The following is my attempt at a public service announcement. It should be said that I'm not a doctor. I don't even play one on TV, but I recently discovered something important about Addison's Disease, and I want to share it. Please note that, for the record, by no means am I suggesting you should listen to me instead of your own physician, about this or any other topic.
Two years ago, my doctor had me tested for Addison's. As far as diseases go, it's not a bad one to have, so long as you never go into a state called Addisonian Crisis, which thankfully I never have... and that's good considering that I don't actually have Addison's. What I have is a pretty lethal allergy to flax. Yes, flax. And here I thought it was the taste that would kill me... Turns out it's the actual grain itself. All jokes aside, it was poisoning me to the point that, if we were playing Clue, it'd be MKROMD, in the kitchen, from linseed. But I digress...
The point is that it was a fluke we figured it out at all. You see, after several brutal nights of leg cramps, I'd had it and logged on to Google to research my pain management options when I stumbled across an obscure article/blog that said, "Flax allergies can present as Addisons." So I read it and cut flax out of my diet. Within one week, most of my symptoms had gone away; however, because God hates me and trust is good but control is better, I immediately called one of my best friends who is a doctor and called in a favor.
Now, I try to respect that, just because she's a physician, she isn't my physician, but she owes me, and she knows it. You see, after I got divorced and before I started dating DB, she and her husband invited me out on their sailboat. I've known them forever and she's wonderful. She may actually be one of the nicest people I know, and not just because she is professionally obligated to, "First do no harm." But because this woman radiates kindness and warmth.
Clearly we're only friends because opposites attract.
Anyway, you can imagine my horror when she no longer exuded love or had my best interests at heart, and she set me up... on a date... on their boat... where I was trapped... on a lake, but I’m NOT bitter, and I want to officially state - for the record - that I thought it would just be the two of them and me. That's why I agreed to go. But no, it wasn't just the three of us TAKING MY MIND OFF MY DIVORCE. It was the two of them, another couple who had just gotten engaged, and a friend of theirs who was also divorced. It was awkward to say the least, and the second that all of us were introduced, the divorcé and I understood that our marital status and Sunday plans were NOT coincidental. We were being set up. Thank GOD for us the newly engaged couple was fascinating to the point of distraction. He was forty-six and she was twenty-seven. He was also a surgeon, and the closest she'd come to medical school was the boob job he'd given her. A boob job that I couldn't stop staring at! In my defense, we were on a boat.... and it was choppy... and when a woman's very large breasts don't bounce with the waves, you're intrigued. So I'm mouthing to my good friend, "THOSE CAN'T BE REAL" when Barbie catches us and says, "Of course they’re not real. They were an early wedding present. Want to touch them?"
Now you need to know something about me... I am drawn to the bizarre like a moth to the flame. I wish I wasn't, because it NEVER ends well for me, but I am! And it isn't that I wanted to touch them so much as I NEEDED to know what a boob job feels like. So I did it, I touched one. And I’m standing there… on a boat… getting to first base… with a woman who is engaged… in front a man who is my date. Before things could get weird, my friend handed me another Bloody Mary and said, “This isn’t a BLIND date, you idiot. HE CAN SEE WHAT YOU’RE DOING.”
While she still feels awful for trying to set me up before I was ready, we laugh to this day as we wonder if he thought I was a lesbian or just a skank from Mid-Life Crisis Women Gone Wild. And since she crossed the friend line and set me up, I crossed the professional line and asked her for her take on things. At lunch, she agreed and said, "DEFINITELY, but remember what Mark Twain said: 'Careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.' Cut out the flax for a month then go see your doctor." Turns out, we were right! So if you're reading this blog because it appeared as a reference for Addison's, do yourself a favor. Read about flax allergies and go see your doctor, even if he or she isn't a friend of yours who has tried to set you up.
Talk to you next week.
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