A Horse of a Different Color

Prior to its migration to ABC for a long and unfunny march toward cancellation, I was an avid Scrubs viewer. I was reminded of a particular episode this afternoon in which a doctor named J.D. is discussing a difficult diagnosis with his mentor, Dr. Cox:

Dr. Cox: Newbie, do you happen to know what a zebra is?

J.D.: That patient just mocked me!

Dr. Cox: It’s a diagnosis of a ridiculously obscure disease when it’s much more likely that the patient has a common illness presenting with uncommon symptoms. In other words, if you hear hoof-beats, you just go ahead and think horsies – not zebras. Mm’kay, Mr. Silly Bear?

Well, even the brilliant Dr. Cox was wrong sometimes. According to the Immune Deficiency Foundation (IDF), “Patients with primary immunodeficiency diseases are the zebras of the medical world.”

I was looking at a chart today that showed the time between when people first manifest symptoms, until the time that they are diagnosed with an immunodeficiency.

Yours truly falls at the far end of the bar chart. I started having recurrent ear infections when I was a baby that continued throughout childhood, and was out more than 50 days my senior year of high school due to chronic sinusitis. I spent a lot of my life being sick and then being well but feeling exhausted. However, doctors told me that I simply “got sick a lot.” Even after sinus surgery and surgery to remove a giant (or as I like to think of it, “deluxe”) lymph node, no one considered looking at the bigger picture.

As the IDF points out, “Primary immunodeficiency diseases are a group of relatively rare conditions caused by intrinsic or genetic defects in the immune system.” Doctors rarely look for them. People don’t know they have them. According to research, this category of diseases occurs in one in 1,200 people. However, it’s speculated that the number would be higher if we had adequate screening at birth, or if doctors thought to look for an immune system issue when their patient had recurring infections.

I was finally diagnosed with Common Variable Immune Deficiency (CVID) after a hospital stay for an uncommon blood disorder. When I was 31 years old.

Yesterday, I wrote about a fantastic trip I trip I took during winter break of my junior year of college while studying in France. I mentioned how I got sick during those two weeks. What I didn’t mention was how sick. I had trouble sleeping in new places back then, so all the time my friend and I spent in youth hostels was time that I didn’t sleep. After a few days, my body was exhausted and I quickly developed the sniffles. By the time we wound up in Prague for New Year’s Eve, I was calling myself “Typhoid Nancy.” At midnight I rang in the new year on in the main square, giving healthy strangers viral kisses on each cheek as we wished each other a “Bonne Année.” (Still had the time of my life!)

I visited the doctor after we returned to school, and was told that along with an infection in both ears, I had sinusitis, laryngitis and bronchitis.

Many of my happy memories are colored by parallel memories of being sick.

Yet since I was diagnosed, I get sick a lot less often. I still catch everything everyone else has, but now I can get over it sooner than I used to.

I don’t usually leverage the [admittedly limited] power I have here. But it’s my blog. It’s my disorder. And there are too many people who go through hell on the way to diagnosis, and then go through hell once again as they try to navigate their new-found disease. So I’ll put myself on the line and direct you to the IDF donation page.

Granted, it’s not a sexy cause – it doesn’t come with a ribbon or a celebrity.

Hang on a minute…I’m wrong about that. It has a super sexy animal print logo!

This month, IDF launched their Think Zebra! campaign, to raise money for research.

So donate money for research, all ye horses!

Playing Dress-Up

My cousin and his wife visited New York City this past weekend. My family and I just saw them during our business trip...I mean, um, family visit...to Florida in early March. Not much time to let the heart grow fonder, but it was still exciting.

It was J's first trip to "La Grande Pomme," as I like to think the French call the Big Apple, and she had asked us what she and my cousin D should wear to see a Broadway musical. I looked at her jeans, t-shirts and flipflops and said, "Well, it's cold in New York, so you might want to put on sneakers." And that's the state of Thee-ay-tuh today – you don't dress to the nines unless you're attending a special event.

This instantly catapulted me back in time 10 years (ahem, 12 years), to junior year of college, when I was studying in France and planning my winter break excursion with my roommate, Sarah. We planned to take a two-week trek through Europe, with the halfway mark falling on Christmas in Vienna. And what does Christmas in Vienna mean? Vienna Boys’ Choir, and world-renowned opera.

Here is what I knew about Opera: it was spectacular, it was slightly boring, and, if Pretty Woman was any indicator, one was obliged to wear a gown.

Backpacking through Europe does not lend itself to packing a gown. Or more than two pairs of pants. So I settled – to the amusement of my friends – and stuffed a spring dress into my bag, insisting I would wear it to the opera. Let’s just say there were doubts.

