Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Brittle
Typical doctor, I’ve never handled my own illness well. Even as a kid, I would become emotionally fragile with a common cold. Fever, in particular, tended to lay me bare. I remember bursting into tears over an episode of All in the Family.
I’ve never had that male barrier to crying — not much of one, anyway. I guess my father never shook me by the shoulders (the way Don Corleone rough-housed Johnny Fontane in The Godfather — Be a man! What’s the matter with you?) No, he tended to push my older brother my way, saying, “Go see what’s wrong with him.” Like that ever helped.
It took me a while to learn you simply didn’t cry in front of people. Least of all people you cared about. You could tear up and discretely wipe your eyes — yeah, that’s cool, no one looks askance at that. But the big emotional outpouring? Nah. Folks tend to think you’re tetched.
The urge to tear accompanies any of my strong emotions. In the past, I may have told the story of the time I developed an autoradiograph and got the result I needed to complete my PhD thesis. I called Karen and she couldn’t understand why I was crying. For me, that autoradiograph meant seven years of my life brought to a successful conclusion. I was RELIEVED. What couldn’t she understand about that?
When her father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, that choked me up, too, and I think it confused her. Why should I be that upset over her father’s illness?
Certain memories I keep at a distance because, well, they’re just too embarrassing. Back in high school, I was a bit too emotionally naked for my girlfriend at times. That’s an understatement, you understand. I suspect she thought I was a raving lunatic.
But that’s adolescence, right? We get to write off lots of bullshit, blaming it all on childhood or adolescence. But I know I’m the same me, older and wiser perhaps, better able to keep things under wraps. One thing I’ve learned is that the emotions of the moment are not to be trusted — and are certainly not to be acted upon.
I’ll be a lot better once this crud passes. Once I can stop taking enough cold meds to anesthetize a draft horse. I won’t have to fend off these wandering thoughts and emotions that rise unbidden from the limbic system, fingernails on the cortical chalkboard.
Maybe my muse will wake up, too.
D.
i tend to cry whenever someone else is crying, even if its just on tv or in a book. also when anyone is feeling intense pain. or when i’m frustrated. or depressed. or when i laugh really hard.
yeah.
hey, you gonna pick a winner from the all three of us who did the caption contest??
i hope your cold gets better. mine has progressed to its (hopefully) final stage of just coughing up a storm. bleh.
I seem to recall you were also taking prednisone. ??? If so, that drug will surely mess with your emotions.
Shaina, your competitive nature is shining through 😉
nc: prednisone, me? No. I confess that early on in the course of this crud, I thought about getting a single shot of steroids, but that’s as close as I came. I have a dread of steroids, and I use them as infrequently as possible with my patients. Some of the other docs laugh at me, I’m so reluctant to prescribe steroids. But I have my reasons 🙂
Try my method; a hot toddy, large bottle of diluted ginger cordial, and a half hour sauna, or more if you can take it. Honestly if that doesn’t work I don’t know what else would.
Steroids are evil.
Hey, how did you end up getting stickam to work in the end, because it doesn’t seem to like me or my computer.
Awwww…. {{{{hugs}}}} & ****smooches****
Are you still pushing fluids? Yeah, yeah, I know, you’re the doc–but docs are also notorious for not taking care of themselves as well as they do their patients.
Hot toddy, eh? That will go well with the narcotic cough syrup!
I’m not sure how to advise you with Stickam. I futzed with it for a long time, and then it worked. I’m afraid I didn’t take notes. I believe I found help files online by searching “Stickam WordPress”, but you’re on Blogger, right? So it may be a bit different.
Darla, yup, I’m still pushing the fluids, for what it’s worth. At least the sore throat and sinus infection are gone — it’s only the nighttime cough that’s driving me nuts.
Night time coughs are a bitch. I have coughed so hard, I’ve thrown my back out. Even the good old Jewish penicillin won’t get rid of that (it’s only good for clearing the sinuses because once you get the clear sinuses, it goes right to your chest and voila, a night time cough). Remember the Vicks and flannel cloths?
Crying? I’m a champion…commercials, certain songs on the radio, instrumentals by Yanni and Enya. And now that I’m menopausal…don’t ask.
Hi Sis. Yup, I threw out my back coughing, too — about a year ago, I think. Yeah, I remember Vicks Vap-O-Rub. Yeeech.
And Yanni? Yanni will make anyone cry — from pain.
Yanni? I can’t cry for the retching.
I had 2 sexist thoughts while reading this…
Thought the first: typical doctor not handling illness well? It’s been my experience that it’s more of a typical man thing. But maybe I’ve just known too many men who turn into big ol’ babies when sick and it seems like that represents a huge percentage of all men when in fact it’s actually a small percentage. Perhaps other wives, mothers and sisters have some observations on that phenomenon…
Thought the second: uncontrollable strong emotions brings me inexorably to thoughts of PMS, perhaps because that always seems to be the time when my emotions run away with me – crying over commercials and whatnot.
I’m not feeling quite coherent enough to string those thoughts into something meaningful, so I’ll just leave them “as is”.
And I’m with you on the agonizing night coughing. It’s the worst. Hope you feel better soon.
Oh come on….Yanni is good.
fiveandfour: reminds me of that old joke of mine, “I am always in PMS, by definition.” And . . . is this a guy thing? Maybe so. In which case I have two strikes against me.
Sis: Gogol Bordello is good. Nine Inch Nails is good. Tool’s new CD is good. But Yanni? He’s so John Tesh.
Gogol who?! Heard of Nine Inch Nails, don’t know their music. Tool? Some of my students are tools, but I’ve never heard of the group. I don’t like John Tesh. Go Yanni!