THE SERPENT AND THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE

Well, before you call me an idiot and ask what the fuck I was thinking let me tell you this: I love snakes. Although the charm has worn off since I was bitten while trying to make friends with a copperhead I met on the UNC campus about six years ago.

All of the pet snakes I had in high school including a ball python and a red-tailed boa constrictor were much friendlier, and I guess I simply forgot about the orneriness of their poisonous cousins. The polite term for this is "mis-identification."

OK, enough disclaimers, let's talk about the PAIN!

Since I tried to pick it up (succeeded, actually) the logical reaction of the snake was to bite my hands. This happened faster than I could think; I was bitten on my left thumb and both of my pointer fingers before I dropped the snake_which was the desired effect. Most of the snake's venom came out in the first bite on my thumb.

My initial reaction was to go wash my hands, get a Band-Aid for the puncture wounds (I still thought I had picked up a harmless corn snake), and continue on to the party I was headed to (at the Pink House, sniff). Fortunately, I was with Caroline, summer-camp-counselor and close friend, who had other ideas. She walked me toward the UNC medical complex.

As we walked through the woods the bites started stinging painfully and Caroline told me to hold my hands above my head. I began to accept that this was not a flesh wound. The second mistake I made (first being picking up the snake) was to go to Student Health Services rather than directly to the hospital.

The first thing they did at SHS was to hold my hands alternately in ice water and under a cold faucet and squeeze my fingers to get the venom out (apparently this has the opposite effect, spreading the venom through the system). They also drew a line on my arm with a ballpoint pen and noted the time (to track future swelling). I was then put into a wheelchair a rolled through the bowels of UNC Hospitals until I arrived in the Emergency Room where things began to go a little better.

The first very cool thing was that the doctor on duty just happened to be a snake bite expert. The second cool thing was that he immediately told me I was not going to die. I had been wondering about this up to that point, so this really helped me to relax and to put things into perspective.

Then he gave me the choice of taking anti-venom, which might produce fatal shock or waiting it out and letting my body do the work. I chose the option that did not include the possibility of my death and I must say that I have incredibly renewed faith in the power of the human body, as the rest of my tale should demonstrate.

In the hospital room, my arms were hung straight up in the air to slow the rapid swelling. I looked like Frankenstein. Sure enough, the swelling had passed my wrists and was making for my elbows like it wouldn't stop, so the I.V. had to be inserted in my foot. The I.V. was for morphine, but the pain still didn't stop for days and days.

But I did forget about it and just about everything else while I was hooked up. They have this rigged so that you can give yourself an extra hit (one per hour) by pressing a red button. Since my hands were completely bandaged up, I was suited with a special contraption with a big lever instead, which I mashed with my elbow.

Taking morphine was like being in a thick bubble. I could fall asleep in the middle of my own sentences and would often hear conversations around me when I was asleep. That is to say: I wasn't really awake or asleep.

After about 3 days, they let me go home with a prescription for Percaset and some antibiotics. Oh, and a pair of slings which my dad attached to the ceiling above my bed. At this point, my hands were still bandaged tight (very tight - my doctor was a sadist) so I couldn't do much for myself. Let's all take this moment to thank our parents for doing stuff for us that would make even the closest of friends vomit or slap us.

Over time, the bitten areas began to swell and turn black. The copperhead venom was digesting my flesh on the bone. This hurt a lot. But on the plus side, it was really grotesque and a source of endless entertainment for my friends and me.

We watched this progress for a few weeks; death crept over my fingers and swelled until it looked like an oversized black wax replica of my original thumb with a nasty dead fingernail on the end. My doctors at UNC said the black stuff would eventually start to come off by itself, like a scab. They said I would lose everything above and including the upper joint of my thumb. The stump outlook did not sound good to my grandmother, who forced me to get a second opinion at Duke. (This was almost the third big mistake.)

They recommended that I cut off the end of my thumb as soon as possible (rather than wait for it to come off naturally) to avoid infection. They suggested several prosthetic options including having my hand sewn inside my stomach to generate a flesh digit (a.k.a. "hot dog") or removing one of my big toes and molding it into a thumb. Read that paragraph again. I was mortified.

