Being Sick Is Never Dull

A brief report from the front lines of reflux, reading, and reflection

Being sick is never dull; sometimes, it can even be an exciting experience. As I mentioned in my earlier piece, I have GERD, which is an illness related to acid reflux. It seems that my version of GERD is causing severe coughing, and I’m also losing weight quickly, along with experiencing night sweats that force me to change my bedclothes in the middle of the night. When I told the specialist, he found it odd because coughing is not a common symptom of GERD. I’m undergoing two more tests: a CT scan to see what’s happening in that area of my body, and a procedure where a camera enters my mouth to examine my esophagus, stomach, and the beginning of my small intestine (duodenum). This procedure is called an upper endoscopy. I have already had a barium swallow.

Through pain (GERD) and the pleasure of writing text to a catalog on my father’s (Wallace Berman) artwork, it’s very strange to dwell on my father’s art when I was healthy, until someone flipped the switch from happiness to dread. But I take everything in; nothing gets by me. I never really liked “art” writing until the moment my wife, Lun*na Menoh, turned me on to the writings of T.J. Clark. His studies on Manet and Gustave Courbet are masterful, but also a fun read. Clark has a personal interest in these painters, and it inspired me to write the catalog. As you know, I never stay on one subject; I consistently open it up to explore other worlds.

GERD is an interesting opening for me to explore. The future, I think, can go so-so either way. I hope I stay here swinging, but to be honest, most of my time is trying to figure out how to control my coughing. Between the deep breaths, I read Don’t Look Now by Daphne du Maurier. It’s a collection of short stories featuring the legendary The Birds. It’s a great book to read while sick, because the stories pull you in, and you know the last sentence of these stories will be devastating. Very modern Gothic; some of the tales read like great Twilight Zone episodes, but she has a powerful sense of black humor. Alfred Hitchcock’s version of The Birds is essentially using the same title. Birds do attack humans in both mediums; however, du Maurier’s writing is particularly scary and mysterious.

Being sick is not mysterious. There is nothing romantic about GERD. I think most of the readers here find it a turn-off, and I agree with you. Tuberculosis, a.k.a. consumption or TB, poetically named “white death,” is a virus that can easily travel around, similar to COVID. They also share the same symptoms as GERD: coughing, night sweats, and a rapid loss of weight, which are all the main issues with me. A lot of books I have read that take place in the 1920s have a young man or woman in the novel who suffers from TB. Famous figures who had TB are John Keats, Emily Brontë, George Orwell, Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Aubrey Beardsley, Frédéric Chopin, Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Claude Debussy, and Amy Winehouse. But don’t worry about TB, because we are in good hands with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the helm of the health department.

It’s hard for me to focus on writing. It’s like ten minutes here and five minutes there. Even when I read, it’s at a slower pace. The one publication I have at home is MOJO, once my favorite magazine. Over time, I got tired of “The Ten Best Beatles Songs,” or a few issues down, “The Ten Worst Beatles Songs.” The articles are well-written, but clearly intended for a readership devoted to reading the same music history over and over again. I have a subscription to the magazine, but I keep forgetting to cancel it. So, I have three years of MOJO to read. This may be my time to catch up.