Category: In Which We Mock Our Illness

I took advantage of the 60-degree weather to do some garden cleanup. The first hour was fine, but then I was plagued with double vision for the last thirty minutes. It’s pretty rare that I have MS symptoms unrelated to my bowel or bladder, but when I have them, it’s because I am gardening. And…

Gary’s mother has fawned on him since the day he emerged from her womb, and because of that, he has a high tolerance for compliments. I recall once I tried to see if I could get him to say, “Stop, you’re embarrassing me,” the way a woman might. I carpet-bombed him with compliments for twenty…

Look how young and happy I was before the world shut down. Four years ago today I went to Target and bought two pairs of pants in the smallest size I had been in fifteen years, then I went to my novel-writing class, then I got the text blast that told me I shouldn’t go…

I went to get the second dose of antibodies for the clinical trial. The staff said one participant had an adverse event after the second dose, but frankly it was what I’d call baseline. Some skin flushing? Turning a bit pink for the greater good? I will make the sacrifice. First I needed a short…

I try to document my neurologist visits here. I was a bit slower on my cognitive test. This tracks with how I have been at work. Every Monday the rest of the team remembers the status of the projects we are working on, and they say to me, “Remember, Ellen, we talked about that Friday?”…

Well, I am officially headed to the WashU loading docks in the event of my death. I didn’t have to do anything but fill out a form with two witnesses and now I have this snazzy laminated card. The front is legit. The back fills me with dread. See it? SEE IT? What do I…

All day yesterday my entire house smelled like chocolate cake. Delicious. Only there was no chocolate cake in my house. I, of course, thought of my Canadian friends, and their belief that those having a stroke smell toast. I tried to track down the genesis of that and got sidetracked by the wonderful video debunking…

So, after I passed the blood test to see if I was allergic to penicillin, I had to prepare for skin tests. I had to buy one capsule each of the penicillin-derivatives Amoxicillin and Keeflex, plus one from a different family, Cefdinir. I brought them to the doctor’s office. I took the morning off. I…

I thought the initial blood test was to determine if I was allergic to your basic penicillin, but on further reading, no. It seems the initial blood test determines if you are at risk of anaphylaxis when you get the skin test. I passed the first test, so my next visit is the skin test.…

Well, Mom-in-my-head, it could be that all your concern about penicillin was for naught. The first test, the blood test, came back negative. The Centers for Disease Control sort of agree with the first allergist’s claim that you can be “allergic one day and not the next,” if you rephrase it as “allergic one decade…