My grandmother urged me to seriously consider these alternatives, but I had already grown accustomed to the nickname "Stumpy" and eventually my veto of the Duke suggestions stuck. I refused to argue it further once we got home.

There were two surprises when the black flesh (Can you say "gangrene?" I knew you could) came off. First was that it hadn't been as deep as the doctors initially thought. Most of my thumb was alive and happily regenerating itself underneath (including a brand new fingernail) with no help from any surgery, drugs or doctors.

The second surprise was that a little piece of bone at the tip of my thumb wasn't digested as much as the flesh and was left exposed. This was very painful, so a plastic surgeon cut open my thumb and trimmed the bone back. They don't seem to have trimmed enough, though, because it's still very close to the surface and hurts if I hit it.

That pain and the funky shape of my thumb and fingernail will ensure that this lesson will not be forgotten: poisonous snakes have pointy heads and don't make good companion animals!

PAIN RELIEVER?

I had spent the night with my current girlfriend and had woken up with the beginnings of a cold. You know the routine, sore throat, congestion and a really nasty headache. So I asked my girlfriend if she had anything for me to take and she produced some Advil™. Since I was running late for work at the bike shop, I hastily grabbed a couple of tablets and ran out the door with my bike to head to work. Once outside I popped the pills into my mouth and swallowed. That is where my troubles began.

The headache cleared away; however, it felt as if I had something stuck in my throat so I kept drinking cup after cup of water to no avail. Later that afternoon it progressed from just an annoying lump-like feeling to genuine pain. All along I kept attributing this feeling to the postnasal drip from my cold. I left work early that day and went home to rest.

The pain in my throat kept getting worse and worse. The next morning I was not able to swallow anything except for the fluids I forced down. It was extremely painful but I had to get some nourishment.

I should mention at this time that I had no health insurance at all so I was resisting going to the doctor at all possible costs. But eventually the pain got so bad that I called my doctor, who agreed to see me that afternoon. The doctor assumed that it was just a bad case of heartburn and gave me a cup full of Mylanta™ to drink. I must admit I was extremely reluctant to drink this stuff down since it has the consistency of thin cement and I could hardly drink water at this point. But the doctor assured me that it would be fine. So I drank it down. I could feel the thick goo rolling slowly down my throat until it got to the point that I could feel the pain. It was so intense that I nearly passed out. The doctor told me to lay down (I think she was afraid I would pass out) and she scheduled an emergency upper GI for the next morning at Rex. Total cost of doctor visit $48.00. Here is where the fun starts.

The next morning my sister drives me to Rex Hospital's Outpatient Surgery Center. When I am at the admitting desk I ask the admitting nurse how much this is going to cost: $100. So now I'm up to $148.00 and thinking that is not that bad.

An upper GI consists of a specialist taking a fiber optic camera, stuffing it down your throat and looking around for whatever. You need to be conscious enough to respond to commands; however you also need to be unconscious enough so you don't gag. They shoot me full of just enough Demerol and Valium so I don't pass out, pump my stomach full of air and stuff this long black tube with a light on it down my throat. The whole procedure takes about 30 minutes and I don't really remember much about it because of the drugs.

The next thing I remember is laying in the recovery room and a nurse helping me get out of the bed. As soon as I stood up I let out the biggest belch I have ever had, I mean it lasted at least a minute, maybe more. The doctor came in and asked if I had dry swallowed any pills lately. So I told him of the Advil™. He explained to me that you should never, ever swallow dry pills. What had happened to me was that one of the pills I had taken had gotten stuck in the mucus membrane in my esophagus and dissolved there, eating a small hole in the wall of my esophagus. He told me that it'll heal up in a few days, put me on a liquid diet until I was healed, proscribed Zantac™ and Tylenol 4™ with Codeine for pain. For a memento, he gave me two postcard size photos from the procedure: one from inside my stomach looking up my esophagus and the other of the actual hole in my throat. I thought, cool, for $148.00 I just got full color photos of my insides.

My sister drove me to the drugstore to pickup my drugs which came to about $30.00 (Zantac™ was prescription only then). So now the total bill was $178.00, but I still had these cool photos.

