A problem delayed may be a problem denied, but it’s not a problem solved or, in my case, treated. On the other side of that coin, though, I doubt any of the popular allopathic protocols would have helped me feel better or get through life easier. All the people I knew who developed M.S. around the same time as me are now dead, mostly due to drug-induced immune system havoc and other side effects. From that perspective, I guess keeping me in the dark was kinda sorta a blessing. So thanks, Mom.
Many, many moons ago, back in the days of push-button phones and televisions with rooftop antennas, I attended a luncheon thrown by some organization I non-remember. The earnest men in white were probably doctors of one sort or another; the suited guys and token female touted the sponsoring society. They all harmonized to the same tune as we patients, family members, and caregivers obediently followed along in our copier-needed-a-new-toner-cartridge handouts.
I was alone. In the words of Gomer Pyle, “Surprise, surprise, surprise.”
“Back in such-and-such a year, doctors believed multiple sclerosis was caused by snockle-dockle, so they treated it with whatsit, a wa-wa-wa type of drug. Then researchers discovered the disease might in fact be the result of gadagagoo inhibiting the nibidadorm, so physicians prescribed either hidahadhoda, whose efficacy rate was beda2catatapoint07, or lakamiredime, which was later found to be contraindicated for CPMS.
In wheneveritwas year, researchers at the University of WhatTheHell uncovered evidence of fibalsnarkput while doing a double-blind, semi-deaf study, which indicated the need for a more vigorous approach—”
I stopped listening at some point and read through the handout on my own, confirming what I’d begun thinking some ten minutes into the “informative presentation,” to wit: science had no definitive clue as to who killed Colonel Peacock in the library with the wrench, so medical practitioners basically tried whatever latest drug somebody had experimented up until another investigator determined it was either useless or resulted in too many deaths, which was often—but not always—an indication it might not be the best protocol.
When the actors on the dais finally worked their way around to the inevitable, “But now we know…” line, I might have snorted out loud. It didn’t take a Cassandra moment to realize the current “now we know” would be replaced with a new “now we know” in three to five years, eight at the max, and that today’s drug-of-choice would be swapped out for yet another non-pronounceable one shortly thereafter.
As I concentrated on finishing my free tasteless meal, my fellow attendees, all spellbound, made notes on their handouts while their accompaniers promised they’d remind them to ask for zigedymupta the next time they saw their neurologist—next week, a month, never more than six weeks away. Good grief!
Deity help me, I non-fit-in even surrounded by in-the-same-boaters.
Circling back to high-school sophomorery, life after my non-revealed-ergo-non-existent diagnosis went on just as if nothing had happened since, after all, nothing had. That year’s Honors English teacher—acting on the accepted delusion that I’d been so sick for most of the semester because I’d worked on the music-department’s Homecoming float—asked if I thought staying out until all hours in the cold had really been the best use of my time, considering what it cost me.
For the record, I hadn’t stayed out until all hours. I was too much of an addict to ever stay out past ten p.m., my drug-of-choice being sleep. At a certain point in any twenty-four span I was done, through, over, craving nothing but my bed, my books, and my nightly trip to Norway. But Mrs. X didn’t know that and, what’s more, didn’t like me any more than Miss Y had, although the Mrs. had a better reason than the Miss. Where Miss Y had disagreed with what I wrote, Mrs. X objected to how I put my thoughts on paper.
I didn’t adhere to form. My insights and explanations were not regurgitations of the exact wordings she supplied to every class from well-worn binders, in which she’d long ago pasted every page of every book she taught, year after year, with handwritten notations underlined here and yellow-highlighted there. If I refused to deliver what was expected of me, she wearily explained after class more than once, I’d never get into the college of my choice. While she grudgingly admitted I had promise, I had no discipline, no discipline whatsoever.
Everyone has that one special teacher who sees their potential and whose help and encouragement makes all the difference in their academic career, don’t they? Mrs. X wasn’t mine, so I never revealed that my college-of-choice was no college at all. In my school, such a non-path was non-acceptable. But school terrified me, with its daily pretense payload: my turtleity, my both-but-neither confusion, and my ongoing social awkwardness, on which I dumb-as-fuck doubled down with fleeting moments of arrogance (aka blatant expressions of insecurity), from which I retreated with comically non-graceful speed. At least that was typical teenosity.
Still, I got through her Honors class with, well, honors, because I’d figured out how to ace her tests early in the game, my dumb-as-fuck notwithstanding. Of course, I could have aced all her papers, too, but no—I obstinately refused to stop following my own trains of thought.
The fucking nerve of me.
