Existential despair or pure rapture? One cannot be sure with Pendennis, but one can always be curious.
I am a grown woman and I have a stuffed animal. Like, right over there. On the couch.
I do not chew on this object. It does not come with me on business trips. I don’t rub it on my cheek to soothe me when I’m scared or advised to seek the help of an oncologist to figure out my severe hemogoblin problem. This stuffed animal is not exactly a security blanket; besides, he’s too small to properly cover a grown woman. He couldn’t possibly be a security blanket. It’s ridiculous.
Many years ago, when I was in high school — late 1990s — I was the teacher’s aide for Mrs. Silber, one of the coolest, prettiest, raddest teachers I ever had. She was brassy and blonde and sorta husky, but that description makes her sound like a waitress in Reno. No, Mrs. Silber was classy. She was an art teacher, so that says a lot. Just tops, that lady. I actually babysat her kids once but I was a terrible babysitter because children scared me to death. I let them do anything. Marshmallows, TV — anything.
I had discovered the joy of sock monkeys somewhere during this time. Knowing this and loving me, at the end of that senior year, Mrs. Silber made me my very own sock monkey. Thirty kids drew me cards of sock monkeys to go with it. I was headed to college; I needed cards. Of course, I was overjoyed with the gifts. It was love at first squeeze.
Now, there was, you will remember, a sock monkey zeitgeist that has recently, blessedly passed. My love for my sock monkey was something I felt I had to hide while the culture experienced a sock monkey craze. Sheets, fabric, keychains, pajamas, mugs — for awhile, everywhere you looked (in Target especially) there were monkeys. But I was stalwart. I kept my dignity. I knew my love was strong, original, and unwavering, that the fickle public would move on soon enough. I was not wrong: Frozen came and Legos came again and I no longer felt like a joiner. I refuse to join!
Regarding the monkey’s name: Pendennis is the protagonist in William Makepeace Thackeray’s The History of Pendennis, written in 1904. If my life depended on it, I could not tell you why I named my monkey Pendennis because a public high school education in Iowa is great, but ain’t nobody reading Thackeray. I feel like my friend Leia and I came across the name, somehow, and it was just too memorable, funny, and odd to pass up. However he was named, the monkey was named Pendennis and so he has remained.
Pendennis is on the set of every Quilty episode ever taped. He is the mascot and masthead of this blog. He has been with me through many periods of convalescence.The gestures he effortlessly creates; the way his body flop-mopseys around; that eternal gaze… I either laugh out loud or shake my head when I see him or see just the tip of his hat poking out from the covers. Pendennis is a metaphor, a symbol, a monkey-ersonification of what I see is the baffling, beautiful experience of living. Yeah, I know. All that from a monkey.
I am flat on my back. My goals are to eat a piece of steak and answer emails. In that order. But this morning I took a little time to write a little play. The 10-minute play is a great form. It’s just get in, get out. There are 10-minute play festivals around the country; audiences love them because in chocolate and in theater, bite-sized is probably best.
Many of you will recognize the names of famous quilters in this play; I assure you I gave each woman the script to approve ahead of time. Not surprisingly, they saw the satire as all in good fun and happily let their names be used. Resist skipping ahead to see who; it won’t make sense without reading from the start.
MARY – Thirtysomething white woman. On-camera quilt show host, designer. MARY gesticulates wildly and has an expressive face; some viewers are vocal about hating these qualities in her but what can she do? MARY has exceptional taste in footwear. Uncombed hair.
CYNTHIA – Twentysomething, in her first job out of charm school. She wears oversized red glasses that are forever sliding down her nose. CYNTHIA dreams of vacations she will not have for many years. She plays guitars at open-mics on Tuesdays.
SETTING: MARY’S office, morning.
MARY: Cynthia!
CYNTHIA: (rushing in.) Yes, Miss Fons.
MARY: Where am I going next week? Hilton Head? Tahoe?
CYNTHIA: Omaha, Miss Fons, and Southern Illinois.
MARY: (sipping tea) I see. Southern Illinois is a rather large territory, Cynthia. Where in Southern Illinois am I going? Carbondale, surely.
CYNTHIA: Perry County, Miss Fons.
MARY: Cynthia, in the time it took you to tell me that, I have googled Southern Illinois and discovered the region is known as “Little Egypt.” Were you aware of that?
CYNTHIA: I’m afraid not, Miss Fons.
MARY: (Puts feet up on desk, chews pencil absentmindedly.) Cynthia, put on your list that every time I go to a new place, I want one fascinating fact about that place. It’s good for the blog. (Cynthia scribbles note.) Now, then. What am I doing in these places? Begin at the beginning, Cynthia. Omaha.
CYNTHIA: (shuffles papers.) You’ll be teaching “A Quilt Called Whisper” on the first day —
MARY: (dreamy) “A Quilt Called Whisper.” Now there’s a class.
CYNTHIA: One of your most popular.
MARY: It’s no wonder! It’s what a patchwork class ought to be. Classic design. Updated palette. Tips. Tricks. Color play. All with book support. They eat it up, that one. Go on.