About a week later the hole healed up I could eat normal food and I had these really cool photos which I never hesitated to show to anyone, strangers in the street even. All the while explaining the dangers of dry swallowing pills. At about the same time bills started coming in. Hospital lab bill, $252; hospital supply bill $137.56 (those gauze sponges are expensive); anesthesiologist, $548; and the kicker of it all, Cary Gastroenterological $2128. So now my total charges are $3243.56. But I had learned my lesson about dry swallowing pills, could preach the dangers to the masses and I had some REALLY COOL FULL COLOR PHOTOS OF MY INSIDES.

Right after receiving the bill from the Gastroenterological I was a bit depressed because I had no idea how I was going to pay for it. I decided to do what I often do when feeling down, go to the NC State Fairgrounds Flea Market.

It was a nice warm sunny Sunday. I hopped into my car, rolled down the windows and drove out of my neighborhood towards the fairgrounds. I had just passed the Nello Teer Quarry and had crossed Crabtree Creek when it happened. A sudden gust of wind blew into the car, picked up my photos and whipped them around and out the driver's side window.

I was distraught. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw them tumbling off the opposite side of the road next to the bridge. I decided that the only thing to do was to stop do a U turn and find them. I stopped and tried to do a U turn. But since my 1966 Comet does not have power steering it has the turning radius of a large truck and I ended up in the ditch on the opposite side of the road.

I tried desperately to get one of the cars passing by to stop and call a tow truck and after about 15 minutes a young woman stopped and said she would "call somebody". About twenty minutes later a Raleigh police officer showed up and asked if anyone had called a "wrecker." I told him that a women told me she would "call somebody." We started directing traffic around my car since its rear end was blocking the lane of Duraleigh heading toward Glenwood and it was not visible to oncoming traffic.

After another half-hour of this a Wake County Sheriff showed up and he set up flares and started directing traffic from the other side. About that time one of those sudden spring afternoon thunderstorms came through. It poured for a good twenty minutes. I tried to be optimistic about my photos but I had the feeling that they were gone for good.

The first cop came up to me and asked where that tow truck was. I told him again about the woman who had stopped and said she would "call somebody". All the sudden he gets this look on his face like someone just hit him in the head. He gets on his radio and calls in to the station. It turns out that the woman who had stopped nearly two hours earlier didn't call a tow truck; she called the police. That's why the first cop came in the first place. So he gets dispatch at the station to call in for a tow. Fifteen minutes later a truck shows up and pulls my car out of the ditch, $45.

Now this whole pill incident is up to $3288.56, and I don't have the photos. I was bound and determined to find those photos and spent to nearly 9 PM that day looking for them down Crabtree Creek but never found them.

The moral to this story is: If you can't afford health insurance, don't dry swallow pills.

FREE FOOD AT HARDEE'S

This happened in late fall of 1993 in Wilmington NC. There used to be a cool dive type of bar on the north end of the UNCW campus called The Patio. It was right behind Hardees on College Rd and is now a Dominoes Pizza.

The Patio used to have happy hours on Wed and Fri nights, $3 cover all you could drink crappy draft beer from 7-10 PM, that literally every student who drank at UNCW went to. Afterwards everyone would file into (hurry on down to) Hardees for some food.

On one Friday I went to The Patio as usual and at 10:00 walked out and headed over to Hardees with a friend and fellow swimmer, Art. As we were making our way through the crowd we saw two girls, Tracy and Patty, obviously drunker than us, leaving Hardees with a bag full of sausage biscuits and getting on bicycles to ride back to the dorm.

Patty was carrying the food and as she pedaled off she lost her balance and started off into a slow spiral, doing smaller and smaller circles until she fell face first into the parking lot. She was laughing uncontrollably until she hit the pavement. It was kind of surreal to watch and everybody laughed right along with her until she sat up.

Patty had somehow or another split her face wide open and I'm being literal here. She had a deep cut that started just below her right eye going diagonally down her face through her nose to just left of center on her chin. She had lost 6-8 teeth, her upper lip was split through her right nostril and her lower lip was split down to her chin. It looked like something out of a horror film. Tracy was screaming her head off and Patty was sitting there on the ground bleeding profusely, in shock just saying "Oh shit, my teeth!" Art and I being the closest people to her and trained in first aid started to help her. Art took of his jacket and covered Patty to keep her warm. Either Art or I got someone to go to the payphone and call 911. I went into Hardees to get some napkins and ice.

