Last week Dog banged her over-sized goiter on the outside door jamb as she went to investigate the constant window-pecking of a demented cardinal. I'm told it's not really a goiter but an immense fatty mass on her lower neck created by a thyroid gland gone berserk. While the vet pronounced it "benign", the mass has grown to such a dimension that when Dog turns around suddenly, she tends to knock from atop the coffee table adorable figurines into lousy smithereens. Dog's "goiter" is proving hazardous to the decor. Is it right to malign the benign? Should an expensive veterinarian anesthetize Dog and dig out the mass like a bulldozer extracts a dead stump from the dirt?
I recently went in for my second colonoscopy. After my first one four years ago, the concerned doctor said he would like to take a flashlight and again spelunk my inner butt four years hence. So, for forty eight long months, I had been very much looking forward to Round Two as I had experienced such a magnificent, magical, and prolonged buzz from those drugs administered during Round One. I was told that a second colonoscopy was all about preventing the peskiness of potential polyps, but all I really wanted was to float through another adventure in the Land of Demerol.
It saddens me to report that this second exploration turned into a big, fat dud. The buzz fizzled into nothing more than a snooze. All that sacrifice, all those violent toilet explosions, and what do I get? A long nap on the couch. As for the secondary goal, the possible detection of poisonous polyps, those sons of bitches couldn't find so much as a pucker within eight square blocks of that operating room. Intimate intestinal pictures revealed that my lower innards have the unblemished sheen of a Jaguar in a showroom.
Anyway, I will not have goiter hatchet applied to Dog. Benign is benign and let sleeping goiters lie. Years ago, my doctor persuaded me that Prozac might put a bounce back into my step, and you know, darned if it didn't. Prozac gave me the loveliest sensations -- I felt my tummy was woven with golden lace and actual smiles rose upon my face. But now I learn that placebos have been shown to be just as effective as those happy little pills. It seems my gut felt golden because my doctor, inadvertently, trained my brain to believe it would, just like that demented and imperious cardinal became convinced that its window reflection was about to invade its territory. But without miracles, the shrinking of masses, benign or malignant, human or canine, cannot occur by the power of suggestion.
Dog banged her goiter against the door jamb as she went out to see what all the fuss was about. As usual and before I supplied a placebo, the cardinal had hurled itself against its reflection to destroy the perceived invader. Dog had intervened in this cardinal war about ninety times before, and, as always, she acted as if this were the first time she had ever encountered it. When Dog sniffed around, the cardinal, as always, retreated to a nearby branch and Dog, with problem now solved, headed back inside while banging her goiter against the door jamb. The cardinal would return an hour later, and Dog, freshly alarmed, would wonder what all the noise was about.
The cardinal must have been getting a stiff neck and a bent beak and it's hard for me to relax in front of Seinfeld reruns with Kamakazi Cardinal pounding away. So, I tacked a sheet over the window, and just like that, the bird brain figured it had destroyed its foe. Silence at last, except for the sound of Dog's goiter banging into things. Yesterday, I'm afraid, I heard a familiar racket across the way. Our next door neighbor has yet to learn the placebo effect of transforming his garage window into a non-reflective surface.
When I was in first grade, my teacher, Mrs. Teroff, would pose to us children a provocative question, and when we couldn't come up with the answer, she would instruct us to "put on your thinking caps." Following Mrs. Teroff's lead, the twenty five of us would mimic the pulling down over our heads a skull bonnet and then lacing it invisibly under our chins. And just like that, we became a throng of thirsty thinkers and all things cognitive seemed possible. Even Hyperactive Henry would sit still for a moment and ponder away. Thanks to the power of that placebo, that magical thinking cap, more than half of that class would go on to earn Ph. Ds in theoretical physics. Or so I imagine.
