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Under Pressure

January 22, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

We’ll get back to good ol’ Literature and Libation classics as soon as my blood pressure normalizes.

I like to think I’m a healthy guy. I may not be a triathlete with bullet-deflecting-abs, but I run three to four times a week and lift weights when my body cooperates. I drink, but within reason, when reasonable. I eat well. Lots of veggies and fruit and not lots of cheese and oil-soaked sausage patties.

In direct correlation, my blood pressure is normally pretty great. 120ish over 70ish, depending on stress levels and how scary my attending doctor is. I’ve got good energy in that range. Energy that I can work with and mold and bend to my focused, writerly will. My normal blood pressure equates roughly to me feeling normal.

Enter the post-operative low-blood pressure monster. He is a cunning predator, waiting for the least opportune times to sneak in and put you on your ass. Low blood pressure is the worst kind of duplicitous; he’ll convince you that you feel great while sitting down, then hit you across the back of your head a hammer made of orthostatic hypotension, giving you a head-rush like you’ve never experienced.

And never wanted to.

As I was recovering from my recent procedure, I passed out for the first time in my life. OK, that’s lie. I’ve passed out before, but almost always as side effect from falling out of a tree, colliding with a soccer player, or generally doing something stupid that resulted in a surface harder than my skull winning our impromptu headbutting contest.

But I’ve never passed out in the middle of feeling otherwise great. It’s incredibly unsettling, akin to the feeling you have right after you discover you’ve been Jedi mind tricked and those were in fact the Droids you were looking for.

The actual sensation can only be described as “mortifyingly unpleasant.” You’re embarrassed that you suddenly forget how be conscious, but also get the joy of feeling like 100,000 tiny spiders are crawling across your brain, interrupting synapses, spinning webs of confusion and nausea.

It’s not something I’d do for recreation, that’s for sure.

I opted for an epidural instead of general anesthesia because hell, why not? I always wanted to have a baby. After the numbness in my legs had melted to a comfortable, dull buzz, I just had to wait until my vitals were back in acceptable ranges. My pressure had pretty much stabilized, I was feeling good, cracking jokes, getting the entire back-story of my nurse (she emigrated from the Philippines in 2002) because I’m the kind of person who is obnoxiously inquisitive even when barely conscious.

The doctors and nurses both cleared me to leave. I stood up from my special medical chair with no issues. Managed to get my tshirt and underwear on still feeling fine. Then I made an attempt at my jeans. I think I let my head hang a little too low, or moved a little too quickly. Before I could process what was happening, I collapsed into an Oliver-shaped pile on the floor. My nurse yelled for help, and the next thing I remember I’m on my back with an oxygen mask stuck to my face, talking to a doctor I’ve never seen who had apparently just emerged from a nearby operating room.

My systolic blood pressure had dropped into the 70s, which had in turn dropped me. It took hours for it to get back to where it was supposed to be, probably because it got lost in all the roadwork being done inside my bones.

For the past few days, I’ve been suffering from the scorched earth aftermath of a body incapable (or unwilling) to consistently maintain its blood pressure. The day after I got home, supposedly hydrated and closer to normal, I nearly passed out from the heat and activity of a shower. My wife saved me by giving me Oreos and telling me to close my eyes and breathe. Short walks to the bathroom and back feel like Baggins-esque odysseys to Mount (porcelain) Doom. I only feel lucid when sitting sedentarily or when sprawled across my bed like a decorative afghan.

But I can’t go through my life being an afghan.

It will take my body a few weeks to recreate the marrow and blood that was taken during the operation. Apparently, I’m in a fateful 10% of patients who have issues with blood pressure post-donation. I should blame myself for always wanting to be different. Until then, I’ll have to keep my activities low impact and low stress.

Guess that means a lot of writing. Recovery is hell.

I joked that I always wanted a baby when opting for the epidural. My wife and sister got me this balloon. My family knows me well.

QLC

June 14, 2011 · by Oliver Gray

I experienced a” Quarter life Crisis”. No shit, I really did. For a long while I was embarrassed about it, seeing as it’s a fundamentally dumb thing to experience. But now I’ve moved past it, I feel comfortable sharing my thoughts on what I think afflicts a large part of our young population.

