Vasovagal

Vasovagal

25 October 2020

[Above photo:  Timber bamboo in the National Botanical Garden in Pyn Oo Lwin.]

As I was thinking about our live Q&A session for AACAP, held last Wednesday (8AM PDT, 11AM EDT, 9:30PM Myanmar time), I was considering what shirt to wear. A great Zoom advantage is that I don’t have to choose and iron a longyi or press trousers. I noticed when I was shaving in the morning that I had unruly white tufts of hair like little clouds peeking out behind my neck. How to remove them evenly? I settled on tying a strip of an old cotton t-shirt, which I have used to truss up a chicken before roasting, since I cannot find cotton string in any shop. I wash it and re-use it; it is redolent of roast chicken and garlic, an appealing combination for me since I’m acquiescing to Kelly’s plant-based diet, planning to live another 80 years. I tied it around my neck, not too tightly, and was able to seed the clouds with my beard trimmer so they fell to the ground.

On the night of the Q&A, I moved my clothing rack and propped my computer on it level with my chin. I got online, as requested, 20 minutes before the session. I’d prepared a 5 minute introduction, including a brief reprise of our recorded presentation. All the presenters “assembled” and my old friend, Jon Whalen, joined us early, so I introduced him around. The time arrived, with a small audience, and I began to speak. Suddenly I felt the earth slipping away. I’ve had a vasovagal reaction once before, 35 years ago and it floored me. I quickly dropped onto my back, knees up, holding my computer in front of my face and proceeded with my introduction. I could hear myself slurring a few words as I began but the blood soon came back into my brain and I could speak as well as ever, if recumbent. Then Dr. Paramjit Joshi, our discussant, made a few adulatory and perceptive remarks.  We took questions from the audience and it was over in a trice.

At first, I felt awful. My last hurrah at AACAP, where I’ve presented numerous times, and I passed out. Then I thought, isn’t Zoom a joy! If I’d been live in SF at the meeting, someone would have called an ambulance and I couldn’t have finished my talk or heard the others speak.  My co-chair hadn’t even realized I was on the floor, I later discovered. Again, it was “good enough”. I later received emails from several people who appreciated our pre-recorded presentation and felt a bit better.

I can’t quite sort it. I had cleverly removed the t-shirt strip tied around my neck. I wasn’t aware of feeling anxious at such a tiny appearance; I was not happy the audience was small but that happens when there are excellent competing programs at an online meeting. I had exercised vigorously for 50 minutes on my elliptical trainer an hour before and hadn’t hydrated adequately. Who knows? I admired my grit for pulling it off from the floor.

The next morning two students from my last class, plus one husband, came by my place, bringing chicken soup, milk, a pulse oximeter, and a bp cuff. Word had gotten around that the old guy had dropped and they were worried. They are so sweet and solicitous.

I feel fine now and made baba ganoush at Kelly’s for the first time in years. For some reason, the commercial varieties are dull and not worth the effort of eating them. My best is with a charcoal-roasted eggplant, including some of the charred skin which imparts a smokey flavor. This attempt was, like the Q&A session, “good enough”, having been roasted in a combo microwave/broiler. It’ll improve when we get a charcoal grill.

I am set up at Kelly’s with a desk, chair, bookshelf, and a desk lamp. My bedroom is simple, large and pleasant. I put the wardrobe in the hallway to make more room and I have a comfortable chair for reading if I want to retreat there. I’ll get two more bookshelves from IKEA. I’m excited to move in, which I’ll do this week, although I’ll be dropping two months of remaining rent. It is great to talk and laugh, to get to know someone else in the way you can in a joint living space, and to share cooking. Plus, the greenery everywhere I look is such a relief. Oh, importantly, I have a demand water heater for my shower (Push the large button that says “On” and “Off”, wonder of wonders!) after 10 months of cold showers, an overhead light in the bathroom (We replaced the broken fixture.), and the broken seal between the toilet tank and bowl seems to be self-restoring. I’ll get a bicycle soon, as there are good back streets and paths on which to bike.

This period in our history has been remarkably revelatory about human nature: our proclivity to follow a tyrant who speaks our language, Dostoevsky’s The Grand Inquisitor; our capacity to be unable or disinterested in distinguishing fact from fiction, when that operation would threaten our myths; the immense power of tribalism and what a constant and sometimes exhausting labor it is to try to overcome it in myself; and how my cultural myths—science and education are unquestionably good, equal treatment and opportunity for all—are superior to yours. We are all little ants making a huge fuss about a lot of things, our “humanness”. I applaud the fuss and certainly hope my tribe prevails on 3 November.

Despite excessive anthropomorphizing, ‘My Octopus Teacher’ is a remarkably beautiful and moving film (available on Netflix), a welcome antidote to all the manipulation and prevarication surrounding us.

Errata from last week. 1) Peter Finch has never stumbled onto a cobra in a bathroom in Zimbabwe at night. 2) The green mamba in The Poisonwood Bible was in a chicken coop.

Relevant facts not mentioned: Jessie Croizat had a green mamba in the outhouse in her village in Guinea when she was in the Peace Corps. Memory is fungible.