What Mrs. X didn’t know, and what I didn’t know how to admit to myself, was how much that nine-day hospital stay had changed me. Maybe I hadn’t developed any great self-esteem, but with no one and nothing to disturb me, I managed to work up a thin sense-of-self on the other side of my no-excuse-to-exist coin. So, in determined dumb-as-fuck mode, I let ‘er rip in my English and Journalism classes since they were all about words, and I loved words.
My respect and apologies to all middle- and high-school teachers. I don’t know how y’all do it.
Apart from a Mrs. X and a few other isolatedly retained details, the rest of my sophomore year was, like me, “eminently forgettable.” My head hurt a lot, my eyes had trouble focusing now and then, and walls seemed to throw themselves in my path, but I kept going. Was there another choice? No. My husband claims we took a Non-Western Civilization History class together even though he was a junior, an alleged fact verified decades later by an equally alleged mutual friend. My geometry teacher let his WWII war-trauma’d fingers wander too far during a private tutoring session in his living room, which was probably creepy but just made me wonder why he bothered.
My mother, on the other hand, was bothered, not because of Mr. G—“He’s an old man; that’s what old men do”—but because I’d stopped dating. I don’t know when or why, but at some point I’d realized boys scared the shit out of me. So Homecoming Dance, Winter Festival, and Prom had to make do without my presence, and from what I could tell they, as anthropomorphized entities, never noticed my non-appearance. I must have dated a primary-school friend at least once because Mom had photographic evidence of the event, but I non-recall anything about it. So much for pictures jogging buried memories.
Whatever the forgotten challenges, I closed out the year with my usual B+/A- GPA, declining my counselor’s advice to take calculus or an Honors history course the following year. The very thought made me tired. The only urging I did agree to was trying out for choir the last week of school.
Our high-school choir had won national awards, traveled out of state to do command concerts, and recorded an album of their performances. New voices were only added when somebody graduated or moved out of district. The school’s elite of the elite, all choir members had gorgeous voices, earnest attitudes, and a the-show-must-go-on attitude. One soprano later made a name for herself on Broadway. I mean, those guys could sing.
I couldn’t, but my best friend figured we ought to audition anyway—why not, it would be fun! She was, in fact, my bestest friend ever, my BFF—right up until I dumb-as-fuck betrayed her, and she pulled a knife on me when I tried to apologize. But that was years later. Back then, she wanted to go out for choir, and she wanted me to do it too so we could commiserate together when neither of us made the grade.
Scene: a nearly empty music room, tiered like a performance stage, soundproofed, acoustically balanced, the only air-conditioned room in the entire school. A couple dozen nervous, frightened, anxious, panicky students lined up outside the inner-hallway door to compete for maybe a handful of tenor, baritone, alto, and soprano seats. Everyone knew we couldn’t all get picked, and it was a foregone conclusion my friend and I were of those couldn’ts. But she lived to be audacious and I was riding high on my newfound unfounded arrogance. Besides, I reminded myself, I was a past master at failure, so who would care if I blew this chance at the most prized class in the entire school? After all, at least part of my summer was already booked to repeat tennis, which I’d managed to already flunk twice. By end of summer, it’d be thrice.
“Are you a soprano or second soprano?” the choir director asked.
“Uh… second?”
“You’re in mixed chorus, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you sing soprano or second soprano in mixed chorus.”
“Um… I think maybe… alto?”
“Well, let’s see.”
He played a note on the piano; I matched it. He played another, a third higher. Surprised myself and hit that one, too, on key. We modulated up the scale together, him nodding encouragingly, me getting more frantic as he moved up the keyboard. Finally, I stopped. He’d gone too high. No way I could sing in that range.
“Try,” he said. “You’re doing fine.”
So I took a deep breath and hit the next note. Wow! Big sigh of relief. Glad that was over! Could I sit down now?
But no, he took it up another third. I just shook my head. “That’s too high for me,” I said. “There’s no way I can reach up there.”
“Yes, you can. Just relax, drop your shoulders, take a breath, and give it a try. That’s all I ask. Just give it a try.”
He played the tone again.
I closed my eyes and—
OMG, that fucking note came out of my mouth so beautifully, so fully, so dead on key I almost burst into tears. My friend let out a whoop as I held it for a full four beats! Where the hell had that note been hiding all my life?! It was so good!
“Welcome to choir,” the director said, and my knees almost buckled. What had I done? What had I gotten myself into?! I was in the elite of the elite! I didn’t belong there!
For the record, I’ve never since come anywhere near singing that high or that clear or that dead-on perfect again. Ever. It was a three-second performance the likes of which may never be heard again. It was sooo beautiful. You shoulda been there—I mean it! Sorry you missed out. Your loss.
Love it. You’re amazing.