In Hardees I grabbed an entire napkin dispenser and went to the counter and asked for some ice. The girl behind the counter gave me a water cup with some ice in it. I said thanks, but I need a lot of ice there is someone hurt in the parking lot. She kept insisting that I could not have anything other than a water cup full of ice. I told her I would pay for 2 large cups of ice and she said she couldn't do that. Finally I had her get the manager who gave me the 2 cup large cups of ice. I should mention that I had blood all over my hands but the stupid girl behind the counter didn't get it.

Anyway I go back outside with the napkins and ice and Art and I start taking care of Patty's wounds. We tell Tracy to start looking for Patty's teeth of which she found one (we assume she swallowed the rest) and told her to go into Hardees and buy some milk to put it in. Art and I are getting bloody as hell. We had blood up to our elbow and all over our clothes. We had Patty lie down because she said she was going to pass out. About that time the ambulance showed up and the EMTs took over.

Tracy was all concerned about the bikes and Patty thanked us for helping her out and was concerned about our clothes.

As they were getting in the ambulance Art looked at me and said "I don't think she'll be wanting those biscuits" and picked up the bag. After all, that is why we were going to Hardees in the first place.

Art put his jacket back on that was soaked with blood, immediately took it off again and started complaining about how his new Carolina blue jacket was ruined.

We got on Tracy and Patty's bikes and rode back to the dorms. When we showed up there our suite mates were sitting in the suite room watching TV. Art and I walk in covered in blood and everybody starts asking us what happened. We both reach into the Hardees bag and start eating the biscuits and tell them what had happened. All of the sudden everybody starts looking at us like they are going to vomit. I ask what is wrong and one of the guys in the room says "Don't you think you should wash up before you eat that?" Art and I, being drunk, had completely forgot that we were covered in blood.

I looked down at the biscuit in my bloody hand took another bite and said "I suppose we should".

WHAT I DID ON MY CHRISTMAS VACATION

Rarely have I been so relaxed as I was the hour or so after every thought in my head had been knocked out the passenger side window of my ex-Rodeo by a Bronco pulling a load of Christmas trees. I thought the green arrow meant I could go. He, of course, was able to drive away thanks to the conservation of momentum. I must've been knocked a good way_the accident report had me one lane over from where I actually was.

The EMT's were treated to a long explanation of why I knew Clinton was president because, you see, I voted for him.

The relaxation part helps you deal with waking up in a sea of glass with the dash bowed up a foot in front, the fact that you couldn't watch the "jaws of life" because your neck and back are braced, being wheeled out of a busy Augusta intersection at noon the Saturday after Thanksgiving, the carnival ride in the ambulance as the EMT tries to find a vein, the orderlies sliding you along the table in the trauma center (over the small pieces of glass you've brought along), and having your legs held up in the air like a wishbone by orderlies/nurses while a doctor, with a long finger, checks you for intestinal bleeding and the trauma center's director does a TV interview one stall over.

Then you start to shake. I also spent a lot of that hour or so trying to convince myself that my upcoming move to NC was not a dream I'd just woken up from and yesthankGod I was leaving Augusta.

I came out with just a concussion, bruised ribs, and a few scratches (one cut on the head which produced an aesthetically good amount of accident scene blood). Max visual effect with minimal injuries. The seatbelt saved me although it kept me from slumping over and hitting the horn with my head like Faye Dunaway in "Chinatown". That would've been perfect.

As well as things turned out, there were a few downsides. As a bad head injury check, they serve you breakfast to see if you've got an appetite_unfortunately, it's hospital food that you don't really want to eat but have to show you're not nauseated. Concussions suck. You're in a fog for six weeks, constantly tired, and constantly, frantically, trying to remember whose phone number you just dialed before they pick up. As sore as my ribs were, I can't imagine what broken ribs feel like. I'm a photosensitive three-sneeze person and sneezing with bad ribs is hell. I'd just have to drop anything I was carrying, stand still, slumped over with my arms loose, and take it. Trying to suppress sneezes only encourages them to get their muscled-up sneeze friends to try harder.