Our first opera was in Budapest. Not my finest experience. I was sick, and the songs were in Italian. There was a digital sign above the stage that translated the words...into Czech. Watching the lyrics be translated from one language you don't know into another language you don't know, while suppressing a hacking cough and popping unidentifiable pills that a German pharmacist (or someone you hoped to god was a pharmacist) had promised you in broken English was "for the nose concern," is not particularly conducive to enjoying opera.

Christmas Eve in Vienna arrived.

It was winter. It was much too chilly for my dress. I hadn’t brought heels, stockings or a nice jacket. Or makeup or jewelry, for that matter. But I was determined to bring this vision to life. So I stepped into my green corduroy pants, threw on a long-sleeved cotton shirt and tied my French sneakers (which are similar to American sneakers, but purchased in France). And last, but not least, I shimmied into my "gown."

I remember Sarah doing a double take when I emerged from the bathroom in The Christmas Outfit.

This is my artistic rendering of what I wore to see Don Giovanni:

I looked ridiculous.

But you know what? I felt GREAT!

Sarah and I entered the magnificent Vienna State Opera and ascended the carpeted staircase. I looked down on a crowd of people wearing tuxedos and gowns. And I knew that I fit right in.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And corduroy pants or no corduroy pants, Julia Roberts had nothing on me that night.

This is Why I Love New Yorkers: Winter Wonderland Edition

Living in New York City means having access to a rich cultural landscape but a somewhat anemic yard-scape. (Unless your penthouse happens to overlook Central Park.)

So what is a city kid to do when all he can think about is forming three perfectly round circles and topping them off with a carrot nose and a coal mouth? He uses a little elbow grease so he can make this little fellow:

by scooping up every inch of snow in front of his entire apartment building:

Landlords, take note. A New York City toddler will do what your super won't -- clear all the snow from your sidewalk!

"Thanks, Dad."

In a recent post I mentioned that I can often hear my father on his headset after he thinks he has disconnected our phone calls. Well, in the clip below, you can hear me forgetting that my handy little point-and-shoot camera, which takes short video clips, also has sound.

This was from Key West, Florida, a couple years ago, and I find the water absolutely mesmerizing.

I think you'll find the dialogue equally impressive. Or not.

I'm thanking him for bumping into me and ruining my shot. Because I am clearly the Scorsese of low-quality vacation videos, and he blew my one chance to be featured at the next Tribeca Film Festival.

So...thanks, Dad.

Eat, Pray, Shove

This afternoon, a coworker and fellow avid reader handed me a book that she said was “spiritual” and “transformational.” It had changed her outlook on life.

I promised I would give the book a try.

But I was instantly brought back to July 18, 2007. It was around 6 p.m., and I was standing just inside the AT&T store on 43^rd Street and Lexington Avenue. The line was long, and I was thinking that if I stayed I would probably be late to my book club.

I had turned to leave when I heard a loud boom! and saw a couple people outside the store look behind them and start to run. As I’ve mentioned before, my fight-or-flight response is pretty heavy on the flight, so I opened the door, adrenaline already sparking like electricity throughout my body. It wasn’t unfounded. I stepped outside and saw a thick cloud of dark gray smoke. I couldn’t see the Chrysler Building right behind me.

As I ran uptown along Lexington Avenue I heard – and felt – a series of at least a dozen explosions and thought, I’ve always been afraid of dying. I can’t believe today is the day that I’m going to die.

I heard someone scream, “They’re blowing up Grand Central” and someone else yell, “The subways are exploding!” Shockingly (to me, at least), my brain kicked in and I thought, Hmmm, if the subways are exploding, is it a good idea to run along the Lexington Avenue line of the SUBWAY? At 45^th Street I took a quick right and kept jogging until I hit First Avenue.

The decision to get out of harm’s way was an unexpected yet heartening flash of logical thinking for someone prone to panic.

My second flash of brilliance also happened at the corner of 45^th Street and Lexington Avenue. I realized I needed to get rid of dead weight. Since I couldn’t drop 50 pounds on the spot through the miracle of the Hollywood Cookie Diet, the Hollywood Juice Diet or the Hollywood Methamphetamines Diet, I did the second best thing. I looked down at the book in my hand, which I was forcing myself to finish for my book club that night. I knew that my life was worth more than a crummy book – no matter how beloved it was – and as I was fleeing the 2007 Con Edison Midtown New York Explosion, I threw it on a pile of black garbage bags.

I never finished “Eat, Pray, Love,” by Elizabeth Gilbert.

I don’t care how much Oprah loved it. I don’t care that it was optioned for a movie that is being released this August and will probably be a smash hit. I don’t care that I seem to be the only person who hated it. But I really, really did.

