I'm Such a Wimp

About this time last year, when the EOS debilitated me, my dear friends had to push me around in a wheel chair during visits to City of Hope. I'll never forget my feeling of sheer, irrational terror when a friend brought the wheel chair into the examining room. I didn't want that symbol of weakness taunting me, and I didn't want my doctor seeing it. I insisted that it be removed. I must have been like the patient equivalent of a Bridezilla.

That time was a nightmare that I don't want to ever repeat. I came close this spring when the EOS started to go haywire again, but early steroid intervention kept me from going off the deep end.

I'm amazed now at how strong I feel physically and emotionally. But I'm equally amazed at what a fragile little tea cup I can be.

Take last night. I attended a Greek cooking class at hip cooks. I felt young and with-it among the hipsters in a downtown Brewery loft.

When it was time to roll the dolmas, a young woman student crossed the room in her stiletto heels and sweetly advised me to wash my hands because she had seen that I had coughed. (My coughing has nearly disappeared, but it does crop up occasionally, especially at night.) I said, "Oh, of course," and headed for the wash basin.

But on the way back, I coughed again. I knew she was watching me. Should I put my newly coughed-on hands on the grape leaves, rewash my hands or throw my hands in the air and sit it out. I decided to sit on the sidelines and watch instead of participate.

This made me sad because I really wanted to roll a dolma, but I didn't want to risk coughing. And then I started feeling like a social pariah on the sidelines and couldn't smile or enjoy watching the activity. Two sweet women came over and tried to rescue me. I told them about my cough and they said "Poppycock," or whatever hip young women say these days.

I continued to watch, feeling more morose by the minute. I considered fleeing the scene entirely but my growling stomach won out over my middle-school mentality.

When it was time to devour the eight dishes we prepared, I decided to eat in silence. This proved to be more impossible than stifling a cough. The sweet and hip young woman from Silver Lake told me she had coughed for the first 17 years of her life. I took a risk and did something more socially unacceptable than coughing: I told her about the eosinophils. She listened politely and even asked intelligent questions. Then I felt much better.

I began smiling and laughing and sharing stories. And the woman sitting across from me, the one who had asked me to wash my hands, was smiling at me and laughing at my stories.

She didn't hate me after all.