The strangest thing I've dealt with recently are optical migraine auras. It's like the world is a TV screen and someone's sprayed water on it. The first time I got one I thought it was a spot from headlights on the road but then it started flashing and turned into a crescent and grew and moved out into the peripheral. Mine usually sit (initially) where your eye focuses when you're reading_in my case, anyway, I found out it's the second letter of the word. I had to look off to the side of road signs and read them in the peripheral but your eyes keep wanting to move back to where they've been taught to go. Words just disappear off the page of a book. Closing your eyes just makes the colors and flashing brighter. Sometimes I imagine it as carnival lights reflected in a puddle. Other times it reminds me of the early days of blue screen when the weatherman would wear the wrong color and New Mexico showed up where his tie should've been.

Thankfully, I don't get the headaches.

NEEDED LIKE ANOTHER HOLE IN MY HEAD

I remember my first truly debilitating sinus infection pretty well because a coworker asked me if I "felt all right." To this I replied, "No, I feel like my head was run-over by a truck last night." My coworker then said "You pretty much look like it." Gee thanks... isn't it enough just to feel like hell? I know there are a few chosen people who have been spared this tragic malady, but for those of you who haven't, I hope you find some humor (if not relief) in my nasal misadventures.

I can usually tell it is going to be a painful day by observing the position my head is in upon waking and how difficult it is to regain consciousness. On bad days there are deep creases across my forehead and cheeks because I have apparently been sleeping face down. The alarm also seems very distant, resounding weakly from another dimension. A crusty Rorschach of nocturnally expelled drool usually stains my pillowcase. Looking in the mirror, my eyes appear red, bleary, and clogged with viscous bacterial debris.

The first precursor pains usually start in the shower and feel like slow, dullish-aches behind my eyes. But the steam-heat feels pretty good and usually brings on some world-class snarking along with the production of a thick, multicolored nasal ejecta which appears to all the world like an alien life form. I guess it wouldn't be so bad if things just stopped here. I dress and go to work hoping that the aches are only temporary. But by 11:00 AM, the pain and pressure are well developed and my nasal mucousa seem to writhe in a kind of undulating peristalsis. It actually feels like there are sadistic dwarves with clubs and knives up in there, hacking and hewing away at my bone and tissue. I become dizzy, sensitive to light, and even my teeth start to hurt. So the day is spent in an agonizing trance of maxillofacial tortures. For some reason, late evening often brings on a mild relaxation of the pain. This pattern basically goes on for weeks and weeks.

In the beginning I tried over the counter stuff_Sinutab, Dristan, Tavist-D, Pseudophedrine etc.... but that shit never really worked and tended to whack me out with lame side effects. So I eventually went to a doctor who prescribed antibiotics. The first round seemed effective_I was pain-free in about a week. I quickly developed a victorious "man-over-microbe" attitude and thanked the wonders of modern pharmacology for my pain-free state. This nascent biohubris soon came to a screeching halt after the antibiotics ran out and the pain returned. A second round of treatment was prescribed, this time with a more potent antibiotic. Again the pain subsided, but I started to notice reddish circles on my inner thighs and scrotum. They itched like hell. A quick visit to the doc verified that I had a fungal infection brought on by the depletion of "good" bacteria (which live on the surface of our skin and munch fungi) due to the antibiotics. So, I consumed yogurt en masse and applied Micatin twice daily. This seemed to work for about a week, but then somehow things got worse: I erupted in a full-blown fungal conflagration. Those itchy red circles were now everywhere the sun doesn't shine and the original sores began oozing a freakish pus. My best theory is that the spores had somehow mutated and learned to thrive on Micatin. I tried switching lotions: no good. I applied burning athlete's foot preparations (which feels like a fairly realistic simulation of roasting one's testes over an open flame): negative. Gold Bond Powder: nada amigos. Grain alcohol: nyet druzia. The only solution was to stop taking the antibiotics and apply a product called Mexsana (which is just a glorified form of cornstarch). Needless to say, the sinus pain returned shortly thereafter. What can you do?

