Medical Fun In My Swinging Sixties

Ah, yes, another week, another medical crisis. Folks, do whatever you can to avoid your sixties. Once I hit 60, it all started slaloming downhill like an out-of-control bus driven by a blind man on an ice-covered highway.

One day my wife says, "Hey, they're having heart scans for calcium build-up for a discount. I think it'd be a good idea if we did this."

I paused the TV and said, "Yeah, sure, sounds great," while having no idea what I was signing up for.

Okay, let's fast-forward to after the test (which was no big deal). Immediately, I get a call from a panicked nurse.

"Mr. West..." She sounded hesitant, a lowly assistant fated to deliver bad news.

"Yes?"

"Um, we got back the test results on your heart screening and...ah...your calcium levels are off the charts!"

Pause. Silence. Sooooo many crickets.

"Am I...am I...dying?"

"No. But you need to make some lifestyle changes."

"Wait...but...wait..."

"We'll send results in the mail."

I did indeed get results in the mail. Very non-specific results which said I was in the high calcium plaque level.

My wife dragged me to a cardiologist and he said, "Hmmmm. These results aren't very specific." 

"That's what I said, doc!" Defiantly, I stood my ground. "What can we do about this plaque in my arteries?"

"Well...get Roto-Rooter, maybe." Clearly tickled with himself, I let his joke falter beside my stone face. 

"Outside of that," he continued, "I'm going to order a stress test and echocardiogram." 

I groaned as he laid out the details of what this entailed.

Couple weeks later, I'm at the hospital awaiting alongside a buncha other old folks in walkers, wheelchairs, and lugging around oxygen tanks (straight from the casinos) to get into my three hour testing grounds. What life must feel like in an old folks home; the ghost of Christmas Future, ho, ho, ho.

The first nurse out of about a zillion, an amiably sleepy guy, comes to get me and explain the lay of the land.

"Now, I'm gonna stick this needle in your arm and then get an IV going."

Suddenly, I'm having PTSD flashbacks from sadistic Nurse Wretched from my days of being a lab rat in a skin study. "But...but, Josh," I whined, "my veins are really tough to find."

He says, "I'm an expert. It's boring to me, really."

Well, far be it from me to wake amiable Josh out of his going-through-the-motions sleepwalking on the job, so I let him do his job. True to his word, he hit it spot-on. Then he takes me back to the death waiting room. Where there's a horrendous drilling sound shaking the walls. Terrified, I look around at my "peers" to see if they're as fearful about the tortures awaiting them as I am, but mercifully for them, they don't have their hearing aids turned on.

Josh slides back in and gathers me up for my echocardiogram. "Meet Gunner, he's a really nice guy," he says and deposits me into the curiously monikered "Gunner's" hands.

"Get your shirt off and lay down facing me, arms up over your head, knees bent, butt back," he orders. The intern with him grimaces when I strip and attempt to do an awkward, backwards pirouette up onto the table, the least comfy contortionist position you could ever attempt. Sadists, the whole lot of them.

Gunner says, "Well, you don't really have to stick your butt out...I just think it's a fun lil' ice-breaker." Gunner and the intern giggle. I turn fifty shades of red.

Soon they're gelling up my chest and searching for my heart.

"Hmmmm..." says Gunner.

"'Hmmmm?' I repeat. "Is that a good 'hmmmm' or a bad 'hmmmm?"

"Well...according to the readings...you're already dead. But I'm sure the machine is just on the blink again." Gunner winks at the intern with a grin. "Pretty sure."

When I'm finally done with the comedy stylings of Gunner and his silent sidekick, Josh snags me again and takes me into another room. A nurse comes out and says, "Hi, I'm Natalie...and I'm here to stress you out."

I force a laugh while remembering a couple of past stress tests I've taken. Pure hell where they put you on a treadmill until you're ready to pass out and your heart explodes. Thankfully, with my arthritic knees, that's an impossibility for me now.

"I'm going to inject you with chemicals that will increase your heartrate. It might feel pretty weird for you," she says.

Wondering how "weird" things might get, I ask the burning question that's flaming through my brain. "Ahhh...has this ever given anyone a...you know, heart attack?"

"Well..." she drawls, digging deep into her nostalgia closet, "there was this one guy who apparently had a heart attack. But it turned out that he was high on cocaine and it simulated a heart attack. If it's any consolation, he loved it."

