Anna has a tumor or something
I believe I might be dying, which spurs a visit to the hospital.
It’s a 15-minute walk in 35-degree weather. I dress like it’s an hour walk in 5-degree weather, so by the time I get there, I’m fully sweating through my first two layers.
The nurse takes my heart rate — oh! It’s high!
Yeah, I say. I’m nervous!
We both laugh and laugh. She laughs unusually hard and loud, which only makes me more nervous.
She is still laughing.
My heart rate climbs higher.
What brings you in, she asks me.
I have two bony protrusions behind my left ear, I tell her. On my skull. There is a third coming in.
She nods and types.
At first, I worried that it was mastoiditis. Then I worried that it was lymphoma. Yesterday I settled on sarcoma.
I don’t tell her that part.
The doctor comes in and insists on taking my heart rate again.
No! I was just nervous! I say, in a more forceful way than I mean.
Just in case, she says.
Then she checks the bony protrusions.
These are right where your lymph nodes would be, she tells me. But they’re too hard really to be lymph nodes. So weird! It’s just so strange.
I don’t have a medical degree, but I would definitely agree with her professional opinion that it’s weird and strange.
I hope she’s writing that down somewhere.
We’ll get you in for an ultrasound, she tells me.
OK, I say, instead of “so probably tumors, right?”
They end up being nothing, besides a little unsightly. I am fine.
Anna has a stroke or something
Does your head ever fall asleep the way your legs do, I ask a friend. That can’t be right, he tells me.
I look it up. The internet says stroke.
Ten seconds later, I step out of my apartment and smell burnt toast.
Oh god, I think. Stroke.
I smile three times into my iPhone camera. Both sides of my face are working.
I lift my left arm. It goes up.
I lift my right arm. It goes up.
I talk to my dog without slurring my words (I think).
We go down the stairs. We go down more stairs.
We go outside, and the air is clean and not burnt-toast-smelling.
Oh, I realize. Something was literally burning.
I consider sending an email to the tenants in my building.
What would it even say?
Hi everyone — these toast mishaps have been impacting my psychological wellbeing in ways you can’t imagine. Please be more mindful in the kitchen.
Thanks, Apt. 7
Anna has a hip fracture or something
I am taking the trash out.
I swing it behind me, to propel it into one of the cans. Mid-swing, I hear a scream.
I turn to my left and lock eyes with a raccoon. His tiny black hands gesticulate wildly. I guess he’s mad at me.
I do everything I’m supposed to do: Scream, trip backward over my garbage bag,
slip on the ice, fall into my neighbor’s car and onto the ground,
lose both of my shoes (I’m wearing flip flops),
scramble barefoot across the icy parking lot,
text J: “The trash bag is in the parking lot. Can u finish throwing away? Xo”
anna might you have anxiety, question mark