Cranky Lesbian

Look what the homosexuals have done to me!

Tag: Crohn's

The Joker Card: Parkinson’s at 40

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On June 7, 2023

In Brainpan

Let’s cut to the chase for this one, without our usual banter. This week the neurologist confirmed that my recently diagnosed dystonia is a symptom of what we hope is young-onset Parkinson’s disease. We hope because there are less attractive options, including multiple system atrophy and progressive supranuclear palsy. All are clinical diagnoses, not things she can order an easy test for, and they share many symptoms. If it’s MSA or PSP, it will become more apparent in time. For now, we’re calling it early Parkinson’s, since the other options usually afflict older patients. You can read more about YOPD here.

My wife, Crankenstein, accompanied me to the appointment because she knew what was coming and wanted to talk with my movement disorder specialist (MDS). She shared observations about my muscle rigidity and bradykinesia, reduced arm swing, diminished sense of smell and increasingly inexpressive face, which the doctor also noticed. We cataloged the positive changes that I experienced after treatment with Botox and levodopa. I mostly sat there and looked pretty when I wasn’t failing the usual movement exam.

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Going Visible for Crohn’s & Colitis Awareness Week

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On December 1, 2022

In Oh No!

Counterclockwise from top right: Sick, another bad scope, close to remission. 2017-2018. (*Forehead glare from webcam’s flash.)

Today kicks off Crohn’s & Colitis Awareness Week. Some of you already know that I’ve had inflammatory bowel disease since early childhood and that it follows me through adulthood like an unwanted intestinal Drop Dead Fred. Awareness-raising is a nebulous concept to me because I’m never not personally aware of IBD, which is sometimes irritating. We’re always together, I can’t shake it.

If I don’t want to hear about it, even after all the years we’ve spent bound to each other, why would anyone else be interested? The thought of a week’s worth of dedicated conversation around inflammatory bowel disease reminds me of the scene from Rear Window when Grace Kelly says “Today’s a very special day.” And Jimmy Stewart’s curmudgeon replies, “It’s just another run-of-the-mill Wednesday. The calendar’s full of ’em.”

I struggle with whether cases like mine are even good for raising awareness. Most patients won’t get sick as toddlers. They won’t experience blood loss as severe, or prolonged hypokalemia, or pick up life-threatening infections while hospitalized and immunosuppressed. Some patients, usually those with ulcerative colitis (my original diagnosis, later changed to Crohn’s), respond wonderfully to the same surgeries I had and essentially consider themselves “cured.” For others it’s a lifelong burden. Whose stories would new patients and their families rather hear?

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Golden Girls Programming Note & Other Loose Ends

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On August 17, 2022

In Housekeeping

Provisions.

The next Golden Girls recap is long overdue and will be posted within the next day or two. Initially the delay was due to medical appointments, but then there was a technical issue pertaining to the Friends of Dorothy Z. page. That’s temporarily resolved for now but might require more fiddling in the future.

[UPDATE: Here’s the recap.]

While dealing with that situation, I did other behind-the-scenes tasks, including image optimization and finally redoing the screen caps on some older reviews. Ebbie, My First Love and Just Between Friends are among the pages that were fixed, all from a period where I had two computer failures in quick succession that left me without decent images for those films.

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Shut Up and Deal

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On August 12, 2022

In Oh No!

I was high as a kite on morphine when Dan Quayle walked into the room during my strangest childhood hospitalization. It was a campaign stop in the waning weeks of the Vice President’s failed 1992 bid for reelection, and through some misfortune I’d been selected as one of the sick kids he’d visit. I wasn’t capable of having a coherent conversation then, but was vaguely aware of the nursing staff’s excitement and my parents’ pride at being photographed with him. My only specific memory of our encounter was that he drummed his fingers (boredly? anxiously?) on my bedside railing while waiting for the camera’s flash.

A package later arrived containing two copies of the photo, one autographed, and a tiny basketball bearing a stamp with his name on it (or was it his wife’s?). It fit perfectly atop the empty bottom-half of a pink Bubble Tape container, where it sat on my childhood desk until I couldn’t stand to look at it anymore. There were other curiosities in my collection of hospital ephemera: the pillow I clutched to my stomach when I coughed and sneezed post-surgery; the “fun,” brightly colored breathing toy the respiratory therapist taught me to use. None annoyed me as much as the ball or ghoulish photo.

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A Brief Conversational Detour About Sheree North’s Face

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On August 3, 2022

In Oh No!

Sheree North and Ed Asner on The Mary Tyler Moore Show

This is a detour from the Golden Girls: “Transplant” recap. (Sheree North guest stars as Blanche’s sister in that episode.) It’s about the time I got a little too Lou Grant-ish while unwittingly close to death.

Sheree North is one of those actors, like John Schuck, who lingers in my memory for medical reasons. On a Sunday morning only eight days into 2017, I was sitting on the couch with my wife (then-fiancée), watching The Mary Tyler Moore Show. It was one of the episodes in which North appeared as Charlene, Lou Grant’s lounge singer girlfriend.

Normally I would’ve been alone for most of a Sunday, so it was fortuitous that my wife noticed something was ‘off’ about me and chose to stay nearby. This was during a time when it took some effort to keep me out of the hospital. I was having a Crohn’s flare and my hapless doctor, who was soon to be replaced by someone more competent, was in over her head. My potassium kept falling into the twos.

All I remember about that MTM episode, whichever one it was, was that I simply couldn’t keep up with it. I had no idea what was happening and couldn’t quite focus on North’s face. That was odd, because I normally had a bit of a crush on her wisecracking Charlene. Several times, my wife looked at me and asked if I was OK. Several times, I stubbornly insisted I was fine. She didn’t believe me.

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