checking in - morning walk of agitation

This morning's walk...I didn't notice the birds, the crickets, the breeze, the cool late August air. I was counting, crunching numbers. My own maladaptive coping response. I am a few days from having the stomach "PEG" inserted, and this, I think, was weighing on me. I can tell you that September will mark 30 years of working as a Psychologist, that if I am able to keep working, we will be able to pay off the mortgage in 84 months...three months before the magic age of 65. I can tell you that I was 29 years and one month old when I got my Ph.D. and it will be take about 5 more months for me to be able to say I was a "Doctor" exactly the same length of time that I was NOT a Doctor in my life.

This morning, I was on the last turn of the walk, and I realized I hadn't noticed a whole stretch of houses that usually catches my attention. This morning, I was working the numbers.

This stomach feeding tube, which may only be briefly necessary for a few weeks at the worst of the treatment process, has all of a sudden got me unnerved. I'm not thinking about radiation or chemo...I'm bummed about this tube. I dont want to look that way, and I don't want to squeeze liquid through a tube into my stomach, like inflating a flat tire with some canned gel from the glove box. I know it will not be visible when dressed, but, I am going to be walking around with this thing attached to me.

When I get agitated, when I get scared, I use numbers to bring some crazy sense of restoration to my buzzing brain. I remember taking an aptitude test and I was told I should think about becoming an accountant...Oh, thank God, I passed on that junior high bit of prognostication.

I can tell you about where the numbers thing began...it began with a crazed ax murderer roaming the Catskill mountains... near, of all places, camp Kewanee, a refuge of about 150 suburban Jewish kids whose parents wanted them to escape the confines of the suburbs or the city for the great outdoors, and give them (the parents) an 8 week break...I was age 8 or 9. I was always thinking I had the ability to figure things out; I needed to keep this super ability under wraps, or the edge it gave me would be lost. As probably every camper who ever spent a night in a tent or cabin with a handful of boys and adult supervision has heard...a few years back there was a group of campers, boy scouts, hikers, _________ (fill in the blank to match whatever state of affairs your 8 year old life finds you in.) And these boys were careless about a campfire, which got out of hand, which spread to a nearby farmhouse, cabin, primitive dwelling,etc. where the reclusive Tim Tyler lived with his wife (that was the name of my particular ax murderer). Their dwelling burned down, killing Tim Tyler's wife. Tim went totally insane with grief, and has been roaming the woods with an ax, looking for boys to hack to pieces ever since. Well, this story was NEWS to me!!! AND MY BED WAS THE LAST IN THE CABIN, JUST BELOW THE BACK WINDOW WHICH HAD A SCREEN THAT WAS HELD ON WITH ABOUT THREE THUMBTACKS...TIM TYLER COULD RIP THAT OUT WITHOUT EVEN HAVING TO SET DOWN HIS AX. HE COULD REACH THROUGH THAT WINDOW AND PLUCK ME OUT OF THAT BED LIKE HE WAS REACHING FOR A CHICKEN WING IN A BUCKET OF FRIED CHICKEN.

Well, on night one after learning about this crazed killer, I was not about to go to sleep...I'm no fool. I kept my eye on that screen and one leg half out of the bed so I could bolt as soon as that hand came through the screen. On night two, my counselor, walking to the back of the cabin to use the bathroom at about 3 AM, seeing me still wide awake, asked me why I wasn't sleeping. My reply..."I heard someone rustling around in the woods!" The next day, realizing the situation, the counselor attempted to "debrief" me...told me the story was made up, and THERE WAS NO TIM TYLER. Here's where my super ability kicked in...that is exactly what I would have told a scared kid if I were the counselor...as I said, I am no fool...I will not fall for that attempt at damage control. If everyone knew about Tim Tyler, there wouldn't be any kids at all at this camp; what parent would send their child away to be axed to death by a crazy man. They HAVE to tell you it's just a made up story. I saw right through that counselor's scheme to keep the truth under wraps.

Appearing on day three on the wall by my bed...I taped a hand drawn calendar. Below it was this notation..."DAYS TILL END OF CAMP ______. " These were the number of days I had to survive the clutches of Tim Tyler in order to be able to return home alive and in one piece. I faithfully counted and marked that calendar every morning....I didn't just change the number "24 days" to the number "23 days"...after all, I could have made a mistake...and this was a matter of life and death. NO, I had to carefully COUNT the remaining days on my calendar. Nothing less would suffice. Truth be told, it was not just the roots of my OCD like coping skill, but the birth of my insomnia... From lights out until the tinny recording of the bugle woke us up over the camp P.A. system every morning, I watched that screen...watched through the long hours of the night...

DAYS TILL STOMACH PEG...3 days.