I was introduced to the "nose cup" several years ago. One essentially douches the sinuses with this device in the hope that the bacteria are killed off (or at least frightened). It doesn't really work, but it at least gives you the feeling of putting up the good holistic fight. I usually throw some Tea Tree Oil in there along with a product called Alkalol to make it sting and feel fresh (die vermin die!!!) Sometimes I'll just use warm salt water. Yeah, my head still hurts, but at least my balls aren't shedding tissue and I'm not thrashing my immune system to pieces. I guess some terrible combination of inherited cranial morphology, environmental particulates, and inappropriate immune response has conspired to create an organic hell right inside my own head. It sure is tough being a member of meatspace sometimes. I hear there is surgery available to correct chronic sinus pain. They go in there and blast away the scar tissue and open up occluded flesh pockets which serve as nesting grounds for those pesky bacteria. Sounds good to me. I may opt for this someday, but until then, happy douching...

TROUBLES A-BREWIN'

A few years ago I had a systemic yeast infection. To explain it quickly: there's a particular species of yeast that lives in humans, not the same as brewer's yeast or bread yeast. It's the same organism that causes vaginal yeast infections, but mostly it lives in your colon—that's right, even guys (such as me) can have a yeast infection. The yeasts digest the sugars from the food in the intestines, basically finishing our leftovers, and release toxic waste products; these waste products are absorbed into the human blood stream in turn, and when there's enough of them, the immune system gets bogged down, leading to lots of minor secondary infections, lethargy, and frequently depression. The yeasts also produce gas. In my own case, I was getting sick a lot, I had many sore throats, I got attacks of depression especially after meals, and I had really bad gas, both belching and farting a LOT.

The main way to treat such a problem is with diet. The yeast diet is a pain in the ass. You can't eat any sort of sugar, including lactose and fructose, or any simple starches which break down easily into sugars. Which means not only no candy and dessert, but no dairy products, no fruit, and no white flour. You can't eat any yeast products either—too many residual sugars and similar toxins. So no yeasted breads (even whole grain), no vinegar, and no alcohol. Allowed foods: whole grains, fresh vegetables, meats, seafood, eggs. And yogurt with live cultures (it's dairy, but the cultures compete with the yeast cultures).

Explaining all this to my friends was hard enough (and repetitive). Even beyond the simple guy/yeast infection stumbling block, it was confusing. Most people, I found out, think of disease as something you catch, a virus or a germ. Either your immune system kills it, or you take medicine to kill it, and then it's gone. A systemic yeast infection isn't like that at all: everybody already has these things living in their colons. The yeast organisms are only a problem when, usually due to bad habits like drinking homebrew or taking too many antibiotics_and drinking_or just eating the wrong things for too long, they become overpopulated and produce more toxins than you're prepared to handle. The diet doesn't get rid of them, but eventually starves them back to a manageable level.

But it was even harder living with it than explaining it. It's almost impossible to eat out, and normal concepts of what a meal is supposed to be are totally shattered. Fortunately, I already liked oatmeal and brown rice, but I felt imprisoned in the kitchen. Plus, you're supposed to eat many smaller meals a day (so you use up the food as you need it, instead of carrying around surplus yeast-food in your gut), so you have to cook constantly.

And what I ended up doing was undereating. I got the hang of the smaller meal thing, but it was either too small or not frequent enough. I lost way too much weight and showed no signs of stopping until my doctor sent me to a nutritionist. She asked what was I was eating, and when I told her she said "eat more."

This was the most eye-opening and, honestly, embarrassing thing about the whole ordeal for me: here I am "being good," being so disciplined and doing what's best for me, trying so hard to get better, and really seeing some results_and I end up starving myself. I effectively had an eating disorder, although fortunately a temporary one. The weirdest thing about it was that I never FELT hungry; all I knew is that once I changed my diet (and consequently changed my whole daily routine) I felt different, and for the most part different felt better. Once I got clued in, I had to relearn what hungry felt like, what bodily state corresponded to the word "hungry" and the behaviors "hungry" required. Sound crazy? It's kind of like watching the floor tilt up to hit your face before you can realize you've lost your balance—it makes perfect sense in retrospect, but as it's happening you've got no bearings. Even the most basic, "natural" sorts of physical experience have to get interpreted before you can act on them.