It’s something like the already established and dreaded “Midlife Crisis”, but instead of buying a sports car, you wallow in a mire of self-doubt. The principles are the same; you are physically and emotionally acting out because you don’t understand your place or point in life, they just happen at different times. Prior to us Snowflakers, the “Quarter Life crisis” didn’t exist. We created a whole goddamn psychological event, that’s how entitled and spoiled we collectively are. For brevity’s sake, I’m going to go all government contractor on this and dumb this down into an acronym from here out: QLC.

For a somewhat long period after graduating college and landing my first “real” job, I felt the full weight of adult responsibility settle of my shoulders while I meanwhile struggled with a general dissatisfaction with how things had turned out. My life, unbeknownst to me, was amazing; I was financially sound, had great friends and family, perfect health, and an otherwise oft envied life.

But I would find it hard to rise from bed, dwelling on questions like, “is this it?” and repeating misguided mantra like, “there’s gotta be something more”, before I had even let the ink on my diploma dry. I found myself questioning whether I was “cut out” to do certain tasks and activities, and beat myself up over the fact that “other people seemed happy with the same lot in life”. Seriously, I’m not making this up.

It wasn’t until I had a conversation with my friend Justin, did I start to reverse my entire attitude and realign my thinking. He is an advocate of personal transformation to overcome problems, but it was something tiny he said (that he probably doesn’t remember that he said), separate from any major soul exploration, that changed everything for me. Three words, randomly dropped into the middle of a conversation: “There is more”.

Stupidly powerful. Of course there is, says that astute, educated, well-balanced reader, mocking my ineptitude and scoffing and my imaginary plight. And now I’m free of that negative bubble of thought, I mock me too. The old me of course; don’t dare mock the new me, the new me is awesome and will punch you in an uncomfortable location.

There really is more, more to everything, and more to thinking if there is more. The more already exists around you in some capacity, and it takes a simple realignment of how you view your world to start appreciating things as you should. My QLC ended as abruptly as it began, as I began to embrace and even seek opportunity for responsibility, acknowledging that life as an adult was, albeit shockingly, nothing like anything I had imagined.

Unfortunately, my growth created tension with those I still associated with, who were either in the middle of their own QLC or had yet to acknowledge their QLC. They saw my turn towards adulthood with pride as a challenge to their mental situation, and in turn alienated me. Instead of seeing (or asking if) I had experienced the same, they decided to be vitreous with envy, poisoning what had otherwise been a mutually symbiotic and fun relationship. 4 different “friends” did this to me, because they were so overcome by the “struggles” of their QLC. I hope they eventually got passed it, and if not, I hope they enjoy being perpetually stuck wishing they were still little kids.

Our parents and teachers tried to create a world for us; one free of mindless violence, debilitating failure, and other emotionally scary things. They sought to create an emotional sandbox for us, a place where we could dig, play, and ultimately build ourselves perfect little castles. They failed to mention that sand is a shitty construction tool, something as weak and common as rain eventually destroys anything you build, and everyone once in a while, a cat takes a dump in your sandbox.

The cat turd is metaphorical. It’s not all philosophical cat turds, but there are plenty out there, waiting for you to shovel up and build them into your castle walls.

I’ll save the real fecal humor for another time. My point is, the world our elders created does not exist. It exists in parts, here and there, and at times you can find perfect solace or happiness in a person or activity. But to assume your whole life will be that way is self-destructive folly. It is this disillusionment that fuels most QLCs; the lofty dreams you’ve been pining after over for 4, long, gruelling years are finally about to be realized…at $32,000 a year.

I think that most QLCs stem from one of two reasons: people lying to themselves about who they are and what they want, and people expecting more of themselves than reasonable. Out of college you aren’t worth very much. You’re thrown into a pool of other possible applicants hundreds of thousands deep. There is barely any water for you to swim in and you’re too concerned with not drowning to consider getting out of the pool. So you flail about stupidly, hoping someone moves from their position creating a slightly better situation for you, or something eventually reaches down to grab your arm and free you from the fleshy, watery tomb.

