic gloves were back on and his fingers were pressing down on various parts of my interior skull. Then they started to drift near the back of my throat, flailing around like he was fishing for his car keys. And then…my head shot up like a catapult. I had thrown up all over him.