To Live and Die by a Number
Everyone knows math is not my forte. Everyone knows because I make sure to tell anyone who will listen that I can barely count. I am not even trying to fake it. There are better things in life to fake and knowing math is not one of them. Plain and simple: I don’t like numbers, whether they come in regular number form or they try to sneak in disguised as letters, like in algebra. However, they appear, I don’t get them.
Mathly challenged people secretly feel inadequate in the company of people who can count. We play it off by making jokes about it, or by avoiding it at all costs. In truth, we wish we could count with the masses. We long to be able to figure out a tip, know what change to give or – and this is most important of all – we wish we could figure out what 25% off at a mall store sale means without having to place that emergency call to the hubby or a sympathetic friend. I often wonder if I am destined to be a math-o-phobic my whole life or if this all stems back to one solitary incident in the 3rd grade.
Oddly, the 3rd grade incident that laid the ground for my lifelong issues with math started with a nice outfit my Mom picked that I felt very pretty in. I skipped and twirled on my way to school, the way little girls do with they discover the skirt of their dress can be a form of entertainment if they spin just fast enough to make it fly!
It must have been late spring, just before end of school, when there is just a slight nip in the air, but when a sweater is already too much to pile on. I had on a flowing, flowered lavender dress with purple tights and black shoes. My teacher was Ms. Allen, a young woman that I now suspect was probably starting her career out that year, did not yet have all of the skills needed to know how to deal with kids. She also was too much of a pushover at the start of the year to be able to demand much respect by that time. What I recall vividly was that my 3rd year of elementary school was very chaotic and that Ms. Allen lost all control of her classroom and of her patience often.
On the day in question, the day’s math lesson revolved around the previous night’s homework that, as usual with math, I had not completed correctly. Sitting in my assigned seat, somewhere in the middle of that room, I secretly prayed that she could not see me and would not ask me for an answer to a problem. I sunk low in my chair with my chin perched on the desk hoping to remain unnoticed. I willed myself invisible and thought for sure I’d succeeded when: “Marilyn! Please go to the board and do problem number five.” Frozen with terror, I forced my legs to move and walked, as if on a short plank, to the front of the room. There, I picked up a stubby piece of chalk and brought myself close to the chalk board. Chalk dust and the scent of the board permeated my nostrils as I stood with my face just inches from the board. I raised my hand with the chalk clenched by my fingers in a feeble attempt to pretend I knew what I was doing. Then I just stopped. I stopped breathing. I stopped moving. I stopped thinking. It felt like I was up there an eternity, but in reality it couldn’t have been more that a couple of minutes. No one said a word, but I could hear the snicker here and there of my classmates. Suddenly it happened! I felt a warm, wet stream sliding down my leg and making an obvious dark streak down the leg of my tights. Surely the earth should open and swallow me now, so I won’t have to turn around and face everyone!! “Obviously, Marilyn did not do her homework. Go sit down!” said Ms. Allen angrily. But I could not move from that spot for fear of making a puddle on the floor. Ms. Allen stood harshly from her seat and came within a half inch of me, hand still perched on the blackboard, and she repeated herself through clenched teeth.
“GO
“SIT
“DOWN!”
By this time my classmates were a flutter with peals of laughter. I brought down my arm, the blood drained out of it, down from its petrified place. With tears welling in my eyes, I turned and proceeded shamefully back to my seat. I prayed quietly that no one noticed I’d peed myself. For the rest of the morning until lunch, all wet and dirty, I just sat there. In the lunchroom, I asked one of the aides if I could go to the nurse because my stomach hurt. In reality, I couldn’t face retuning to the class with wet underpants. Without me uttering a single word, the nurse seemed to understand the situation. She promptly called my mother, who came to get me. On the walk home, I fessed up about peeing myself, but never told her why. And saint that she was, she never shamed me for it.
For the rest of that evening and in weeks to follow, I replayed that scene at the chalkboard in my head over and over. I tried to come up with scenarios on how I could have done things differently. I insisted my Mom only dress me in pants. I didn’t want to get that pretty feeling because now I associated it with humiliation to follow. I decided that I needed to blame someone (or something) for that day and math took the rap.
Anything math-related post-pee day is a blur. I created a mental block that I carry with me to this day. Subtracting, long division, fractions, geometry, algebra and all else in the math world ceased to make an impression on me, and even worse, failed to penetrate the thick shell I’d created around myself.
Years later, I still don’t attempt to figure out my portion of the check at a restaurant because I fear looking like a fool.
Having said all this, it would stand to reason that a number would, in adulthood, also become the bane of my existence. In this case, the number is referred to as a Creatinine Level. Its range should ideally be between 0.2 and 1.5. It measures kidney function and as my previous entries attest to, kidney function is a big deal in my every-day life.