I’m here to tell you, as countless self-help books, and people who don’t suck also will: No one is coming. It’s on you. Not a single person is coming that will help you get where you want to go. Sure, people, your parents, your friends, might come help you towel off or give you some floaties, but eventually it’s back in that pool for you. Even if someone you know gives you a job, you’re still nowhere, as you’ve achieved nothing of note, and still need to perform to keep or advance in said job. Until you start actually trying to swin and moving along through that pool, you won’t be satisfied, and won’t achieve anything worth bragging about at the 5 year high school reunion which is totally coming up so you should like, lose some weight.

If and when you do manage to doggy paddle to the deep end, you’ll find it’s much less crowded, as all the other people either decided that swimming sucks and gave up, or just straight up drowned. If you’re anything like me, you’ll be better for the hard work, and you might even get a few minutes to casually backstroke around in your new found freedom.

Comfort Level

March 3, 2011 · by Oliver Gray

When you injure yourself, you learn a new language. The syntax of this language is number representations of ideas; pain is gauged on a subjective scale of 1-10, progress is measured in proprietary, illogical measurements of negative degrees, and exercises are doled out in 30 second increments.

Twice a week I am asked “where I am” and I respond obediently with “3” or “5” depending on the day. I quickly added this new linguistic subset into my own verbal lexicon, growing to understand how and why it functions the way it does. I’ve tried to explain pain and can say that it is nearly impossible to describe to someone who hasn’t felt it, so an abstract scale somehow works.

Pain can be tolerated and mitigated. I am nearing the 6 month anniversary of my injury (hooray for arbitrary celebrations for unremarkable lengths of time!) and am happy to announce that my pain is dramatically lower than it was when my bone was in many, many fragments. I still have days where I feel like the metal in my arm is being assimilated into the Borg Collective, but fortunately those days are becoming a rarity. With meditation, breathing exercises, visual distractions, mental distractions, coffee, beer, happy pills (and many other things I can’t think of because of the happy pills) pain can be nearly negated.

Unlike pain, there is something that comes with being badly injured that few mention, probably because it is masked by or confused with pain. While you can manage and reduce pain, there is no way to improve your level of comfort. If you are uncomfortable, you are uncomfortable; no medication or distraction can bring you any solace.

Normally, when you are uncomfortable, you can make a slight alteration to your environment or placement in said environment and be comfortable again in short order. When you are cold, you can put on a long-sleeve shirt, if your butt is numb, you can move to a more comfortable chair. But when the discomfort is inside your skeletal system, you can do nothing. Your most comfortable outfit doesn’t help, resting in a certain position is impossible for any length of time, and what was once mundane becomes awkward and clumsy as discomfort quickly sets in.

It seems trivial and shallow to complain about something as minor as being uncomfortable. Discomfort is almost always short lived which makes it seem like nothing; try being uncomfortable in the same capacity for 6 months. It becomes a big deal at about the 2 month mark. Persisting numbness in fingers is annoying, painful, and limiting. The inability to sleep without waking up every hour or so to reposition is maddening for a single night; on the 180th night your sanity has long since unraveled. Frustration mounts and eventually overflows until you sort of rewire your brain to accept that you can’t be comfortable the same way you used to be.

It is vexing and humbling, but most importantly, it gives you perspective. I took for granted getting cozy next to a fire with a book and being able to play with my cats as if I were a cat myself. I can now appreciate what even more disabled people have to suffer through; especially those who suffered their injuries years into their lives.

The next time you have a paper cut that stings for a few days, or a bruise that aches for a week, imagine that feeling lasting indefinitely. Appreciate the times when you are pain free and can be comfortable if you so choose. Wear clothes that fit well and flail your joints about with reckless abandon. You never know when you might not be able to anymore.

Good role model.

Excuses are like Elbows…

January 20, 2011 · by Oliver Gray

…everyone has a couple that they bend and flex to reach for what they want or push away what they don’t. I seem to be surrounded by people making excuses and bending their elbows, spending more time coming up with reasons as to why they can’t or didn’t do something than actually doing whatever it is they need to do.

Television is bogged down with shows about people making excuses as to why they’re fat, why they’re angry, why they’re damaged, or why they’re stupid. Every corner I turn has someone new making an excuse about why they did a crappy job, let someone down, or diffused responsibility inappropriately. I overhear coworkers blaming their personal deficiencies on others and proverbially throwing people under the bus, so that they don’t have to face any semblance of reality. It is actually so common an occurrence that I am taken aback when someone displays maturity and takes responsibility for their actions.