CYNTHIA: (reading from clipboard) Trunk show in the afternoon, then a lecture in the evening. Dinner beforehand with —
MARY: Which lecture?
CYNTHIA: “A Thirtysomething Quilter Tells All,” Miss Fons.
MARY: Aces. It’s got everything, that lecture. Drama. Intrigue. A story arc. Inspiration. There’s not a dry eye in the house when I finish that one. I make them laugh, I make them cry. Can Tula do that? Kate Spain?? I’d like to see them try. Does Angela Walters have women clutching their fellow guild members in overwhelming, emotional sisterhood feelings? Can Denyse Schmidt get people pulling out Kleenex from their purses? Please! No, Cynthia, it takes that special Mary Fons sauce to get those women truly being in their folding chairs. That reminds me… Get Denyse on the phone. (CYNTHIA retrieves cell phone; hits button because, you know, speed dial. She hands phone to MARY.) Denyse! It’s Mary. How are you? Doll, I was just at RISD and thought of you… No, no. I wasn’t speaking, just, ah, driving through, you know, to get to a remote town in Delaware… Look, DeeDee, those bolts from the new collection? You know I adore them; fabulous. Right, right. Well, they haven’t arrived yet, darling, and I just was following up… What do you mean I have to talk to your distributor?! Oh, sure. Well, see if I invite you to my Christmas party in eleven months. Just… Go schedule a retreat or something, will you?? (Slams down phone.) Unbelievable!
CYNTHIA: (hesitant; quietly clears throat) The second day in Omaha you’ve got the Ohio Star Class, then a book signing.
MARY: Did you order books?
CYNTHIA: They’re already on their way. The shop is ordering rulers.
MARY: Thank god. I hate ordering rulers. I hate dealing with warehouses. Never, ever put the warehouse people on the line with me, Cynthia. Those people drink the blood of their young.
CYNTHIA: Understood, Miss Fons.
MARY: Did you know my mother had her own warehouse?
CYNTHIA: An accomplished woman if there ever was one, Miss Fons.
MARY: Those were the days, Cynthia. Before your time. You know, every once in awhile people accuse me of riding my mother’s coattails. (laughs bitterly) Do you know how hard it is to eke out a living in the quilt world today? It’s nearly impossible. The industry is glutted, swollen with the aspirations of hundreds of designers and authors, all vying for an ever-shrinking piece of the pie. Riding on my mother’s coattails… Please. I’d be a fool. Much smarter to try and make a killing in the bitcoin world. Cynthia, check the price of of bitcoin.
CYNTHIA: (taps phone) Around $300 to the US dollar, Miss Fons.
MARY: Balls. Cynthia, make a note: invest in gold this week.
CYNTHIA: (pause) Miss Fons?
MARY: What.
CYNTHIA: With all due respect, Miss Fons —
MARY: So much due, Cynthia.
CYNTHIA: Yes, of course; with a week in the hospital and paying your own insurance as a contractor and all… Well, I’m not sure this is the time to be investing in —
MARY: Fine. Look, just finish de-briefing me. Southern Illinois. I’m getting a stomachache.
CYNTHIA: (consults contract) A one-day engagement; afternoon workshop with “Whisper” and the “You Call That a Quilt?” lecture in the evening. A large guild, maybe two-hundred or so.
MARY: Nice big audience and another fine lecture. The women of Southern Illinois have impeccable taste. I’ll tell them as much in my follow-up thank you note.
CYNTHIA: I ordered more thank-you notes.
MARY: You did? Oh, Cynthia. You’re doing a fine job. I’m grumpy this morning and I apologize. It’s the three bags of blood they transfused into me this week. Can you believe my veins are pumping with the blood of three different people right now?
CYNTHIA: (visibly recoiling) It is…strange, Miss Fons.
MARY: I feel like one of those warehouse people.
CYNTHIA: Well, you don’t look like one, Miss Fons. You look great.
MARY: That is what I pay you for, Cynthia. Buttress me! Constantly buttress me. I need lunch. Let’s go to Daniel.
Here’s what happened. No pity party, just the facts.
I’m crazy anemic. On top of that, I’m leaking blood somewhere, and this wimpy system got hit with a virus that was less like “the flu,” more like “the Invasion of Normandy.” The triple-threat was disastrous.
I sort of knew I was kind of anemic; I remember a doctor saying something about this years ago. But I didn’t know it was a big deal and I figured it was related to surgeries. Mild anemia is not a big deal, but severe anemia is and it’s not just related to surgeries. Anemia, by the way, is “a condition marked by a deficiency of red blood cells or of hemoglobin in the blood, resulting in pallor and weariness.” I’ve always been pasty and pale; now I know there’s a reason I look like a character cut from Twilight. When taping the TV show last year, I caught myself on the monitor standing next to a tanned, Texas-dwelling Liz Porter and scared the badoobies out of myself; I was practically translucent by comparison.
