Coming back home to the farm, I see that outside my window “the
corn is as high as an elephant’s eye,” (just about), and Host Dad Larry is
already talking about harvesting something—not sure what. He’s just waiting for
one more day to dry the rain-soaked fields. Things grow so quickly! I overhead
him say maturity is at 95%, and maybe the extra day will get another percent or
four. How does one know these things? Could one invent a way to measure one’s kids
this way? “Yes, Bob, Philip is at 95% maturity right now. We’ll just wait a day
or two to get that last 4-5%.” Huh! Wouldn’t that be great? Like magic.
Here is more magic: I unpack my identical bottles of unidentical
medicines (could I have a blue bottle, and a red? We are all a little tired of
orange, thanks. Oh, and do you have pills that aren’t white?). I’m glad that this week I am down to one, a beta
blocker, which I’ve been taking for, what, a month now? In a week I have an
appointment with the cynical cardiologist who prescribed it, and I decided I should
go online and research what a beta blocker is before I see him. Not sure I want
to ask him.
In the old days this little white pill would have seemed
like magic:
“You say your heart beats way too
fast at the wrong times? Not when you are startled by crazy cart drivers but
when the weather is hot and muggy, and you’ve been out for a long walk with a motorcycle
dog? Hmmm. Not sure I get the connection there, and I’m not sure what a Ducati
is, but let me see. Here: take this.
This miniscule amount of compressed white powder should just about take care of
it. If not, let me know, and I’ll be glad to burn that little spot right off
your heart for you. That’s if you survive
that other little spot in your chest.
That will be four hundred gold coins, please.” (Yep, that is what Dr. Cynical
has cost me, so far, four hundred
gold loonies, cold cash).
The Beta blockers that I take (there are three kinds) block
the connection between stress hormones released into your blood and receptor cells
in heart and kidneys. Keeping those hormones from linking to receptor cells
mutes the effect of epinephrine (adrenaline) with its “fight or flight”
reaction. I like this. I get to live in slow mo for the rest of my life, I
guess, and not startle when certain people (who shall remain nameless) jump out
from behind doors, or when certain other people drive in a certain way (that also
shall remain nameless), or when the weather turns hot and muggy while I’m on long
walks with a motorcycle dog.
Beta blockers were discovered by a Sir James Black three years
after I was born and are considered a marvel of the 20th Century because
they slow down the heart and prevent heart attacks. Performers found they also
reduce stage fright and within ten years the dancers, actors, speakers, and
musicians of the day were popping them like candy. Stutterers and surgeons
liked them, too. And the International Olympic Committee had to ban them after
finding that their archers, shooters, golfers and snookerers (who pot balls
from spots, I kid you not) relied on them like modern athletes rely on steroids.
And I get to take them legally. I
just can’t compete in the Olympics, drat.
“So, Doctor, you who can give medicine to slow my heart, to
stop my heart, to cut its pressure in half, you who can eliminate the killing
fluid from my father’s ankles and drive the clot from behind his eye, can you
give me a pill to solve the stuff inside my head, the stuff that shall remain nameless?
How far does your magic go?
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