Tag Archives: jellyfish

Cyst

Cyst: (n) a closed sac formed within the body tissues containing fluid or pus

What is truly magnificent about the human body is its ability to not only perform necessary and intricate functions, but also to warn us of pending difficulty by sending off signals that are nearly impossible to misinterpret.

It’s like a sense of dread.

I’ve had this happen a few times in my life.

Once I was stung by a jellyfish down in Guaymas, Mexico, on the ocean, and my whole network of nerves and cells sounded a signal to my brain:

“This is serious shit.”

Now, I’ve had times when I believed I was in serious trouble, and my mind decided to imitate the warning message, but by morning I usually found out it was just a big bag of gas.

About fifteen years ago, I got a cyst.

I did not know it was a cyst. It was located in a place where the sun doesn’t shine, and visitation was problematic.

I immediately knew it was serious but went through four or five days of denial. I was convinced I could weather the discomfort, the soreness and the swelling. I even went outside and tried to “walk it off.” Yes, I walked about a mile, as fast as I could, until my body circulated so much blood flow that I convinced myself the pain was gone and I was all well.

But about thirty minutes later, I was not only engulfed in discomfort, but suspected I had made my situation worse.

I finally broke down and went to the doctor. He was unimpressed. He was convinced I had some sort of cellulitis. He was one of those medical professionals who thinks that all illness befalls patients because of their laziness, diet or lack of hygiene.

So the only treatment he offered was to place a heating pad under my backside near my ever-increasing soreness.

Much to the surprise of the doctors and nurses, about an hour later, my cyst burst and gave birth to a mess.

Suddenly, the diagnosis changed.

Because it was an unknown wound with unclear determinations, my room was quarantined, and nurses had to come in dressed like Muslim women going to Ramadan.

Twenty-four hours later they operated on me. I was warned that if the cyst had spread deeper into my body tissues, they might have to cut out parts of my bowels and even some other fond portions of my manly being.

This was unacceptable to me.

But blessed as I occasionally am, I came out of the operation minus my cysts (turned out there were two of them) and with all my vitals intact.

If you’re looking for a guideline for health, realize that how you feel tells you much more than how you look, or sometimes even more than what a medical professional might presume.

Listen to those voices.

If you’re really in trouble, there are little “town criers” inside you that start screaming, “All is not well! All is not well!”

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Butterfingers

j-r-practix-with-border-2

Butterfingers: (n) a clumsy person, especially one who fails to hold a catch

It was a perfect early summer day.

I was of an age when virility still oozed from my being and I was the father of children who were old enough that playing with them was fun.

We had joined with a couple of other families to go to the park. We did races, played some basketball and even tried some silly little mind twister games.

Allowing for a bit of humility, I dominated in every category. My kids were convinced that their dad had skipped the entire step of posing as Clark Kent, and had merely exposed himself as Superman.

Then someone suggested baseball.

I hate baseball. I don’t like to watch it; I don’t like to play it. I could probably go into vivid detail about how the game moves at such a snail’s pace that your muscles have time to relax, only to be alarmed once again with the arrival of activity.

So I placed myself in the position of pitching the softball. Within eight or nine throws, I was pretty proficient. I batted pretty well, too–even though I had a tendency to over-swing at the ball, grounding out. But I picked up a couple of singles and one double. It looked like I was going to survive the horror of the great American sport with my “Man of Steel” profile intact.

Then here comes kryptonite. Yes–the stuff that turns Superman into a jellyfish.

It was the last pitch of the game. One batter left. And it was made even easier, because the young lady hit the ball straight up in the air in front of the plate.

All I had to do was step forward four paces and catch it.

I heard my family cheering in the background as the ball–now in slow motion–came tumbling toward my grasp.

In that flash, self-doubt entered my mind.

Should I catch it with my hands, or should I let it come into the bread basket of my chest and cupped arms?

I chose poorly.

As the ball descended, I cupped my hands against my chest to cradle it. It hit me just below the neck and bounced to the ground as the runner from third base scored and the other team won the game.

I received no pity from my children.

They did not say, “Nice try, Dad” or “It could have happened to anyone.”

Matter of fact, on the drive home I could have sworn I heard my youngest mutter, “Butterfingers.”

 

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Antidote

dictionary with letter AAntidote: (n) a medicine taken or given to counteract a specific poison.

Sometimes I do dorky things just to make sure that people don’t believe I have become divine overnight through a particularly good sleep cycle.

Actually, it is my penchant in life to attempt new things, which always opens the door to the possibility of playing the fool.

I went with my wife and children to Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico, where my mother-in-law had retired.

She did not like me.

I don’t know whether it was something actually problematic between us, or if she felt the need to act out the typical plotline for a sitcom between son-in-law and mother-in-law.

She had a house on the beach. So one morning I took the children out to enjoy the ocean, only to discover that the entire landscape was covered with dead jellyfish. Unwilling to be deterred from our sea-time pleasure, and since the jellyfish were up on the shore and not in the water, I let the kids splash around while I sat, carefully watching them,

Meanwhile, more dead and dying jellyfish were washing onto the shore. I didn’t think much about it, until one of them brushed up against me, and with his last aspiration, stung me on the leg.

It didn’t hurt. Kind of a magnified bee sting. But in no time at all, the wound began to swell and I was sick.

It was a strange sense of ill will. I knew I was in trouble.

I made my way up to the house with the kids and told my wife and mother-in-law what had happened. Being a great veteran of the region and the sea, my mother-in-law grabbed some Adolph’s meat tenderizer and spread it on my wound, telling me “that always works.”

It didn’t. I was getting sicker and sicker. My mother-in-law told my wife that I was just being a wimp.

So I finally had to bypass old mom and asked my wife to call the local doctor. He arrived about fifteen minutes later with his satchel, saw the sting and reached in and pulled out one vial of what had to be several hundred of antidote.

He explained that some people are just allergic to jellyfish. By this time I was quite frightened. He calmed me down, gave me an injection, and in a matter of about an hour, I was just fine.

It amazed me that something so small could make you that sick, and that something even smaller could make you better.

I was grateful for the antidote.

But unfortunately, my mother-in-law still thought I was a wimp.

 

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