Of course there are other numbers that interrupt my life, like the numbers of elevated blood pressure, or the numbers of my pathetic salary, but that creatinine stands in a class all its own!
So yesterday was one of those days. I had to go to my clinic in Westchester County. It is, and always has been, an all day thing. As a result, I always have to take a day off work to go there. I get my blood drawn a day or two before and go there to see Dr. Delaney. It’s like a study in patience to be a post-transplant patient. Anyone who knows me knows that patience is not something I excel in, but over the years I have had to find creative ways in which to pass the long hours at clinic.
Though I have been at this waiting game for years, I always have the same reaction. Usually, I enjoy the drive to the clinic because it gets me out of the City. Driving on beautifully landscaped winding roads is very relaxing to me. However, my relaxation fades to black as soon as I am ushered into an examination room to await my fate. My fate is found in ONE number. I wait for that number as if my life depends on it – because it does. To distract us patients, the nurse weighs us and takes our blood pressure. But let’s get real here. We are all simply sitting on our hands until we know that result. The creatinine level will determine what kind of day, week, month and year I will have.
Nothing can compare with the knotted stomach feeling I get just before that number is announced. The twisting and turning and unpleasant churning that go on inside me are ever-present until I know. No matter what activity (usually reading a book or magazine) I have engaged in to distract myself from the trembling insides, they remain. No matter how well I have been feeling, or how often I get a clean bill of health, there is never a level of comfort I admit to reaching when it comes down to it. The creatinine number rules my existence. Whatever else is measured in my results takes a backseat to it. I am on pins and needles and acutely aware of how strongly I am gripping the edge of the seat I am in.
Yesterday, when the moment of truth came, it was good news. A gigantic exhalation followed the good tiding. This proved that aside from all previously described symptoms; I am also holding my breath until I know. I followed that by mass-recipient text to my loved ones, who also sit on the edge of their seats in anticipation. I am free to roam another day! Unlike many times in the past, this time the NUMBER did not betray me on this day. Today it was my friend, but it is fickle and tomorrow may turn out to be my worst enemy. Like a snake it will just as soon throw me to the lions, given an opportunity. My creatinine level holds great power over me and over my happiness. I respect it. I try to protect it. I live and breathe it and I fear it. Like all numbers I encounter each day, I fear it. And by simply showing up to hear that number from the doctor, I am again in 3rd grade and I have just peed my underpants.
Mathly challenged people secretly feel inadequate in the company of people who can count. We play it off by making jokes about it, or by avoiding it at all costs. In truth, we wish we could count with the masses. We long to be able to figure out a tip, know what change to give or – and this is most important of all – we wish we could figure out what 25% off at a mall store sale means without having to place that emergency call to the hubby or a sympathetic friend. I often wonder if I am destined to be a math-o-phobic my whole life or if this all stems back to one solitary incident in the 3rd grade.
Oddly, the 3rd grade incident that laid the ground for my lifelong issues with math started with a nice outfit my Mom picked that I felt very pretty in. I skipped and twirled on my way to school, the way little girls do with they discover the skirt of their dress can be a form of entertainment if they spin just fast enough to make it fly!
It must have been late spring, just before end of school, when there is just a slight nip in the air, but when a sweater is already too much to pile on. I had on a flowing, flowered lavender dress with purple tights and black shoes. My teacher was Ms. Allen, a young woman that I now suspect was probably starting her career out that year, did not yet have all of the skills needed to know how to deal with kids. She also was too much of a pushover at the start of the year to be able to demand much respect by that time. What I recall vividly was that my 3rd year of elementary school was very chaotic and that Ms. Allen lost all control of her classroom and of her patience often.
On the day in question, the day’s math lesson revolved around the previous night’s homework that, as usual with math, I had not completed correctly. Sitting in my assigned seat, somewhere in the middle of that room, I secretly prayed that she could not see me and would not ask me for an answer to a problem. I sunk low in my chair with my chin perched on the desk hoping to remain unnoticed. I willed myself invisible and thought for sure I’d succeeded when: “Marilyn! Please go to the board and do problem number five.” Frozen with terror, I forced my legs to move and walked, as if on a short plank, to the front of the room. There, I picked up a stubby piece of chalk and brought myself close to the chalk board. Chalk dust and the scent of the board permeated my nostrils as I stood with my face just inches from the board. I raised my hand with the chalk clenched by my fingers in a feeble attempt to pretend I knew what I was doing. Then I just stopped. I stopped breathing. I stopped moving. I stopped thinking. It felt like I was up there an eternity, but in reality it couldn’t have been more that a couple of minutes. No one said a word, but I could hear the snicker here and there of my classmates. Suddenly it happened! I felt a warm, wet stream sliding down my leg and making an obvious dark streak down the leg of my tights. Surely the earth should open and swallow me now, so I won’t have to turn around and face everyone!! “Obviously, Marilyn did not do her homework. Go sit down!” said Ms. Allen angrily. But I could not move from that spot for fear of making a puddle on the floor. Ms. Allen stood harshly from her seat and came within a half inch of me, hand still perched on the blackboard, and she repeated herself through clenched teeth.
