Systemic Surveillance

I am being monitored. Right now. In my own home. This isn't a paranoia of potential conspiracy. I've personally filled the requisition. A few days ago I was very scared of dying.

When Ack, the ex-husband/best friend and I were still together, I remember lying in bed practicing shadow puppets in the cold glow of morning light in a Wedgewood blue room. High in the tower of no Rapunzels. My hair only grows to a certain length and then it breaks off. The root can only sustain a certain weight before releasing. Ack and I shared what was the servant's quarters of the manor originally alloted to York county's Postmaster General. York was the Toronto's previous incarnation. Between shadow-swans flying in, signaling a scene change, I would occasionally check my pulse.

Beat, beat, silence
Beat, silence, beat
Beatbeatbeatbeatbeat
Silence...

It was something I never really paid attention to.
I was 30 years old and impervious to mortality.

When I was 8 years old, lying in bed counting the years before I could legally drive a car or calculating the age I would be in the Year 2000, I would wonder who I would be in the future. I never really wondered what I would do for a living. That didn't really peak my interest. I wondered who I'd be, what I'd believe in, what I'd stand for. I thought about when I'd die. How old would I be? 80? 37?

From an early age I'd heard about freakish cancers that riddled the bodies of young women. Women who neither smoked nor drank even moderately. They exercised, ate sensibly, wore sensible shoes. Were sensible women. Dead at the age of 36 or 37.

Those were Black Magic numbers to this child's mind.

My sister lost her best friend this way.

After the arterial damage I'd more than likely done after a day of bingeing in SE England, I secretly vowed never to eat clotted cream nor attempt a huge portion of bland, tasteless fish with chips again. The pints stay. I draw lines all the time.

Lying prone and as relaxed as possible in my current bedroom, the dawn light maintaining its cold glow until late morning on the day after our return, my heart was both racing and erratic again. Fatty, the love of my life, dialed the number to the official doctor for the Toronto Blue Jays, who also happens to be my GP. Dr. Ron with the excellent bedside manner. Nurse Anne, a registered nurse for as long as I've been alive, answered the phone.

Nurse: Doctor's office.
Comrade: Hi Anne. Um, I'm wondering if I can come in to see Ron.
Nurse: What's the problem?
Comrade: I think it's my heart. It's currently doing a beat, beat, nothing... Beat, beat, beat, nothing... beatbeatbeatbeat, nothing, BEAT!
Nurse: What does it feel like?
Comrade: You know when you're really, really excited about something?
Nurse: Yeah.
Comrade: Or you're really, really anxious about something?
Nurse: Yeah.
Comrade: And you know when you're really scared?
Nurse: Yes?
Comrade: Okay, well, put all of those together and that's what I'm feeling right now. But I'm just lying here in bed. Oh, and add very jumpy and nearly passing out.
Nurse: 1998 was the last time you had a physical!

Strangely, I love her reprimands.

Comrade: Yeeaah. Hm.
Nurse: I've booked you in to see Ron, but in the meantime, please stay off the coffee.
Comrade: [alarm, alarm] Okay.

As soon as someone tells me to avoid something, it becomes fetishized.

Visions of glazed coffee cup bodies on can-can dancer's colourful legs step onto a black stage. With comrade slung cup arms, they perform Rockette-style kicks in line formation. Each thrust of a bit of leg sends hot liquid onto the scratched and dusty floor. Where's my straw?

In the office, Nurse Anne told me about the dozens of hypochondriac calls she fields weekly. They attempt to create appointments for inoculations against the week'sX virus.

Does CNN have a Sweep's Week?

