Spewing poison. Do you know this phrase? It came to mind riding home from the doctor’s office tonight. I’m spewing poison!
My mood sucked. Bad vibes leaked from my pores. My wife Susan kept reaching over to hold my hand, not talking because I didn’t want to talk, not talking because she didn’t want to hear what I had to say. Sitting in a silence drawn dark and shadowed, I realized I had the phrase all wrong. Cobras spew poison as an offensive measure. Racists spew poison to injure people. I kept my poison inside. I didn’t spew poison, I stewed it.
I reread that paragraph. I suspect readers are worried. Horrible news at the doctor’s office, this can’t be good. No, not bad news, just news, more of the same. Susan said as much to me. “List the good stuff in your life.” She rattled off fifteen or twenty things. I said as much to myself. Other people have real problems: cancer, MS, ALS, Parkinson’s. Terrible diseases, degenerative diseases. I have double vision.
I’m not sure why I’m fired up. My double vision returned in October. I was referred to this surgeon in early January. Nothing I heard today was unexpected, it just landed wrong—like hopping off a barstool and turning your ankle. My next appointment is March. I’m no closer to surgery than I was this time last month. We’re still in the diagnostic phase.
This probably isn’t the right week for this. I joined a Tourette Syndrome study on Monday. A group of scientists are trying to teach Touretters to endure distress. A stereotypical story about Tourette goes like this: Office mate says “Man, you gotta stop making that noise.” Touretter says “It doesn’t work like that. It’s out of my control.” These scientists think maybe it is in our control. We just need to train ourselves to overcome the urge.
My meeting on Monday was all about me. Describe your mental illnesses. Do you have OCD? Anxiety? Depression? When did that start? Do you take medicine? Do you squish your eyes together? Cuss? Hit yourself? Do you grunt? Can you make that sound for me? Three hours of this.
I’ve never talked so openly about this in my life. It felt simultaneously freeing and triggering. I enjoyed the conversation and it left me in a good mood through the next day, but I also can’t remember my Tourette symptoms ever being this escalated. Going into the interview, I worried I wouldn’t be Tourettey enough for the study. “Pish, you call that Tourette?” No, now I know I’m the real deal. “Do you ever get the urge to point your toe and try to stretch your ankle?”
“Well, I do now.” While my upbeat feelings lasted into a second day, so did my heightened tics. Today, I’m still excessively ticcy, but that mood is gone. The eye doctor appointment chased it away. “You’ll need to buy yourself a new pair of glasses before your appointment next month that doesn’t correct your double vision at all. Unfortunately, you may need to buy another pair after surgery too. It doesn’t always work 100%.”
I lack resilience. I’m easily weighed down when I feel like problems are ganging up on me. Driving home tonight, I could only focus on the bad—buying a pair of glasses to essentially throw away; my escalated tics are not only embarrassing but also painful; my inability to drive at night because I can’t trust what I see; the realization that I would get home fifteen minutes too late to go to my spin class…
Missing my class turned out to be the best thing for me. Two hours of writing and a pair of Guinness drafts (alcohol free), seem to have settled me down. The poison in me stopped stewing an hour ago. I’m now ready to face tomorrow with double vision, tics and good cheer.
Thanks for reading.
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Previously Published on jefftcann.com
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