H is for Hysterical Blindness

-->

One of the hardest parts of the aging process is knowing when “the jig is up.”

It’s important to understand that when a person reaches a certain age, everything starts to hurt: feet, knuckles, muscles, neck, and hair.

True. My hair hurts, but then I wear it in a grandma bun a lot more these days, perhaps part of the problem.

Here’s the dilemma. When everything hurts, how do you know which hurt is vile enough to require a quick call to 911?

I get up in the morning, hit the floor, and proceed to shuffle to the bathroom like a zombie in search of zombie snack food, my feet, legs, knees, and hips protesting loudly.

“Am I dying?” I said to my husband recently, as I shuff-shuffled to the potty.

“Do you want to be?” he asked, answering my question with a question. Still in bed, he was balancing a Pepsi on his stomach as he held a pecan twirl to his lips with his right hand—his version of breakfast. NOTE: He has zero “bad” cholesterol. I’ve had borderline high, bad cholesterol since I was twelve. I live on vegetables and pickle juice. Life is NOT fair.

Two days again, I woke up, got up, hit the floor, and couldn’t see anything. The whole world had gone fuzzy—super fuzzy. “What the what?”

My first thought? Overnight stroke.

Second thought? Hysterical blindness.

My third and final conclusion. Allergies: rectified by allergy drops and a warm wash cloth.

Sigh.

I tell everyone I had hysterical blindness. It makes for a better story, and I’m all about the storytelling.

And so, I shuff-shuffle through life trying to decide if the pain in my hair is bad enough to warrant a lobotomy or a deep tissue search on Web MD.

My oldest daughter went to her doctor with a lump in her wrist which she had pre-diagnosed, after a thorough Google search, as “Viking’s Disease.”

She told her doctor, “I have Viking’s Disease.” Note: Viking’s Disease is a malady effecting Scandinavians. It leaves their hands and fingers weirdly twisted and deformed.

He said, “Good guess. But no . . .”

She had a benign cyst.

My bout with hysterical blindness has taught me a couple of things about health care in America. 1) Care is an interesting word. 2) Unless you’re clawing at your own face or foaming, people are probably more interested in what the English royal family is dissing about each other than your hysterical blindness. 3) Web MD is your doctor’s least favorite website. And 4) Caring about health care is exhausting.

And so, I keep right on shuffling until I can’t anymore, hoping that by the time my jig is up I get struck by lightning.

Linda (Electric Light Parade) Zern