I’m sure that Ms. Gilbert really did have a transformational experience. But once she left the bacchanalian portion of her journey, I had to keep suppressing the frequent eye-rolling that her earnest prose seemed to induce in me. I have read and enjoyed truly inspiring books. But this was not one of them.

Without a second thought, I released “Eat, Pray, Love” from my left hand and took off across town.

I eventually hot-footed it up to 59^th Street and First Avenue, where I barged into a pizzeria and demanded napkins to wipe my face. It was July, after all. They hadn’t heard the news yet, so I got some choice looks.

I called my father, hoping he could tell me what was happening. At first, he said nothing was on the news. And then he called back, saying that by all reports a transformer had exploded. I told him that it had seemed worse than that, and much louder. He calmed me down by saying that it had probably sounded like that due to the noise bouncing off buildings.

My mother called and told me that I should take a deep breath, radio reports were saying it wasn’t a big deal, and that I should go to my book club.

Despite shaking, sweating and crying, I walked over to the subway and met my book club at Katz’s Delicatessen on Houston. I spent the first 15 minutes taking deep breaths and telling my friends what had happened.

During dinner, which I wasn’t eating, my mother called.

“Oh my god, are you ok?” she said, sounding a lot more upset than she had earlier.

I asked what was wrong.

The real story had hit CNN and she was finally seeing what I had seen a couple hours earlier. According to Wikipedia (not always the most accurate source, but I promise this is what happened):

The July 18, 2007 New York City steam explosion sent a geyser of hot steam up from beneath a busy intersection, with a 40-story-high shower of mud and flying debris raining down on the crowded streets of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. It was caused by the failure of a Consolidated Edison 24-inch underground steam pipe installed in 1924, at 41st Street and Lexington Avenue, near Grand Central Terminal, just before 6 p.m. local time, near the peak of the evening rush hour. The towering cloud of billowing steam, higher than the nearby 1,047-foot (319 m)-tall Chrysler Building, persisted for at least two hours, leaving a crater about 35 feet (10 m) wide and 15 feet (4 m) deep.

I assured my mother that while I was upset, I was basically fine. I hung up my cell phone and proceeded to discuss “Eat, Pray, Love” (well, minus the last 20 pages I hadn’t read) with my fellow book clubbers.

I already disliked the book prior to July 18, 2007, but now it would forever be linked to one of the most traumatic events in my life.

So, I’ll read my coworker’s “transformational” book. But if I don’t like it, I'm going to ditch it at the corner of 45^th Street and Lexington Avenue.

Dial "A" for Annoying

My father does not know how to use his Bluetooth headset, so after we speak I am constantly treated to his inner thoughts. For instance, I get to hear him sing made-up songs as he drives.I hear him curse at other drivers. And this morning, I heard him pick up lunch at the supermarket, during which time I texted him:

My brother has a propensity for butt-dialing. I arrived at work last week and found a 14-minute voicemail from him, recorded after he came home one night and chatted with my parents. Because I wear a headset and can type pretty quickly, I transcribed my favorite parts and e-mailed it to all three of them so they could enjoy.

And now you can enjoy it, too.

Dad: …even temporarily.

Josh enters.

Josh: What’s that?
Dad: Just an adventure movie, a good one…
Josh: [Burp.]
Dad: …Rock Hudson …
[Unintelligible.]
Dad: What are you doing tomorrow?
Josh: I don’t know, I forget. I think I have plans.
Dad: ‘Cause you’re welcome to watch the game with me.
Josh: That will never happen. In a million years.
Dad: C’mon....
Josh: I hate sports.
Dad: You're a clicky head.
Josh: I'm a nerd.
Dad: This movie is wonderful, by the way.
Josh: Remember, I’m a nerd? Hey, if you want to watch the first season of Firefly, let’s do it. I’m down. Let’s do it, right now!

A few minutes later, as conversation continues…

Dad: Blah blah blah, Sam Rockwell in “Moon.”
Josh: Plot spoiler.
Mom: Let’s ruin the movie for Nancy !
Josh: Awesome! But let me butt-dial her again, so when this message cuts off we can ruin the rest of the movie!
Dad: Yay! Let’s do it!

Exeunt, stage left.

[Note: I was paraphrasing that last bit.]

And now I have begun to suspect that Duane Reade is drunk-dialing me. I got an automated call today that said: “Your prescription of [silence] is ready at [silence]” several times, and then cut off in the middle of the sentence.

So beware, you drunk, butt-dialing, techno-incompetents – I have a blog, and I am not afraid to use it!

The Quicker Picker-Upper

If you thought bleach cleaned your counter really well, just imagine what it would do to your baby's bottom!

Oh...bleach shouldn't be used on human skin? Well, what about bleach wipes? Wait, those either? I guess that warning label makes a lot more sense now:

In retrospect, is just seems so obvious!