"Um...yeah, Natalie, that makes me feel soooooo much more comfortable."

After the injection, I'm awaiting for the spasms and seizures and freak-outs that are sure to accompany it, but not much happens. I get jittery (what else is new?), anxious (status quo, says my wife), and headachy, but no big freak-out.

They keep checking on me. "Doing okay?"

"Yeah...just a little anxious, but nothing new."

"Ummmm...your heart rate's off the charts, though."

"Is that...good or bad???"

"Normal," says Natalie.

A little dizzy, I sit up and wait it out while Josh comes back in to sleepily look me over and whisk me away to a tubular machine where he takes multiple pictures of my chest.

And finally, I'm released! Released into the wilds of wheelchairs, walkers, and oxygen tanks. Now...where's my cigarettes?

Speaking of making really stupid life choices, Tex McKenna, teenaged, angsty male witch, just can't help himself. I mean, why else try and find out the identity of the killer who's systematically taking out his high school's bullies (not that Tex will miss them all that much)? Soon enough, Tex and his small group of loyal allies are also in the killer's sites. Check out the mysterious, thrilling, funny, scary, suspenseful, romantic, paranormal adventures of Tex and company in my Tex, the Witch Boy trilogy!

More Neurotic Than the Dog

Recently, my wife said, "you're more neurotic than the dog."

"Huh," I said.

Then of course, I pondered the ramifications of this statement. You see, the dog she was referring to is kinda neurotic. She can't stay still, barks at the sky, and every bird and squirrel is taken as a personal affront on her good character.

So, point by point: 1) Am I able to stay still? Oh, hell yes, I'm an award-winning champion at planting myself on the sofa and not moving for twelve hours. In fact, I'd go as far to say I'm the Joey Chestnut of sofa sitting, a world champion. So that argument is shot.

 2) Do I bark at the sky? Of course not. I don't bark. However, a case could be made for my wife who shouts at stupid characters on TV. Now, who's the neurotic one?

3) Finally, while I don't particularly like birds and squirrels, I don't take it personally. Unless they poop on my car, which happens all the time, then I know they're out to get me. Okay, so maybe I get a little neurotic about those stupid birds dive-bombing my car repeatedly and "HEY, STUPID BIRDS! GET OUTTA MY YARD!"

This message has been presented to you by the Neurotic Board of Kansas.

Speaking of neurotic messes, poor Leon Garber would probably top that list. But he has good reason to. For Leon's a serial killer who targets the lowest scum he can find. However the sinister organization, Like-Minded Individuals, who used to work in conjunction with Leon by providing victim's names, have inexplicably targeted Leon. Check out the Secret Society trilogy of suspense and morbidly dark humor, available here.

Beware The Archies!

I'm still haunted by quite a few things from my childhood: lima beans...bullies...Dad's belt. But perhaps the scariest, lingering component of my childhood was "The Archies."

(Disclaimer: I'm purposefully omitting The Banana Splits and Davey and Goliath, otherwise this post would be wayyyyyy too long.)

But consider The Archies. For those mercifully not in the know, they were a fictional bubble-gum pop band taken from the Archie comics and shot to "super-stardom" on the Saturday morning Archie animated series. Their most famous song, the insufferable "Sugar, Sugar," sold over six million copies and landed as number one on the pop chart in 1969.

And they were cartoons.

Let's ponder this for a minute. America fell in love with a fake, animated pop band. I wasn't immune to their phony charms either. Every Saturday, I'd plop my nerdy butt down in front of the TV, just waiting for The Archies to take the stage. When I heard "Sugar, Sugar" on the radio (over and over and over), I'd think of the merry madcap adventures of Archie, Reggie, those two identical (other than hair color) animated hotties Betty and Veronica (my version of Ginger and MaryAnne), and especially Jughead, that irascible beanie wearing, hamburger chowing, lovable rascal. To further tickle my naïve and gullible childish sense of cartoon band admiration, Jughead's dog, "Hot Dog," would sometimes conduct the band. Cartoon heaven!

