Keeping My Chin Up (the MCS files)*

And so I went to get the verdict.  On the ailing shoulder.  I didn't want to go.  This reluctance made no sense to me, because I really did like the doctor.  

I got lost twice on the way then entered the wrong building, whose hallways smelled like an overdose of disinfectant.  A counselor in one of its offices told me that the doctor had probably moved laterally to the next building over, but now I felt like staying right where I was . . . the counselor was so nice, so forgiving -- we can never have too much forgiveness . . . . .

I wanted to go home, but I didn't go.  I tried the next building.  It didn't smell, but the elevator squealed and heaved and the stairwell was dark and desolate, with ominous splotches on the cement.  With the elevator out of the question and the stairwell looking menacing, that was it.  What if the entry and exit doors locked me in?  I was going home.

I started to go.

Nearly to the front door, I pondered the shame of it all.  A 49-year-old woman afraid of a stairwell.  I imagined myself hunched over, some 10 years later, with an immobilized shoulder; a gnarled, useless hand;  back bent, neck twisted from all the compensating contortions I would have had to assume, having chosen to avoid the stairwell that could have led to my deliverance.

I turned back, acted purposeful (there was now a lady in the hallway), and jammed myself into the stairwell, racing up the stairs with my eyes nearly shut.  The doors did not lock me in at top or bottom.  This was fortunate.  Having reached my destination, I met the lady from the downstairs hallway now exiting the elevator.  It apparently had not trapped her or sucked all the air out of her lungs.  Things were looking up.

Colognes wafted through the waiting room . . . but even this was better than the dank, stained stairwell, so I sat and inhaled.  Ushered finally into the doctor's office, a sense of relief came over me.  Now I felt like crying.  In my mind's eye, I pictured my tears drenching the room, dripping off the examining table, pouring over the countertops, causing the chair to float.  Salt water pooled in my eyes.  I wiped it away.  What on earth.  This was an orthopedist.

The shoulder was fine, fine -- just rotator-cuff tendonitis, solved easily with the equivalent of a buffalo-sized dose of anti-inflammatories twice per day for two weeks.  I already knew this wasn't going to happen -- I can't take most prescription medications -- but I stayed agreeable because, as doctors go, this one was a patient's dream.  Prompt, calm, cheerful, uncomplicated.  (He told me I could keep the paper gown -- said it looked good on me.  This brought forth a giggle.) 

Now I just have to hunt down the natural ("alternative") equivalent of 16 (yes, sixteen!) 200-mg ibuprofen tablets per day.  This shouldn't be hard . . . . . 

Upon exiting the building, the source of my mad apprehension was realized in full.  The surrounding air and lawn, which had previously smelled like air and lawn, were now overtaken by something I would have to call at least the equivalent of dry-cleaning fluid.  It was just everywhere.  To myself, I called it, "Perflourocholoromanganate," because that's exactly what it smelled like.   

To my horror, small children were outside next door playing under the watch of their day-care teachers -- with the air smelling as though the little town had just been the victim of chemical warfare.  

The headache is coming now, and I'm getting ready to meet it.

                                                                     *MCS = Multiple Chemical Sensitivity