Which brings me back to enlarged goiters, demented cardinals, and phantom intestinal polyps. If you put on your thinking cap, you can decipher one clear thing: when the emperor wears no clothes, he's as naked as a butt during a colonoscopy. But as long as he believes he's shrouded in finery, not even his own reflection can kick him off his cardinal's perch. But as for Dog, there ain't no thinking cap, no placebo, that can reduce that fatty mass. She will always be a one goiter wrecking crew.
I recently went in for my second colonoscopy. After my first one four years ago, the concerned doctor said he would like to take a flashlight and again spelunk my inner butt four years hence. So, for forty eight long months, I had been very much looking forward to Round Two as I had experienced such a magnificent, magical, and prolonged buzz from those drugs administered during Round One. I was told that a second colonoscopy was all about preventing the peskiness of potential polyps, but all I really wanted was to float through another adventure in the Land of Demerol.
It saddens me to report that this second exploration turned into a big, fat dud. The buzz fizzled into nothing more than a snooze. All that sacrifice, all those violent toilet explosions, and what do I get? A long nap on the couch. As for the secondary goal, the possible detection of poisonous polyps, those sons of bitches couldn't find so much as a pucker within eight square blocks of that operating room. Intimate intestinal pictures revealed that my lower innards have the unblemished sheen of a Jaguar in a showroom.
Anyway, I will not have goiter hatchet applied to Dog. Benign is benign and let sleeping goiters lie. Years ago, my doctor persuaded me that Prozac might put a bounce back into my step, and you know, darned if it didn't. Prozac gave me the loveliest sensations -- I felt my tummy was woven with golden lace and actual smiles rose upon my face. But now I learn that placebos have been shown to be just as effective as those happy little pills. It seems my gut felt golden because my doctor, inadvertently, trained my brain to believe it would, just like that demented and imperious cardinal became convinced that its window reflection was about to invade its territory. But without miracles, the shrinking of masses, benign or malignant, human or canine, cannot occur by the power of suggestion.
Dog banged her goiter against the door jamb as she went out to see what all the fuss was about. As usual and before I supplied a placebo, the cardinal had hurled itself against its reflection to destroy the perceived invader. Dog had intervened in this cardinal war about ninety times before, and, as always, she acted as if this were the first time she had ever encountered it. When Dog sniffed around, the cardinal, as always, retreated to a nearby branch and Dog, with problem now solved, headed back inside while banging her goiter against the door jamb. The cardinal would return an hour later, and Dog, freshly alarmed, would wonder what all the noise was about.
The cardinal must have been getting a stiff neck and a bent beak and it's hard for me to relax in front of Seinfeld reruns with Kamakazi Cardinal pounding away. So, I tacked a sheet over the window, and just like that, the bird brain figured it had destroyed its foe. Silence at last, except for the sound of Dog's goiter banging into things. Yesterday, I'm afraid, I heard a familiar racket across the way. Our next door neighbor has yet to learn the placebo effect of transforming his garage window into a non-reflective surface.
When I was in first grade, my teacher, Mrs. Teroff, would pose to us children a provocative question, and when we couldn't come up with the answer, she would instruct us to "put on your thinking caps." Following Mrs. Teroff's lead, the twenty five of us would mimic the pulling down over our heads a skull bonnet and then lacing it invisibly under our chins. And just like that, we became a throng of thirsty thinkers and all things cognitive seemed possible. Even Hyperactive Henry would sit still for a moment and ponder away. Thanks to the power of that placebo, that magical thinking cap, more than half of that class would go on to earn Ph. Ds in theoretical physics. Or so I imagine.
Which brings me back to enlarged goiters, demented cardinals, and phantom intestinal polyps. If you put on your thinking cap, you can decipher one clear thing: when the emperor wears no clothes, he's as naked as a butt during a colonoscopy. But as long as he believes he's shrouded in finery, not even his own reflection can kick him off his cardinal's perch. But as for Dog, there ain't no thinking cap, no placebo, that can reduce that fatty mass. She will always be a one goiter wrecking crew.