Fortunately, a year and a half! of diet and medicine worked. I still don't eat a lot of sugary foods, but I can when I want to, and I can drink and eat out. I feel better.

A LITTLE SLICE OF LIFE

Several years ago, when I was at the height of my frenetic mom/teacher/try-to-form-new-social-bonds-post-divorce syndrome, I inadvertently did something nasty to my body.

I can recall very clearly the sense of being rushed to beat the first bell as I sliced one-inch strips from a stack of construction paper for some math/art project I had in mind. I push the stack into the oversized paper cutter with my left hand, try to keep it straight, moving at a brisk rate because I didn't want to be late for my First Period class. There was no guardrail on the paper cutter and in my usual frugal mode, I mindlessly went for the final one-inch slice. In an instant, I saw myself doing something I found hard to comprehend. As I slammed down the cutter, I surgically removed a fair portion of my left index finger.

It didn't hurt a bit! This was a clean whack_one which any surgeon would have been proud to have made. (I don't suppose that the manufacturers of paper cutters would consider using this as an advertising gimmick.) I looked at my finger and calmly noted that there was no blood, but that a fair part of me was gone and I must have cut pretty near the bone. It then occurred to me that I ought to find that piece of me and try to put myself back together.

People talk of out-of-body experiences and I guess that is what I was having as fear, disbelief and concern mingled in my brain and I frantically searched through the colorful red strips of paper for the missing piece of me. After what felt like minutes but must have been seconds, I found an oval shaped hunk of whitish flesh. I still wasn't bleeding.

Although I am not ordinarily obsessed with sanitary techniques, I rushed to the teachers' lounge, figuring that I ought to at least rinse both my cut finger and the piece of me before putting the two together. It was momentarily daunting as I pondered which way to turn the elliptical piece of flesh. Would the finger cells be unhappy if I got things reversed? Would they insist on dwelling side-by-side with only formerly neighboring cells from a few minutes ago?

By this time the bell had rung and my finger had finally started to bleed_in relative profusion. So... should I rush to the office, ask for an instant substitute, thereby shafting whatever co-teacher had a planning period so that I could rush to a doctor's office? Or do I bear this burden alone? Perhaps an aversion to admitting my carelessness made me choose the latter.

I wrapped my finger in paper towels and wound some masking tape around the glob. Throughout the day I responded to questions from my students honestly. Into my "mom mode," I figured that maybe I would "teach them a lesson" in safety.

Later that evening I discussed the experience with a trusted friend who put the fear of God in me with the word tetanus. At 10 pm I drove to the nearest 24 hour "Doctor-in-a-box" facility. I was told that it was too late for sewing me together_six hours is about the limit between accident and attaching body parts with good chance for success. I did get a tetanus shot, however.

A few weeks later, the shriveled up piece of me dropped off and a nice smooth scar had formed. The finger lacked sensation where it had been sliced and I resigned myself to being disfigured and numb forever. At least it was not in a prominent place. Maybe a year later, I noticed that I did have feeling in the finger after all. All those happy little nerve endings had eventually resolved the problem which I had created.

I surmised that there must be a fair number of us teachers wandering around with identical portions of our left index fingers missing because these days all the paper cutters I see now have guard rails to protect future generations of teachers. Did I miss a chance at a million-dollar lawsuit?

HARD TO SWALLOW

It seems like the evangelists of medicine are always cramming down our throats how far they have progressed in their science. They always rattle off lists of diseases and disorders that have been banished from the earth and the great strides they are making in eradicating others. It's wonderful that they are creating these solutions to our imperfect species. I think even more money should be put into research for nightmares like cancer, arthritis, AIDS, etc. My real complaint is how hard it can be to get doctors to explain all your options and provide treatment. I'm not even complaining about insurance. I'm talking about getting the doctor to lay out all your options and provide the best treatment. I recently had to jump through a bunch of hoops to start receiving the correct treatment for my disorder.

Since the age of 16 I have been diagnosed with a disorder called Achalasia.

This is a disorder of the esophagus characterized by the reduced ability to move food down the esophagus and the inability of the lower esophageal sphincter to relax in response to swallowing. Basically, when I try to swallow food it tends to get caught at the bottom of my esophagus. Water usually serves as a good battering ram but often it just adds to the pressure and discomfort if it doesn't pass through. The only way to get rid of it is by throwing up. Bulimics would pay top dollar for my tricks on vomiting in public restrooms.