Except in retrospect, it was cartoon hell. And when I grew up, I felt flummoxed, just as I suspect others of my generation did (although, then again, over half of America wants a convicted criminal as president, so I probably should give up on guessing what goes through their minds.). I destroyed my Archies' 45 single collection (although looking back, they might've been worth something), that's how deeply my sense of betrayal by cartoons went.

So I started thinking: what kind of monster would unleash such a propagandist ploy to subvert children's wills and turn them into a cartoon worshipping cult?

Don Kirshner, that's who. It turns out that Kirshner had put together a previous "fictional" band, The Monkees, in 1966. But unlike The Archies, at least The Monkees were real actors hired to be in the fictional band (and later, actually morphed into something not bad in their own rights). But this wasn't good enough for the evil Don Kirshner. The members of The Monkees started rebelling, getting uppity, and Don wasn't having it. 

Thus, he created the first animated pop band and the rest is history. Because Don knew that cartoons wouldn't pull a diva number on him. Oh, sure, he hired studio musicians (over twenty through the years) to sing and play instruments, but if they started getting big heads, boom! Fired and easily replaceable.

Poor guys. How would you like your claim to fame be that you sang in The Archies?

"Get out. You weren't in The Archies!"

"But...I'm the guy who sang 'Sugar, Sugar,' and--"

"Shut up! Everyone knows that was Archie Andrews! Liar!"

So, America, wake up! Don't get swayed by orange-haired, animated pop singers! And for that matter, don't be swayed by orange, vile, convicted criminal presidential candidates either.

Speaking of things that rarely make sense, consider fifteen year old Dibby Caldwell, the daughter of a Hangwell, Kansas mortician. Not much makes sense in Peculiar County; witches lurk in the shadows, a menacing creature haunts the skies, and the dead refuse to stay dead. Not to mention the fact that a mysterious killer stalks the streets. So come on down to Peculiar County and stay for a spell. Just don't set up roots, at least not roots six feet under.

The Bird Feeding Conundrum

I don't get it, I really don't. My wife expends a lot of time and effort into feeding the world's birds. We have at least four bird feeders in the back yard (possibly five) and it's nearly a full-time job for her to keep them filled.

Yet, we also have three dogs who aren't having it (I'm on their team). So after the bird feeders have been stuffed, I release the dogs who want to tear the feasting birds apart ("Go, Bijou, go!"). So it's all moot.

I told my wife that I thought it's all rather pointless.

"No, no it's not," she said.

Already, I had a sinking feeling I was going to lose this battle. Like always. "Yes, it is. The dogs just go out there and chase them away. It's like the 'circle of life'...only pointless. It's like Einstein's definition of insanity. It's never going to turn out any differently."

"Birds are pretty. And fun to watch," she said, end of topic.

I can't really differentiate one bird from the other. (Other than Blue Jays, because, well, they're blue and they're supposed to be mean predators, so as a child of horror, I enjoyed the idea of them.) I mean, to me birds are more boring than fish. But with fish, at least, you get to slam the aquarium and watch them scramble every time you walk by. Hey, you've gotta take your fun where you can.

But with birds, it's always the same; fly, drop, feed, flit away, poop, wash, rinse, repeat.

One day I noticed squirrels getting into the feeders. So I thought this argument might dissuade my wife from her bird-feeding frenzy.

"Nope. Got it taken care of." She whips out this saucer looking metal gizmo with a hole in the middle. "I have my squirrel baffle ready to install."

"Squirrel baffle?"

"Yep! It goes onto the feeder pole and blocks the squirrels from climbing up to the food."

"Oh for..."

Okay, alright, white flag waved, I give up. I'd lost not only the battle, but the war. But, honestly, how do these birds repay my wife's kindness? Do they swoop down on my shoulder and sing me a warblish Snow White tune or dress me for the ball?

No, they crap all over my car. 

Their aim is uncanny, and isn't it odd that they usually avoid my wife's car even though she parks directly behind me? It's like they know I don't like them. Like they're watching me. And plotting to murder me in my sleep.

You damn birds get offa' my lawn!

While on the topic of deadly animals, they don't come much deadlier than werewolves. Ask poor, suffering Shawn Biltmore. By day, he's a corporate drudge stuck in a soul-sucking dead-end job. And by night, he's a werewolf, perhaps even eating the competition next in line for that promotion he's got his eye on. Check out the bloody dark humor, suspense, and horror of Corporate Wolf.