I hope I sleep well tonight. This is what is left over from a scary day. Not that all current days aren’t scary. Upon reflection, there was plenty of scary stuff going on before the coronavirus walked on stage. But with mortality staring everyone in the face, those disquieting undercurrents can no longer be ignored. There’s a massive undertow, and it’s pulling at all of us.

One of the abnormal facts of my current life involves the newfound fear of getting help. The latter used to be readily available. I could always count on the proximity of a Kaiser health facility, in particular. Now with the ever present virus fear, that option seems much more remote. Actually, this may be largely a matter of perception. Kaiser has let everyone know they are open for business, just not business as usual. No, it’s more my fear, that going into a crowded health facility exposes me to heightened risk. After all, we have all seen the mayhem that is healthcare in Brooklyn and Queens. But San Francisco has had since the start of all this, about 2000 cases total, less than 35 deaths.

I am rather purist when it comes to prescription drugs. Those who knew me in my biochemical youth, will laugh at this. Well into my early thirties I was still getting stoned out of my head and driving around the Bay Area of a Saturday night. Anyway, I balked at the notion of taking 750 mg of a prescription painkiller at my doctor’s behest. But dammed if I didn’t do it. And dammed if I didn’t get absolutely wonderful results.

What physical medicine types refer to inadequately as my “back spasm” threatened to throw me crashing to the floor. Particularly the bathroom floor, vis-à-vis, ceramic tile. Had the latter occurred, the results would not have been pretty. My osteoporotic bones are ready to snap at any minute, trust me. And as the medical professionals would say, breaking my hip would be contraindicated.

So, anyway, it all got better. And then yesterday evening, it all got complicated. A fluttering sound erupted in one ear. It didn’t erupt long, but it was quite loud. Not unlike a hummingbird nesting just inside one’s head. My response to this not very subtle occurrence was, well, a sort of baseline panic. And that baseline panic is always lingering there anyway. Over the last couple of years I have been learning techniques to deal with what someone finally helped me understand is simple, classic, posttraumatic symptomology. Hypervigilance. Dread. And I have this in common with lots of people, including, of course combat veterans.

In the morning, Jane suggested a blood pressure test. She has one of those home cuffs with which she took her own blood pressure for a while. Jane’s has reverted to normal, along with blood sugar. Anyway, my blood pressure proved to be astronomically out of range. I mean, although not one to naturally kvell about my physiology, there is no escaping a certain pride in my annual blood pressure reading. It’s always low.

All of which sent me back to the Internet to have a quick look at the medication. Yes, blood pressure can go up a little. And yes this can manifest in the ears. And following a quick and marvelously responsive phone call to Kaiser on a Sunday, dammed if the doctor didn’t have a simple answer. Cut the dose in half. Keep watching your blood pressure. Talk to your neurologist tomorrow morning.

All of this had a fairly calming effect. People with a bit of anxiety hanging around from whatever, typically fear loss of volition. And I can attest to the fact that this happens. Half of your nervous system can, for example, declare a permanent work stoppage. But so what, I am trying to tell myself. After all, I have made it this far. And this far is farther than many I know. Or knew. In fact one of the lessons learned from this last day involves the simple, timeless observation of FDR…that the thing to fear is fear itself. So true. Words of a disabled man who had expected everything to go his way, until it didn’t.