My weekly visits with the wizards are like huge excusefests, where every single person is either complaining that something involves a slight amount of work or outright refusing to do something because it is too hard. Most people go to physical therapy to fix some kind of problem, so avoiding doing the work to fix said problem seems counterintuitive. It is almost infuriating to hear these people prattle on about how unfair it is that they haven’t made any progress, when they just stand around half-assing all of the exercises that the trained medical professional with decades of experience tell them will help their recovery.

On top of becoming more accepting of laziness, rudeness, and idiocy, our society has also become far too tolerant of people making excuses. Most of the excuses aren’t even clever or original, they are just whiny generalities spewed forth whenever someone doesn’t want to try something. Married your spouse in a rush knowing nothing about them and now regret it deeply? Just get a divorce, why waste the time and energy to fix the relationship. Got fat from a lack of discipline, exercise, and an understanding of nutrition? Screw eating right and fitness, slap a lap-band on that stomach and get to losing that front-butt. Perhaps the root cause is the decline of the virtue of patience, but a culture that glorifies instant gratification also promotes giving up instead of practice and perseverance.

Some of us either don’t have the option or the lack of pride to simply give up when something becomes challenging. Some of us have broken excuses and elbows. I am not comfortable actively dodging my responsibilities and certainly believe that hard work is necessary for success in many cases. In the past 6 weeks, I have gained 20 degrees of movement in my busted-ass elbow (1o in each direction), with an almost 45 degree increase overall. This doesn’t sound like much, but when you consider that I only had 5 degrees of movement total when I got my cast off a few months ago, it is quite an achievement.

It fills me with a sense of satisfaction. I can honestly say that, regardless or anything else going on in my life, I have worked towards something meaningful. Progress is admittedly slower than I expected, but at the end of the day, even a 1 degree increase is something to celebrate. I truly enjoy working hard, whether with the wizards, in the loathsome office, or at my cheery little home; I can fall asleep at night, exhausted by a sense of satisfaction.

I wonder what sense of accomplishment excuses-makers have. While immediate, easy gratification or validation is nice at times, it hardly leaves a lasting sense of value. Do they know the exciting energy of finally nailing every note in a song that you have been practicing for months? Do they get the warm-fuzzies when someone genuinely thanks them for all the help they have selflessly put forth? Do they even acknowledge that hard work can lead to an overwhelming sense of self worth?

I worry that the children of my generation may not know the awesome feeling of real achievement, and will only loosely associate the word with meaningless victories and participation trophies. It will be a sad day for them when they realize that despite all of their parent’s/teacher’s/coach’s/tutor’s/piano instructor’s/therapist’s reassurance that everyone is a winner, there are in fact losers. Participation doesn’t count for shit if you don’t finish the game.

Everyone is a winner or alive enough to be handed a trophy!

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

December 1, 2010 · by Oliver Gray

Despite popular belief that has been perpetuated by popular TV, you do not need to be a barfly, womanizer, or functional alcoholic to maintain a healthy circle of friends; you need only injury yourself and find the nearest physical therapy office. After only a few sessions, the reception staff, therapists, trainers, interns and other patients know you and many details about your life quite well. Perhaps it is the caring nature of those who choose rehabilitation as a career or the innate empathy that is offered to injured people that creates and atmosphere of acceptance and serenity.

The typical Physical Therapy office is a magical, mystical place filled with colored putties and odd machines, the purpose of which you can only loosely surmise. There are kindly wizards who will zap your injuries with lightning and other benevolent assistants clad in identical vestments, presumably undergoing some sort of neophytic wizarding ritual. Aside from those who provide the care, the office is normally filled with the everyday citizens of all the neighboring kingdoms; trolls, goblins, gremlins, kobolds, gnolls, creeping oozlings, ogres, bandits, brigands, nameless horrors and even a unicorn or two.