Random Hypochondriac: I heard about the Avian Flu! I think I have it!
Nurse Anne: [in monotone] Why do you think you have it?
Random Hypochondriac: I have a sore throat! I need a shot.
Nurse Anne: First of all, there is no inoculation against this flu. There is something to treat a person after a definite contraction of the virus, but there is no documentation that this treatment actually works. Your doctor doesn't support this shot.
Random Hypochondriac: Well, flu season is coming!
Nurse Anne: Yes, I suppose it is.
Random Hypochondriac: Well, I need a shot!
Nurse Anne: [groaning] You'll have to talk to the doctor first. I'll schedule you in for Tuesday at 11:00.
Random Hypochondriac: 11:00? Tuesday? Is that the earliest?
Nurse Anne: Yes.
Random Hypochondriac: Is there parking?
Nurse Anne: Yes. Across the street.
Random Hypochondriac: How much is it?
Nurse Anne: I... don't... know... click.

Comrade: Nurse Ratched, you're a pillar of tolerance.
Nurse: I'm a crotchety old biddy and I think I need to look for another job.

Being a "good audience" is a reasonable explanation for why people tell me things they don't normally tell other people. This involves ruckus laughter and effusive incredulity. Also, going to the doctor's once every 4 years tends to boost nurses' confidences when it comes to complaining about their patient base of Chicken Littles.

In the white, fluorescent lit examination room taking my pulse at my wrist...
Dr. Ron: I can barely detect anything. I'm going to use the stethoscope.

Great. My heartbeat's as faint as a ghost. I'm dead. I'm dying at least. How much is parking?

Dr. Ron: Can you lift up your shirt, please?
The Comrade (the Prude): Okay. [as she extends the bottom of her t-shirt out towards the cabinetry, exposing nothing.
Dr. Ron: Up, please.

Jesus, he's you're doctor. What the hell's wrong with you.
It's because I'm a bartender and dirty bastards come in all guises.

Case in point: Doug, the Dirty Cop
About 10 years ago I was working at a restaurant in the (then fashionable now corporately trendy) Queen West district. Flanked by 2 girlfriends, who were just friends, was Doug - a 6'4", raven haired, beefy cop in his 30's, with a penchant for gin.

After 3 triple Tanqueray martinis, Doug bade his farewells.

The Comrade: How are you getting home, Doug?
Doug: I'm driving.
The Comrade: No you're not. Give me your keys, you filthy cocksucker. You've had 9 oz of gin.

With 3 splashes of scotch. I don't use vermouth in my martinis.

In his most condescending tone...
Doug: Do you know how much a person needs to drink to blow over?

By "being a good audience", I suppose, Doug let me in on a few trade secrets.
1. Because of his large frame, coupled with his muscle to fat ratio, it takes Doug about 12 oz of liquor to feel much effect. My mistake. I guess it wasn't the booze making him be a condescending cunt.
2. When he pulls someone over for speeding, say, he cautiously approaches the car and sizes up the offender. Employing a scientific method of analysis to the face, body and rack of the transgressor, he will do one of 2 things: A) Write the ticket and deliver demerit points or B) ask the slutty malefactor out. The bigger the rack, the greater the chances of being publicly paraded. I got to see quite a few sheathed DD's.
3. Apparently, what cops look for in a drunk driver is not a weaving all over the road. They look for large variances in speed. Without applying the brakes, a highly suspicious car is one who travels 50kms/hr, then 20, then 60, then 30. All within a short period of time.

Dr. Ron: Yep, well, I hear it. It does sound erratic. It's probably nothing to worry about, but I'm sending you off on a two step process anyway. First you're going to get an EKG. I should have that back by Monday for review. Then I'm sending you to the cardiologist to get fitted for a halter monitor.

Interesting.

EKG Lab Attendant: May I see your Health Card?

My plastic gateway to receiving medical attention is riddled with my maiden name. Remembrances of roll calls past swirled in my head. One reason I keep getting married is to rid myself of a maiden name which is synonymous with penis. After bellowed and repeated mispronouncements of a name I don't respond to anymore, coupled with a mild panic attack, I made a resolve.

Technician [into her computer monitor]: Take off everything above your waist, roll your jeans above your knees and lie down.