“GO
“SIT
“DOWN!”
By this time my classmates were a flutter with peals of laughter. I brought down my arm, the blood drained out of it, down from its petrified place. With tears welling in my eyes, I turned and proceeded shamefully back to my seat. I prayed quietly that no one noticed I’d peed myself. For the rest of the morning until lunch, all wet and dirty, I just sat there. In the lunchroom, I asked one of the aides if I could go to the nurse because my stomach hurt. In reality, I couldn’t face retuning to the class with wet underpants. Without me uttering a single word, the nurse seemed to understand the situation. She promptly called my mother, who came to get me. On the walk home, I fessed up about peeing myself, but never told her why. And saint that she was, she never shamed me for it.
For the rest of that evening and in weeks to follow, I replayed that scene at the chalkboard in my head over and over. I tried to come up with scenarios on how I could have done things differently. I insisted my Mom only dress me in pants. I didn’t want to get that pretty feeling because now I associated it with humiliation to follow. I decided that I needed to blame someone (or something) for that day and math took the rap.
Anything math-related post-pee day is a blur. I created a mental block that I carry with me to this day. Subtracting, long division, fractions, geometry, algebra and all else in the math world ceased to make an impression on me, and even worse, failed to penetrate the thick shell I’d created around myself.
Years later, I still don’t attempt to figure out my portion of the check at a restaurant because I fear looking like a fool.
Having said all this, it would stand to reason that a number would, in adulthood, also become the bane of my existence. In this case, the number is referred to as a Creatinine Level. Its range should ideally be between 0.2 and 1.5. It measures kidney function and as my previous entries attest to, kidney function is a big deal in my every-day life.
Of course there are other numbers that interrupt my life, like the numbers of elevated blood pressure, or the numbers of my pathetic salary, but that creatinine stands in a class all its own!
So yesterday was one of those days. I had to go to my clinic in Westchester County. It is, and always has been, an all day thing. As a result, I always have to take a day off work to go there. I get my blood drawn a day or two before and go there to see Dr. Delaney. It’s like a study in patience to be a post-transplant patient. Anyone who knows me knows that patience is not something I excel in, but over the years I have had to find creative ways in which to pass the long hours at clinic.
Though I have been at this waiting game for years, I always have the same reaction. Usually, I enjoy the drive to the clinic because it gets me out of the City. Driving on beautifully landscaped winding roads is very relaxing to me. However, my relaxation fades to black as soon as I am ushered into an examination room to await my fate. My fate is found in ONE number. I wait for that number as if my life depends on it – because it does. To distract us patients, the nurse weighs us and takes our blood pressure. But let’s get real here. We are all simply sitting on our hands until we know that result. The creatinine level will determine what kind of day, week, month and year I will have.
Nothing can compare with the knotted stomach feeling I get just before that number is announced. The twisting and turning and unpleasant churning that go on inside me are ever-present until I know. No matter what activity (usually reading a book or magazine) I have engaged in to distract myself from the trembling insides, they remain. No matter how well I have been feeling, or how often I get a clean bill of health, there is never a level of comfort I admit to reaching when it comes down to it. The creatinine number rules my existence. Whatever else is measured in my results takes a backseat to it. I am on pins and needles and acutely aware of how strongly I am gripping the edge of the seat I am in.
Yesterday, when the moment of truth came, it was good news. A gigantic exhalation followed the good tiding. This proved that aside from all previously described symptoms; I am also holding my breath until I know. I followed that by mass-recipient text to my loved ones, who also sit on the edge of their seats in anticipation. I am free to roam another day! Unlike many times in the past, this time the NUMBER did not betray me on this day. Today it was my friend, but it is fickle and tomorrow may turn out to be my worst enemy. Like a snake it will just as soon throw me to the lions, given an opportunity. My creatinine level holds great power over me and over my happiness. I respect it. I try to protect it. I live and breathe it and I fear it. Like all numbers I encounter each day, I fear it. And by simply showing up to hear that number from the doctor, I am again in 3rd grade and I have just peed my underpants.
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