Thursday, January 21, 2016

Golly, I Think You're Swell


When Judy Garland was told that by Mickey Rooney eighty years ago it might have been a marriage proposal. When I got my diagnosis of a swelled pericardium yesterday it sent me reeling. Of course pericarditis is better news than a heart attack. The thought of my heart being attacked is enough to set off some serious chamber music.

Strange how that word, swell, lived and died like many stout-hearted words. The pericardium lines my heart. When it is inflamed it cannot be anything joyous except metaphorically when Peggy does the inflaming. I must tell her to turn it down a notch. Valentine’s Day could be my demise.

As we pilgrim through life organs seem to swell for attention. Toes gout, sinuses bulge, joints go arthritic. Beware the suffix, itis, as in tonsillitis, dermatitis, laryngitis, hepatitis and meningitis. It seems, these days, as if survival depends on simmering down with anti-inflammatory medications.

I’m not sure what to make of my swollen lining. It never even occurred to me that my two ventricles and two auricles needed a lining. I thought they were pumping happily in perpetuity. But I suppose they deserve a lining just like a salami or one of those mackinaws I used to wear in the bitter cold of New York.


It’s fair to ask what causes pericarditis. My mother would have said, I never heard of such a thing. The doctor says it could be viral or bacterial or some auto-immune response. I was once told that I’m my own worst enemy….but I can’t remember why. When your own body starts an insurrection all you can hope for is a counter-revolution. Two close voices tell me it’s all because Mercury is in retrograde. I give this explanation as much credence as wearing mismatched socks.

Golly, I have nothing more to say on the subject other than I hope not to be swell much longer. Not to shrivel either or have a heavy heart. I don’t even mind having a bleeding one. Like the heart of an artichoke mine is the most succulent part of me and I intend to keep its lining snug.



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