Proof that there is a parallel universe after reading "What We're Searching For" in the New York Times

Happy Christmas Warmth from My House to Yours

I kept scrolling back to the top as I read this damn piece, certain that I must be reading the Onion. I Googled the writer's name to see if he wrote comedy or satire. Holy Christmas hell, Seth Stephens Davidowitz, maybe depressed people, particularly people who are depressed while being aurally assaulted by Joy to the World, don't Google "depression." Maybe they Google "anti-depressants." Maybe they Google "Cymbalta" or "Prozac," or "foods that elevate mood," or "happy pill." Maybe they are nearly comatose with the covers pulled up over their heads, or desperately shopping, hoping against hope to finally get the gift-giving thing right this year, or just gone to bed early because it's already been dark for hours by the time they've had dinner.

And do suicidal people actually Google "suicide?" I did not. Of course I didn't actually commit suicide so maybe my Googling habits are irrelevant. Why would anyone Google "suicide" unless they were writing a piece about suicide? I suspect that people who seriously contemplate ending it all by their own hand have a pretty good idea how they're going to do it, and Googling suicide would royally screw up your life insurance benefit if there was an investigation even though you managed to make it look like an accident.I will say  that committing suicide during the holidays would be fairly ungainly with houseguests occupying all the nooks and crannies of the house, and Christmas parades and Santa Fun Runs snarling traffic on the bridges. 

If indeed, there is a post-Christmas surge in Googling "divorce" and if "Christmas allows for some reflection about family life. Searches for “dysfunctional family” reach their highest point every year around Christmas. Searches that include the word “hate” and a family member — “mom,” “dad,” “husband” or “wife,” for example — also rise on and around Christmas," the conclusions drawn earlier in the article don't make a lot of sense to me.

I did feel like I was almost invited to the party though after reading this. "....whether consciously or subconsciously, people delay bad events until after the holidays. Dec. 26 is the date with the highest search rate for “doctor,” following a dip leading up to the holidays. Our bodies even somehow manage to delay trouble: Health researchers previously found a 33 percent increase in heart attacks in the four days after Christmas." Thanksgiving was not mentioned, but I guess that my mother is growing more compliant now that she's 90 since LAST THANKSGIVING was a bit different from THIS THANKSGIVING. This year's Christmas/hospital scenario has yet to reveal itself, but LAST YEAR there was no putting off the trip to the ER until after the stockings had been hung by the chimney with care. And at no time during either of the holiday seasons, this year or last, did my mother Google "falling." 

Anyhow thanks for the heads up re heart attacks in the four days after Christmas. I'm lying on the couch as I type this having green tea and dark chocolate, which I think according to the Internet, is good for cardiac health, but you'd have to Google that to be sure. My mom is an avid newspaper reader, but she prefers the Dubuque Telegraph Herald and the L.A. Times to the New York Times, so I'm hoping she won't see the bit about post-Christmas heart attacks. The house will be stuffed with guests during that time so finding a moment to Google "depression" might be tough if she keels over then.  

Merry Christmas one and all. May your Holidays be filled with Happy Pills--whatever that means to you. And I seriously hope you're one of those folks Googling "condoms" on New Years Eve. I'll let you know what I searched for. xoxoxox

Love,

Denise

Report from Pillville: The Echocardiogram

Bad hearts run in my mother's family. Both of her parents died of heart attacks when they were in their 70s. One lingered in a hospital bed, the other dropped to the floor. He was dead when he hit, my mother is fond of saying about her father. Her oldest brother died of a heart attack when he was in his 50s. My mom herself has had a pacemaker for years, and has been on warfarin to keep the blood from pooling in her heart. It's all worked pretty swell. She hasn't had a heart attack or a stroke--so I guess things have gone according to plan. She will be 90 in September.

I've seen changes in her in the past year and a half that she's lived with me. She grew stronger at first. Quit smoking. Put on weight. But lately she's slowed down. She sleeps more. She has more pain. Her blood pressure fluctuates sometimes causing nausea and headaches. Mentally, she's slower too. Last night she asked me how to spell my first name. Most mornings it's a crap shoot as to how she'll wake up feeling--too queasy for coffee? Neck pain? Back pain? Head ache? Too wobbly to fix her own breakfast?

Today she had an echocardiogram and has other heart tests scheduled as well this month. Then there will be a consultation with the cardiologist. The echocardiogram is the rorschach test of diagnostic tools if you're like me with a wild imagination and not a fucking clue as to what the image on the screen actually shows. One minute, her beating hear looked liked a malevolent serpent opening and closing its mouth, (Heart valve? Ya got me.) and the next, this guy in his little pointy hat was in there beating his drum, first one arm rising up to strike the drum, then the other.

And then later it was a weather map in there. Red, yellow, blue. Colors swirling around like there's a hurricane brewing in her heart.

The next test is a type of stress test sans treadmill where she will be injected with some nuclear substance or another after fasting for four hours and foregoing the morning coffee, after which she will be expected to eat a fatty meal that we have brought with us--or we can go out to McDonald's for an Egg McMuffin---hahahaha, after which there will be more testing. The whole thing lasts 3-4 hours. Fasting for the blood test a couple of weeks ago sent us off to the ER with non-stop nausea and a splitting headache, so I asked the receptionist if this particular stress test was ever done in-patient in the hospital. "If the doctor orders it," she said. 

"Then I guess I'm asking the doctor to order it," I said. "I don't think my mom can handle the fasting--especially if she needs her pain meds."

"It's only four hours of fasting," she said. "And we don't need to administer pain meds for the test." I explained that my mother is routinely taking oxycodone and can't function without it. That I was most definitely requesting that the test be done as an in-patient in the hospital. She gave me a form to fill out--a tad bit grudgingly. And a little hurricane began brewing in my own heart.