I have not cut back on some of the meds. Other than that I’m fine.

I mean there’s nothing to worry about. I’m doing fine. I’m also doing fine with the drug dosages too. I still take the prescribed doses of long-term oxy twice a day, Advil every six hours, B-12 and ALA twice a day, Prilosec once a day, and depending on the state of my “regularity,” and whether or not I needed to rely on one of those cutting-edge stool softeners and a powdered laxative, oh, and let’s not forget the magnesium.

I cut back on the painkillers:  half a 2 mg. steroid twice a day (down from two steroids every 4 hours); no short term oxy unless I need it (down from two pills every 4-6 hours); two rather than three Gabapenetin every 6 hours). So, as a result, I have slightly increased “the level of pain I sit with” but it comes with noticeably clearer thinking, speaking, and writing, not as much tiredness, increased mobility, and my good ol’ bad Dr. Bud sense of humor.

The pain they’ve left me with isn’t bad. It’s more of a dull ache that is occasionally yanked and twisted by a particularly mean-spirited kitchen or bathroom or great room or car troll. Or at least that is what it feels like until I stand up or sit down.

That’s when the troll with the really dull knife, the one with the well worn serrated edges, slices through the middle of my already-scarred abdomen, ripping and tearing more so than cutting.

I really should sharpen that knife. If only it weren’t imaginary.

But other than that, I’m fine.

***

The pain can be as intense as it is sudden. Just as I begin to feel it and I go to make a noise - any noise - the intense pain sucks away my voice and robs me of my ability to breathe.  So I sit down and take a little while to catch my breath, maybe thirty or forty loooooong seconds and then a few minutes to fully recover.

Other than that, I’m fine. 

*** 

(unintelligible)

My feet are swollen and yet I have almost no feeling in them,

They resemble cartoon piggy feet,

The kind that swell up suddenly when hit with a sledgehammer,

Only there wasn’t a sledgehammer.

This isn’t a cartoon,

And I’m not a pig.

But there is this clue:

My feet are swollen and yet I have almost no feeling in them

Other than that, I’m fine.

*** 

I do worry about our planet. Hard not to when today in Chandler, Arizona the triple digit parade of hot summer days continues. We should hit 114 degrees later this afternoon. It’s miserable. And I’ll punch you in the face and chase you down the street with my cane if you tell me “it’s a dry heat.” [image error]

Complaining about the weather is about as useful as denying climate change. For years, change deniers said obvious things like that and it gave them the weight of truth as if drawn from a body of scientific work that was supported by a general philosophy. Well, deniers, according to the NOACC, July 2012 is the warmest July on record ever. And that is the weight of truth drawn from scientific work supported by a general philosophy that nobody can deny.

Here’s the irony. If I tell someone my feet look like alien feet due to how much they have swollen, chances are good that 8.25/10 people will tell me it’s the heat. And then they will tell me that if I get back inside, elevate my tootsies, and stay out of the heat I should be all right when the weather cools back down. Then, if I ask the same people whether they accept that global warming is responsible for the high temperatures this summer, chances are about the same - 7/9 (I lost one to a long bathroom break) - that those polled with disagree with me.

Hmmm. Let’s see. Most Americans are perfectly willing to accept a claim that links my swollen piggy feet to global warming, but these same adults are then unlikely to support my claim that global warming has many negative effects on the planet.

‘Scuse me, but aren’t my feet on this planet? Where are my painkillers?

Oh, and aside from that, I’m fine.

***

You and I are on the right side of this scientific narrative. You and I agreed with Al Gore and been on the side of the environmentally righteous even before that (I, for example, was present and picking up trash on the side of the road for the very first Earth Day in 1970). Because then, like now, most boys and girls get out of school to participate in these outings. And, because then and now, the whole point of the exercise had little to do with learning about our environment and everything to do with … er, learning about boys and girls. 

But regardless of how we got here, to this explanatory pause in the storyline where women and men of science who have worked on these questions for decades and who take seriously the empirical data as well as anecdotal evidence that captures the human side of the story, and we find that in addition to what we already know and fear, there are some newly shared fears that make what we are facing that much worse.

94% of Greenland melted in Juy. This summer’s July. 94% in 31 days. Think of snow melting, ice caps melting, ice melting.

Think of your own feet. If that’s what it takes.

But we may be too late. It’s not as if we are actually doing anything about it, are we? Do you see a Salvation Army-type collection cup attached to old men in “I’m Saving the Planet” uniforms? Would collecting money solve the problem?

Or have “we” - the greedy self-centered Wall Street corncobs and old boneheaded climate deniers - finally succeeded in creating a Big Problem that we have now moved past the threshold of what science can do to solve?

In other words, have we something much worse already loosed upon the world? Something that “all the king’s horses and all of the king’s men couldn’t put back together again?”

***

You feel like breaking into a commercial. You know, like the Gieco ads that break the frame by taking a simple everyday occurrence - your cable bill - and stringing out a story that ends up in the least likely place a narrative could end up. Hold that curiosity …

So when you get depressed due to global warming and feel you are no longer in control of your planet’s atmosphere …

You see a show on cable about “Doomsday Preppers” that convinces you that the way to regain control over the global warming narrative is by creating your own Doomsday shelter with its own air and water supply, a filtration system for anything coming in or going out of the shelter, and three years’ supply of food, water, and supplies.

You move into your shelter and wait.

The Handbook of Doomsday Preppers says you will feel better when a disaster strikes.

You continue to wait. 

Three years pass. You’ve grown an impressive beard and eaten all of the chocolates.

The blue planet grew warmer and the ice caps melted, as per projections. Major cities flooded and world economies collapsed, as per projections. Migrations of people to the high country and to the upper Midwest led to a very different political map. Local economies trumped global economies. And so on.

Finally, an asteroid the size of a panel truck moving like super-charged giant shot put across the Milky Way takes out your shelter. All that is left of it is a large black hole and a few random items of food and clothing that within the hour are gone.

You are declared dead.

You aren’t dead. You’re not exactly sure where you are. Or who you are. You may be a poet. Or a scientist. Or a storyteller. Some Big Whoosh came along when things got dark just before the panel truck hit and the last thing you remember is that everything happened so fast. Was there a light? Maybe. You don’t recall from this end much of what happened when you left that end. There was a light in the woods … or did you imagine that?

But, regardless, you find that you are trying to convince the same people you once tried to convince about the truth of global warming that you were right.

Only difference now is that they believe you.

But it’s too late.

You just shake your head.

Other than that, yeah, I’m just fine. Just fine.

***

So is the heat in your oven. Put you head in there, won’t you?

I asked 10 people in what must be one of the most convenient samples I could concoct. The .25 refers to a child under the age of 12, probably under the age of 6 to tell the truth. But she nodded. And a nod is as good as a wink to a sidewalk social scientist. Points awarded to anyone who can name the singers in those two songs.