Anthrax Writing Week #2: nitwit!

Bet y’all didn’t know that hypoglycemia can lead to the funnies. (I’m pretty good at putting in those non-sequitur-looking openers that turn out not to be non sequiturs at all.)So, for those of you who have been playing the home game, reading along here, or reading along on the techops boards, Patrick’s mother’s bone marrow transplant is tomorrow. Today is her last day of chemo prior to the transplant itself. Patrick’s in Houston, the fam’s all rallied and everything’s as ready to go as it’s gonna get.

But there was this one sentence of his that stopped me cold when I read it. I don’t mean “stopped me cold” in a bad or fearful way, but in that non-sequitur way you get when a stranger comes up to you on the street and says “Hey, baby, nice pseudopodia!”

See? Did you cock your head to the side? Mutter ‘huh?’ to yourself? If so, then you’ve got it.

The sentence in question was pretty innocuous, but it says a lot about how my perception of myself, and the world, has changed since being diagnosed as hypoglycemic:

“[People at our church] are planning to fast and pray for mom tomorrow, I will be joining them, and you are welcome to join us too.”

See, that sentence is most emphatically not funny to the non-hypoglycemics of this world. I sat there for a moment, head awkward and off-kilter, imagining this group of random people whose intent is to do a Very Good Thing … but superimposing what happens to me if I take in no calories for six hours. Yep, you know the drill: unable to complete sentences, serious mental confusion, inability to comprehend surroundings or safely operate heavy machinery.

A couple of seconds later, I got it. “Nitwit!” I said to myself. (I call myself ‘nitwit’ sometimes, it’s like Jeff calling me ‘dear.’ Affectionate, really.) “Some people can actually do that sort of thing without endangering life and health.”

Or, as I said at the end of the email I sent:

Given that I’ll be driving my spouse’s as-yet-unpaid-for car around town tomorrow while mine’s in the shop, hopefully y’all will settle for me thinking about you guys and keeping up my regularly-scheduled grazing schedule.

Seems the safer choice.

Good luck, guys. You’ll be in my thoughts, and I’ll plan on taking in enough calories so that I’m able to finish the thoughts I start. Otherwise there’s gonna be some guy in Pascagoula wondering what all these ‘good luck with the transplant’ AmyMemos are about.

The rest of you guys don’t get to call me nitwit. Unless you ask nicely.

What’s ‘Anthrax Writing Week,’ you ask? See see ‘From the mailbag,’ posted on 29 June 2006.

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