The ‘fine’ line

As I was sitting in the waiting area where I used to buy my husband’s shirts, a gentleman came in and sat down across from me, visibly unwell. I smiled and said hello, which seemed the polite thing to do. He, with an audible sigh, began to share a rather harrowing list of symptoms.

Before he could finish his inventory of woe, the nurse called his name and asked the conventional “How are you today?” This poor soul with more problems than I could count, answered, “Fine.”

When another nurse asked me the same question, I answered “Fine” too. Duh!

I haven’t been fine since Feb. 22, 2018, when a surgeon who was replacing my right hip broke my femur. The long tale that wags that story is far too teeth-gnashing for me to relate, but safe to say, it was the beginning, if not the origination, of a cascade of years of feeling really …how shall I put this? Peeked? A bit off? Unwell? Poorly? No! Better descriptors would be lousy, crappy, really yucky, precipitating “what did I do in a past life to deserve this?” thoughts.

I, like so many, did a dance with Covid. I can remember driving to the doctor’s office in Fayetteville. I found myself wandering down a strange hallway segregated from others to accommodate the examination of possible Covid carriers. And yes, I did have the virus and was sent home with instructions to monitor how I felt and to be ready to call 911.

But that was an unusual occurrence compared to what had become an almost daily episode of “I don’t feel well.” I accumulated a rather daunting phalanx of physicians, from my PCP (two retired,) a gynecologist, an endocrinologist, two gastroenterologists, an otolaryngologist, a pain doctor, a chiropractor, a dermatologist and several other ologists, none of whom could help me lessen the regularity of feeling awful.

I had diagnoses that ranged from Vitamin D deficiency to any number of maladies that were described with letters, UTI, URI, IBS, L, M, N, O, P… Or vague “isms” – put the following terms in a sentence: hyperparathyroidism and Trendelenburg gait and see what you come up with.

My social life has disintegrated to basically nothing. I have cancelled, postponed or put on the back burner eating out, adult beverages and dessert on the porch, dinner parties, going to the library, shopping or visiting mostly any place because something isn’t quite right. Examples of that awful feeling can vary from hour to hour and day to day, but leg and back pain with the added fillip of vertigo and its side effects would be a good start. The vertigo part is sort of underwhelming until you actually experience it. Living in a world that is wobbly where you have to hold on to furniture to get to the bathroom is not fun. Losing consciousness because you got up from sitting down without doing so in slow motion is even less fun.

So, what did I do? First of all, as a lifelong hypochondriac with a vast knowledge of medicine garnered from my long love affair with TV medical shows, there was self-medication. My self-medication of choice is baking and searching the internet for recipes that would produce the kind of deliciousness that would focus my attention on producing gustatory pleasure rather than on the off-putting symptoms that plague most days. This, of course, only produced a larger version of me and my complaints. It seemed that my distain for the added weight has been only superseded by my response, which is to seek more delicious food to assuage my feeling angry or sorry for my weight gain. I know. I know!

As I search for what is probably not possible at my age, some kind of healing …the beat goes on.

You can learn from anything. I would be stingy if I didn’t share a short recipe for deliciousness (see sidebar) that I got from my daughter. It is beyond tasty and, with some convoluted thinking, can be absolved from the blame of adding more pounds.

Amidst my daily challenge to sanity, there is so much good. My daughter-in-law finished her radiation treatments; my son came home to spend Super Bowl Sunday with his father, eating a feast that I produced for them; my daughter calls regularly to chat and visits to help as needed; my grandsons are all doing well, happy and healthy; my spouse produced another beautiful drawing while at his Urban Sketchers meeting; I got Wordle in three twice last week; the last of the kittens that my neighbor and I took care of was placed in its forever home (thanks to Lauren Bachiller;) and the sun is out today!

I am making stuffed shells for dinner tonight. But I will only eat one and be satisfied with a lot of salad.

So, having gotten this off my chest, how will I answer the question, “How are you today?” In the same way…”Fine.”

Emily’s roasted olives

1. Gather assorted olives without pits.

2. Nestle the olives of choice in good olive oil. The amount of oil should be determined by how you will use the resulting infused oil for other things.

3. Add the following: Finely dices shallots, fresh time, orange zest, whole garlic cloves, a few tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, hot pepper, salt and black pepper to taste.

4. Roast in your oven set at 375 degrees for a half hour. Allow to cool and serve with crusty bread. A glass of red wine wouldn’t hurt either.