Smirking in response.

Everyone carries 'triggers' capable of reducing them into a ninny at times. TheNinnyGene expresses at what eventually become predictable times. Though most manage to keep the presence of this response secret (often even to themselves), those who come to know a person come to clearly see through whatever denying smokescreen their loved one might deploy. I feel reasonably confident that even Chuck Yeager carries TheNinnyGene. Given the right (by which I mean the wrong) conditions, he'd crap the cockpit of a P-38. I'm no different. Set me in the prep area of a surgical center, and my heart rate will attempt to set a new world land speed record while my blood pressure convinces the SurgTech that I'm preparing to stroke out on her watch. I feel perfectly placid during these events, with no sensation of horror movie hysterics. It's just my NinnyGene expressing itself.

My GP seems interested in identifying the source of my situational ninnyness, an exercise which I comment seems way too Freudian for me. Freud popularized the notion that identifying and revisiting the source of a difficulty could neutralize its effects, though more recent and more systematic studies suggest that the opposite is more likely the case. Revisiting a trauma source seems more likely to … help the complainant revisit the trauma, sometimes replicating the original wound. So I had no interest in discovering why my NinnyGene expresses itself in the prep room of any surgical center. Whatever the original source, I doubted that I might conquer my NinnyGene by discovering it. I was more interested in acceptance. I told my doctor, "Look, we know that I do this, so rather than initiating an extended search into the deepest and darkest regions of David, why don't we consider how we better cope with the situation, now that it seems perfectly predictable."

The situation would be a lot easier for the doctor to treat if discovering the source of it eliminated it. Discovering the source would be my job, and one undertaken in the likely mistaken belief that finding it would somehow neutralize it. I preferred playing this curious ball just as it lay, though acceptance neutralizes the possibility of solving this problem, as if my NinnyGene were a problem in the first place. My NinnyGene has feature written all over it, and expecting any feature to simply evaporate under discovery seems at best misguided. Armed, then, with the clearer recognition that my NinnyGene exists and will likely remain a reliable presence, how might we better anticipate its appearance? Yes, the next time I prep for a surgical procedure, my blood pressure will very likely shock the attending staff. What then?

There seem to be an array of possible preparations, none of which will guarantee that I don't shock the attending staff. I could lower my normal, not in prep for surgery, blood pressure, though that's already normal. I could take any of a pharmacopeia of prescriptions which might counter-balance my NinnyGene, with no way to test the results until the moment of truth. I suspect that my NinnyGene will remain agile enough to neutralize any preemptive prescription. I won't be surprised if I'm again sent home without having received the surgery, NinnyGene intact and active. Foregoing the procedure won't reduce my blood pressure for the following hour, just the same as continuing with the surgery, but it will most certainly eliminate the risk that the surgeon might be blamed for inducing a stroke. Even surgeons' NinnyGene activates when faced with the possibility of a patient lawsuit.

My NinnyGene smirks in response.

©2018 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #FallingSideways, #PureSchmaltz