Causes of Achalasia include damage to the nerves to the esophagus, parasitic infection, and hereditary factors. The doctors still can't decide what was the cause of my condition. They haven't ruled out hereditary but there are no known cases of it in my family history. Parasitic infection hasn't been ruled out either. The parasite known to cause this condition comes from South America and is known to live on marijuana leaves, which I ingested a lot of during high school. My money is on the pot.

When I first started having problems I got shuffled from one "specialist" to another. The first doctor I saw blamed it on nerves and my state of adolescence. Whatever. Through the years I got worse so my parents obtained a referral to one of those doctors that can only be seen with a referral. We'll call this doctor "Dr. Pepsi". Dr. Pepsi ran me through a bunch of tests like an Upper GI and my second true love, the Endoscopy. Those two tests provided results leading to the Achalasia diagnosis. The realization of being fucked for life is not one I'll soon forget.

The doctor performed a series of balloon dilatations (stretching my esophagus from the inside out) but they gave only temporary relief. I eventually had surgery to reconstruct the muscles around my lower esophagus that provided little relief but did give me a lifetime of severe acid reflux. Through all the procedures I followed blindly. I figured he knew what he was doing and I had no alternative.

For a short period of time my frustration motivated me to find another physician, Dr. Coke. He was supposed to be the leading authority on conditions such as Achalasia. He took me through the same tests and procedures as Dr. Pepsi. Unfortunately, he offered no new solutions to my condition and began to focus more on my anemic condition. I was anemic most of the time since I was upchucking the government's recommended daily allowance of vitamins.

I gave up. I was sick of fighting for his attention on what I thought was important. I didn't care that my anemia could be the symptoms of cancer or something else life threatening. I was throwing up so much by then that "life threatening" seemed like an easy way out. I went almost a year without scheduling an appointment even though I was living miserably.

A year and a half ago my life took a sudden unexpected turn for the better. I got married and lucked into an awesome job as a web master for a small software company. My life was great as long as I didn't try to swallow anything! These great changes also brought on lots of frustration. The ever-present dam I possessed inside kept me from enjoying my wife's awesome cooking or even doing something really crazy like going to a restaurant together. A lot of social/food perks come along with my job and not being able to enjoy those would gnaw at me into a depression. I decided to make one last attempt.

During a random search on the Internet I came across a site explaining the research done on a new treatment using the botulism toxin. It involved injecting the botulism toxin into the muscles surrounding the esophagus to paralyze them. I immediately made an appointment with my doctor. When I finally got to see him I side tracked the anemia inquisition and asked about the Botulinium injections. It turned out that they had been doing that kind of treatment for a while.

AHHHH!

I wanted to grab him by the stethoscope and scream "Why didn't you tell me!" Being the submissive patient that I am I politely asked for the treatment.

Several months and lots of voice mail messages went by but nothing had been done. He called me back eventually and set up an appointment for a preliminary test to be done. The test, called a GI Monemetry, involved putting a small tube through my nose, down my esophagus, and into my stomach. He had warned me that they might have to use the endoscopy to push the tube through. With my medical history and that flimsy tube how could one expect it to be done any other way? I even told the nurse she might as well get a doctor ready with the endoscopy. The tube of course got nowhere near my stomach. The nurse went to find my doctor to perform the endoscopy but he had left the building! No other doctor was available. They sent me home with an unfulfilled test but a complete and thorough billing.

Eventually, I received the treatment that I wanted that I requested! It worked. The injections are only temporary and I will have to get another operation soon. I still have trouble once in a while but my swallowing has improved greatly. Restaurants and breakfast are no longer the final frontier. I would like to say Dr. Coke is one of the best doctors I have ever had (Dr. Pepsi was an ass!). He is one of the most holistic and personable physicians I have ever dealt with. Whether it was the doctor's fault or the way medicine is run today is a pointless argument. You have to take responsibility for knowing what is wrong with you and what options there are to treat it. A few hours of reading can save months, years, even a lifetime of problems. Bon Appetite!

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