I come from a long line of hypochondriacs. Ok, actually it's just me and my Dad. My Dad is much, much worse than I am. Every year he goes to The Mayo Clinic for like a week and has them run a battery of tests. He gets real jazzed about it too. He tells people he's going to Mayo like I tell people I'm going to Mexico.
When I was younger, I was the kind of person who would hear about some crazy disease and decide I had it. This became a complicated obsession when I worked with people who had mental health issues and started asking people if they thought I had borderline personality disorder. I remember the clinical psychologist who I consulted on cases with peering at me and saying, "Do you think you have borderline personality disorder?"
No. I didn't think I had borderline personality disorder any more than I truly believed I had heart disease, diverticulitis or HIV, all diseases I have at one time been convinced I had.
So when I said, "My back hurts when I swallow" on Thanksgiving in 1998, my mother and brother rolled their eyes and mockingly said, "Oh Dresden, you're probably dying. Do we need to call 9-1-1?" That's fair and I don't blame them for making fun of me. I shut my mouth but was still baffled by the sharp stabbing pain in my back. I decided that I was getting my period and it was just cramps. When I lay down to go to sleep that night, I immediately began struggling to breathe. I felt myself panicking but being a trained actor means you're a trained breather. I steadied my breathing and fell asleep.
In the morning, I felt better but my lungs felt heavy and sluggish. I have a history of asthma and was a fucking smoker at the time, so I dismissed it. My mother and I went to see the film American History X, which I hated so very much. Dear God, I hated that awful, ridiculous movie. My breathing was so labored that my mother leaned over and asked me if I wanted to leave. I said, "No, I need to see how this piece of shit ends." After the film, I attempted to walk up the stairs to the bathroom. I made it three steps and couldn't breathe. I turned to my mother and said, "Can you take me to the doctor?"
She rolled her eyes. Remember--I was the child who burst into tears one day because I had convinced myself that I had cancer. However at this point, my pride wasn't an issue. We drove to Urgent Care, which was packed. By the time we were checked in, I could only breathe if I sat and leaned forward. I became hysterical. They finally called me in. The doctor, Dr. Montana, was peering at me and asking me questions.
"You're on birth control pills?"
"Yes."
"And you smoke?"
"Yes."
(Disapproving noise from my mother.)
"Any other symptoms? Pain in your leg?"
I snapped to attention. Holy fucking shit, I had been to Urgent Care twice in the past 2 months because of a horrendous, shooting pain in my left leg. Both times they told me I probably pulled a muscle and told me to take Advil. This, of course, solicited much mocking from my family. "Jesus, Dresden, you're the only person on the planet who goes to the doctor for a pulled muscle."
Dr. Montana decided to send me to the Emergency Room for a lung scan "just to be sure." She had officially diagnosed me with pleurisy, which is a harmless yet painful lung condition. My mother was convinced it was pleurisy, that my leg pain had nothing to do with my breathing and complained that she was hungry.
I realize my mother is coming off like a cold, uncaring woman but the truth is, she isn't like that at all. My parents are polar opposites when it comes to health care. If I sneeze in my father's presence, he frowns at me and asks if I've had a flu shot. If my arms fell off my body in front of my mother, she would tell me to pick my arms up and walk it off. I think it's a callous that builds up after years of dealing with runny noses, kids puking on you, diaper rash, twisted ankles and ear infections. I mean, it was the 80s: our jungle gyms were made of metal and had rusty nails sticking out all over the place. My favorite thing to play on was a giant wooden ship at the park near my house. I'd crawl and run and play and go home with 77 slivers. My father wasn't around for all my stomach flu's, all my sister's bloody noses and all my brother's sports injuries.
A lung scan is a medieval procedure. First they ask you to breathe in radioactive materials. This feels counterproductive so you hesitate. They try to trick you into feeling at ease by explaining that the radioactive material helps them see what's going on. Never mind that "breathe" is a command that isn't easily achieved at this point. Then they tell you to smash your body against a big metal surface and not to move. You have to do this in various positions, most of them awkward. Then they have you lay down so they can give you a shot. FYI, if you have to lay down to get a shot, it ain't gonna be good. They bring out a giant, giant needle. Giant. Then they give you the shot in your veins and it fucking hurts. They are injecting dye into your body that will travel into your lungs. Then they will take more pictures. To be clear, by this point, you have radioactive materials, dye and an unknown assailant in your lung area. That's a lot of shit. After they are through torturing you, you wait forever. It happened to be the day after Thanksgiving, so the tech who reads lung scans was apparently at a relative's home and needed to read the results via e-mail.
My mother began making plans for where we would go to dinner after they determined conclusively that I had pleurisy. Truth be told, the popcorn I'd eaten at the movies was long gone and I was hungry too. I concentrated on breathing with minimal pain, which was impossible for the moment. After what felt like years, a nurse wandered over and said, "Are you...Miss Jones?"
"Yeah."
"You have a phone call."
What? Who the hell was calling me? Who knew I was here? I followed the nurse to a phone.
"Hello?"
"Dresden, this is Dr. Montana. You have multiple blood clots in your lungs. You need to be admitted right away."
"Wait...what?"
"Dresden, this is very serious. A doctor is coming to get you. You have to be admitted."
I started to freak out.
Don't worry; this story gets a lot funnier once I'm admitted.
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