The headache came on Thursday night, an H.R. Geiger creature trying and failing to claw its way out of my head (the failing part made it try harder, see.) I do remember things — spinal taps don’t fade from memory quickly — but it’s all in patches, including a visit from my Chicago GI doctor one of the days I was at Northwestern. Dr. Yun asked me, “Mary, what the heck is going on with you??” I remember croaking out, “I have to get on a plane to D.C. tomorrow morning” and she basically laughed me out of the building. My mother came in from Iowa; if you said you’d give me five million dollars to tell you when she arrived, I would not be able to take that money home. My sister and her fiance visited; I remember stories they told me of their visit to India, but when did they come? How long did they stay? I remember texting three people, one time each, but I can’t remember one of the people I texted and I have no idea what I said. A friend came to visit and all I remember is him opening his mail. I blogged twice and I am so afraid to read those entries for fear they were absolutely unintelligible.
They did an upper GI. They did another pouchoscopy. They did a CT of my brain. No bleeding so far. They tried an MRI but I pressed the panic button; the congestion in my chest was so bad, I couldn’t breathe outside of a head-locking, skull-screw, mask device; inside one, I was a basket case. I’ll reschedule that and the pelvic ultrasound.
So there you have it. Tomorrow, lighter fare. Now I must rest. I am in D.C. again, horizontal, unable to move anything but my fingers. They’re fine! I feel like I got punched in the ribs and someone has been beating my organs with a fish.
“Twilight near Hetlingen in Germany.” Photo: Huhu Huet, 2009.
The title of this post is a play on the title of a song I love by the Beastie Boys: Three MCs and One DJ. The Beastie Boys were and are the best band in the world, so that settles that.
I had an upper endoscopy, a pouchoscopy, and a CT scan different from the CT scan I had yesterday because the one today involved contrast. When you have a CT scan with contrast, it means that when you’re in the big donut, you hear a voice come over the PA system that says, “Okay, Miss Fons, we’re going to start the contrast,” and then you feel the strangest, wildest warm liquid spread through your body starting at the point where you have your IV placed. Contrast fluid is getting pumped into your veins and you feel it! and it makes your belly warm, and it makes your arms and legs warm and, let’s be honest, it makes all your parts, hm, very warm and it’s not unpleasant, but this is not going to be offered as a spa treatment anytime soon.
So those were the three procedures I made reference to in the title; the DJ was just the muzak over the speakers as they wheeled me on the gurney to and fro and to all over these Northwestern hallways.
Did I mention yesterday they did a freaking spinal tap? And that I got three freaking sacs of human being blood? I have no recollection of writing yesterday’s post but I can’t bear to go back and look to see if a) I really did and b) if it needs revising/overhauling — I’m sure it does. No use. Typing through pain medicine is like typing Morse code through Jell-o, through pain medicine. It’s very anxiety-causing. Each PaperGirl post is a mini-newspaper, you know, except that every post is a first draft. The audacity.
The doctors don’t know what’s going on. Tomorrow, a pelvic ultrasound. They have to figure out where the Sam Hill all this hemoglobin is going. Fibroids? Something more sinister, still? My sister Rebecca and I have decided to call my blood cells my “hemogoblins” and we have to corral them all back to where they need to be.
Dull as my brain might be at the moment, the moments themselves, they live in the Land of The Neverdull.
The USS Stewert in Shanghai, China, 1927. Photo : William Verge.
This will have to be short because a) I can’t see straight to type and b) my brain is on a 90-second time delay.
On Thursday afternoon, I came into Chicago. I had a doctor’s followup appointment, a meeting, and I had various Chicago-based errands to run. A short trip: in on Thursday, out Saturday morning.
Thursday night, around 9:30 pm, I was gripped with a terrible headache. I thought, “Wow, this is a terrible headache,” and I lay down. At 2 am, I woke up with a sob. I took a bath. I put a cold washcloth on my head and pressed my forehead to the tile on the shower stall. It was cool, the tile. I noticed that my entire body was weak — like, couldn’t-lift-my-limbs weak. Back to bed, pleading with the gods, I told myself, “Okay, okay, chill. Chill, chill, please chill.”
Two hours later, I was awake again.
This time, it was worse in the head. I gasped; it felt like there was an animal in my skull (a rat) trying to escape. I took a heroic dose of Tylenol and tried to rest. I hit all the acupressure points I had ever heard about. At 6 am, I woke again and could hardly move. I tried to get the phone to call downstairs for a taxi; that didn’t work. Nor did it work to get my jeans on. I managed both things eventually, which would have been to my astonishment had I the will to be astonished. I got myself over to the ER at Northwestern, thankfully just four blocks away. I took a taxi because taxi = $5; ambulance = $750. Even in my stupor, I knew to take the cab.
I was admitted fast. I have had three bags of blood transfused since then. A normal person’s hemoglobin count is 15; mine is hovering at four.
To make sure I’m not bleeding in my brain, I had a lumbar puncture before coming into this room. I have had a CT scan, a failed MRI (I got claustrophobic because I also have a viral respiratory issue??) and I have an upper endoscopy and a lady-parts ultrasound scheduled for a few hours from now. It’s quite possible that the hemoglobin problem, the anemia problem is directly related to GI stuff, but we don’t know, yet.
I felt totally fine on Thursday. A little tired. But who isn’t.