She asked me to do this while she was in the room. I never really thought about protocol while in a medical examination situation before. Sure, my gynecologist goes eye to sacred portal, but she still allows me a private opportunity to undress and sheath myself with the provided paper coversome.

The technician never said:
This will only take a minute.
Please don't move during the procedure.
This is what I'm going to do. Or,
This is what this test is designed for.

With a bedside manner best suited for cadavers, this technician hooked me up to impulse wires with the gentle touch a farmer reserves for plucking chickens.

Technician: We'll have to do the test again.

The computer can't detect my heartbeat. I'm dying. I'm dying.
In the last 3-5 years I've said, "I'm okay to die," at least 20 times. I've meant it each time. I've felt my life fulfilled enough to leave this Earth, content to travel in my astral body for eternity. If that's how it pans out. What I never considered before was leaving anyone

Like Fatty
Or Ack
Or Chicken behind me.

Technician: Why are you crying? It's normal!

I don't think any person has the right to question the response of another.

When I was a child I used to think there were a finite number of beats a heart would possess before giving out. Commencing countdown. Engine's on... There's still a part of me that believes this. What if we do, joggers? Adrenaline junkies? Death-defying tightrope walkers?

Ack once told me a fact. Well, he's full of facts, really. Some are useless, some are useful. I suppose it depends on the person. He'd read somewhere that humans should only fly, at most, once a year. This makes sense to me. At a dinner party I once attended, there was an invited guest who crosses continents as often as I go to and from work. He is on prescribed heart medication that thins blood. Most doctors will agree that the position one remains in while travelling for prolonged periods creates a pooling effect in the legs. As I sit in half lotus position most of my sitting life, this doesn't happen to me. I have a theory of my own.

I believe that the human body is not meant to go faster than the speed in which one's own limbs can propel. Running and cycling will not produce adverse effects. But automobiles, trains and airplanes travel at speeds which our bodies cannot relate to; do not have a proper refresh rate regenerator. And what about the elevator operators of the world?

The flying lines from one hamlet to the next, as correctly identified as my labour of love by my darling Spider, totalled 15,137.6315 km from airport to airport.

I am no physicist, but we are being hurtled into space.

The Comrade: [to select close friends] Dudes! I get to wear a racy little halter top that charts the activity of my heart for a 24 hour period. THEN I return it back to the lab where it gets processed producing a perfect 24 hour readout! Technology! What will they think of next?

Q: Will it look à la Heather Graham in Boogie Nights? Or something Victoria Secret-y?

Disappointment Factor: The Holter, though pronounced halter, named after Dr. Norman J. Holter, was not a slinky top full of nanotechnology - something 7 of 9 would have catwalked.

From skin's surface I was cleansed with rubbing alcohol, scraped with sandpaper and adhered with jellied snaps connecting to colourful wires at 5 locations on my chest. The Holter, a beige plastic box fueled by one ordinary AA battery, is tucked into my bra. For 24 hours I am part robot.

Under constant surveillance.

Dr. Ron: It's probably nothing to worry about.

It did make me think about my own existence and my eventual absence.

My resolve:
If/when I go out, I don't want to do so with the name I was born with. I will go with my given name because I feel it is who I am. I may have been born with my family's name, but I'm not leaving this Earth with it. Being invited into both my best friend and boyfriend's families, I've finally seen that even the most loving family is almost entirely fucked up. It strangely fills me with peace. In their dysfunction, however, there is never a moment when any party feels less loved or less than cherished. This fills me with resentment.

With a clear determination, 2 pieces of identification, a utility bill and my marriage certificate to Ack, the ex-husband/best friend/chosen family, I went to the Ministry of Health offices to have any previous clan's affiliation removed. I will die with my chosen family's name. Fatty's promised to take care of it. Ack would too, but he's still away on vacation.

A rose by any other name would still be as thorny.

Whatever the number, 37 or 80, my care will be left with my two apt gardeners who know my thorns protection, my fragrance sweet and the roots that can only sustain a certain weight before releasing.

It's probably just heartburn anyway.