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Recently in Salon Health & Body

Column
Naked ambition
You cannot imagine the position I've been in since I started writing about sex.
By Virginia Vitzthum
[01/11/00]

Books
Is being hooked a choice?
A new book argues that all addictions are a matter of free will, even heroin and coffee.
By Andy Dehnart
[01/10/00]

Health Urge: Nancy Chan
Convention detention
Pushed and pulled at the call girl convention, I barely had a moment to think about Randy's message.
By Tracy Quan
[01/10/00]

Urge: Naked World
Brotherly love
Joined at the torso, these two brothers had no problem in the bedroom.
By Hank Hyena
[01/10/00]

Urge
Soaplands and love hotels
Weaving kitsch, honesty and lather, sex in Japan is as complex as the country itself.
By Roland Kelts
[01/08/00]

Complete archives for Health & Body

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He's had stomach problems that no GI series could diagnose. Once his arm went numb in a way that didn't follow any nerve pattern; it just felt like he had plastic wrap on his skin. He underwent inconclusive tests followed by more tests that revealed nothing and eventually the feeling came back.

Another time he woke up covered in purple splotchy spots that caused me to exclaim: "What is that?" The next morning the spots were still there so we went to the doctor and he showed them the spots and described the accompanying joint aches and was told it was a virus and that it should go away. It did.

A few weeks ago Bill told me he was having trouble with his vision. His eyes didn't seem to be focusing correctly. I was not surprised. He told me this over the phone while I was at work. As soon as I hung up I fired up my Internet Explorer and did a search on vision problems and M.S., vision problems and ALS, vision problems and Lupus, vision problems and dropping dead suddenly. Everything I found was vague and terrifying. The next morning, a Saturday, I caught Bill on the computer searching on eye disorders.

"Why don't you just go to LensCrafters today, just for a check, just to see what they say," I said, "Even though your brother is visiting and we're supposed to be having fun, I think the eye doctor is fun."

From an optometrist's perspective, Bill's eyes were fine. She suggested having his blood sugar checked to rule out diabetes. I called to make him an appointment for Sunday. The on-call nurse asked me to check his pupils. I had done that already, first thing. She told me to ask him to smile and see if his face looked symmetrical. I've never really studied the symmetry of Bill's smile but it looked OK to me.

"He's not drooling at all is he?" she asked.

"I don't think so," I said. So it wasn't a stroke.

His blood sugar was fine. The doctor said he might have an inner-ear infection. He was experiencing a little bit of dizziness, like you would if your eyes kept going out of focus. The doctor said if he was still having the problem in six weeks to come back.

"Six weeks!" I said. "That's ridiculous. Why would we wait for six weeks if we can find out the problem now?"

"What am I supposed to do," Bill said, "make the doctor tell me it's something serious?"

Bill generally has great faith in medicine. He made me swear to see a doctor when I started having gall bladder attacks. Before we knew what it was, when he was following me as I paced the house while my gall bladder shot out one of its arsenal: a painful, cruel stone. He was waiting in my room when I was wheeled in from recovery after my laparoscopic cholecystectomy. "They said you'd be here an hour ago," he said. "I was worried."

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I called my mother on Sunday to tell her about the eye thing.

"But he had that arm thing," she said immediately.

"I know Mom, I remember the arm thing. But the arm thing was three years ago."

"But an arm thing and an eye thing?"

I called her back on Monday. She answered the phone with a frantic "What happened!" The joys of caller I.D.

"Mother, you're going to have to stay calm!"

"I'm sorry, honey, I just worry."

Tuesday, Bill went to the ophthalmologist.

"I have an end-point nystagmus," he told me afterward, "an eye flutter." Instead of a focus problem it was an inability to hold his eye steady when he looked to either side. Bill would probably find his strange afflictions fascinating if they didn't affect his own person. He likes the bizarre medical stories in Discover and the "Annals of Medicine" in the New Yorker. He seemed happy to have a diagnosis, even if we still didn't know the cause. I was not particularly relieved.

"And nystagmus is caused by what?" I asked.

"Various things. The most common is drug addiction."

"Too bad you're not a drug addict, then you could just quit."

"True. They are going to do an MRI tomorrow, just to be safe."

Just to be safe. In doctor speak, that could mean "call the New England Journal of Medicine, we've got a hot one."

"To look for what?" I continue.

"Brain abnormalities," he says

"What kind of brain abnormalities?" Bill tends not to volunteer information.

"Tumors I guess, or lesions."

Aha! I think. I knew it. Tumors.

"Well, what's the treatment?"

"It depends on the cause. It could be an inner-ear infection."

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