Combining a bunch of strangers experiencing varying amounts of pain in one small location seems like a bad idea. I can imagine a scenario where someone would go ballistic from acute pains causing more pain to themselves and nearby pain sufferers. The person going berserk might topple some heavy equipment and scare the older patients. The cataclysmic cascade of pain would create a veritable chaos unseen since the dark ages. Fortunately, despite mentally debilitating pain and discomfort, the patients in a PT office are generally benign. Whether it be the the overtly friendly staff, bright lighting, or subtle background music, something keeps the place surprisingly upbeat. I tend to stay optimistic as I know that wallowing in a mire of sadness and self-pity won’t make my arm any more flexible; maybe this is the prevailing mentality for all patients. Maybe the wizards cast a happy spell every morning; I don’t know, I’ve never caught them in their robes.

The exercises you are given are tedious and irritating, mostly because you feel so awkward doing them. Normally, bicep curls would not bother me, but when you are grimacing and awkwardly jerking around a bar that weighs a paltry 3 pounds, you feel quite silly. You are also provided a little timer that beeps when you are supposed to stop/switch an exercise. This is your inanimate guide to a PT session, chirping loudly when you are to move along. The therapists actually do very little during the first 80% of each session and spend most of their time floating about like factory foreman, pointing out flaws in technique or suggesting you, “slow down”. I think some of the wizards underestimate my magical aptitude.

During this time, you are often doing a repetitive motion that requires almost no cognitive processing power, leaving your mind to wander and think about the mysteries of the universe. My metaphysical pondering is often interrupted by a nearby goblin asking me how I got injured and then launching into an unsolicited 22 minute rant about how they got injured. I am usually bored/tired enough to play along, commiserating and saying, “aww” when appropriate. This seems to be the M.O. for the unchaperoned portion of a PT session. Patients ramble quietly too each other, reminiscing about pre-injury days until their beeper goes off/runs out of batteries. The wizards do not like it when the beeper is not silenced immediately which is understandable, as it is pretty damn annoying.

This week, I met a man who has been in therapy for 8 months because, and I quote, “someone tried to kill him but didn’t”. His story is quite compelling; he was mugged at a gas station for the $8 in his wallet and left bloodied for 2 hours until another customer found him. He had trauma to his neck, back, left forearm, and right leg. He is a fan of Real Madrid and told me he lost $500 to his nephew in a holiday-time bet that they would beat local rivals Barcelona. He is a pretty nice dude and I don’t know why someone would want to kill him. I hope the wizards fix him quickly.

Another woman, who seems to have a schedule identical to mine, is recovering from back surgery. She slipped a disk in her back at work (she is a registered nurse and probably has the worst bedside manner on the east coast) and now claims to have horrible burning sensations in both her legs. She moves quite well despite this claim, but does a fine job of whining non-stop throughout her entire appointment. When asked why she wasn’t taking her pain medication, she told them to, “stop trying to make her an addict” and said hydrocodone (Vicodin) would let the doctors, “control her brain.” The wizards clearly dislike her.

I also met the local commander of law; he had injured himself in a high speed horse chase or something. He had already had one knee replaced and was planning to have the other replaced as soon as he recovered from the first. His son plays hockey which, according to this man, was superior to soccer in every possible way. I did not argue with him, because he had a gun and handcuffs. The wizards seemed dismayed that he only came to appointments when he felt like it (which apparently was not very often).

After the social time is over, one of the therapists comes over to you to cast some healing spells and zap you with lightning. The lightning is not too painful, but the other things they do are very, very painful. They will apply heat and then bend your injured extremity at extreme angles. They will make you resist their attempts to bend your joint all about to “test strength”. They will even squeeze, rub, and otherwise man-handle your poor, sore appendage to stimulate nerve activity and blood flow. This goes on for about 25-30 minutes. When they are finally finished with their work, you kind of don’t like wizards for a while, but that feeling wears off when you realize they were actually hurting you for your benefit…somehow.

Twice a week you visit the wizard and meet your new, odd friends in the clean-smelling office. Twice a week you are told the same stories or get minor updates on how many degrees a person can bend something or other. Twice a week you spend money to let someone physically hurt you. It’s a very weird phenomenon, but given my progress thus far, a very necessary one.

The wizards gave me some magical clay to help speed my recovery. It is hard to sculpt, but I tried anyway (since that is probably good therapy). I have included some pictures of its awesomeness below:

I meticulously shaped it into a tofu cube.

Then I made it into a cobra, which in retrospect looks a little like a poo.

The poo-snake transformed into a sea turtle with a dented shell.

And then the turtle changed into the goddamn Batman.