June 11, 2004
Why does your foot fall asleep? I ask this question even though I couldn’t care less about the answer, mainly because I’m only interested in knowing why MY foot falls asleep. Specifically I’d like to know why my foot – and it’s only one, never both, always falls asleep at the worst possible time. For instance, my foot always falls asleep right before a fire drill in my building, or right before I’m about to run the Boston Marathon. When I was about fourteen a very wise and knowledgeable adult – or at least I thought he was at the time – looked at me very seriously when my foot fell asleep and said, "Oh. That means you have poor circulation." He said this in the same tone that doctors use when they say something like, "You’ve only got twenty-four hours to live," or, "The problem is you’ve been cut in half by a train." I used to think doctors used this serious, calm tone because it was comforting, until I once had a doctor get hysterical over a condition that could be cured with two aspirin and a good night’s rest. "Are you sure you don’t want to try this incredibly expensive drug that your insurance won’t cover?" he wailed. "Are you sure? The only possible side effect is that your teeth might fall out." I then realized that doctors show incredible self-restraint when they calmly inform patients of a terrible medical condition, because inside they’re jumping up and down and screaming, "Yee hah, I’m going to buy a yacht because of you!"
But I digress. The adult who told me a foot full of pins and needles was the result of poor circulation wasn’t in a position to make any money off of me; I think he was just trying to scare me, and it worked. I figured that if I had poor circulation at fourteen I would have a heart attack by twenty, and a couple of strokes by thirty. The fact that other peoples’ feet fall asleep all the time didn’t even occur to me. I was too worried about my own health. Now I understand that my foot falling asleep is caused by the nerves and not blood vessels, so even though it’s uncomfortable it’s unnerving. It’s nerve-numbing. But why haven’t doctors found a way to prevent it yet? I know most doctors who do research are interested in curing big diseases, and that’s admirable, but preventing my foot from falling asleep would be one of those incremental improvements, sort of like the three-way lamp, that are part of making our lives better. Why can’t those doctors take a break and figure out something simple like that? They’re probably too concerned about their own feet falling asleep.
Enjoy this week’s offerings.
LOVE STORY
I SHALL SEEK AND FIND YOU…
I SHALL TAKE YOU TO BED AND HAVE MY WAY WITH YOU…
I WILL MAKE YOU ACHE, SHAKE AND SWEAT UNTIL YOU MOAN AND GROAN.
I WILL MAKE YOU BEG FOR MERCY… BEG FOR ME TO STOP.
I WILL EXHAUST YOU TO THE POINT THAT YOU WILL BE RELIEVED WHEN I’M FINISHED WITH YOU. AND YOU WILL BE WEAK FOR DAYS.
ALL MY LOVE,
THE FLU
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