As happy as I was to speculate on the frequency and hotness of other people’s sex lives (the butchers at Nortown, our next-door neighbors, every Real Housewife), I never discussed my own. Mum has always been the word. Mum, not numb.
I made another appointment with my GP, Dr. Bright.
“I seem to be a little frozen.” I pointed. “Down there.”
“What about your feet and legs?” she asked.
“Same.”
Dr. Bright tapped away on her computer.
“I didn’t tell the neurologist about this,” I admitted, pointing again down there, like a three-year-old incapable of using her words.
“I can see that,” she said, looking over Dr. Shure’s report.
“Just tell me you’ve had other patients with this same numb clitoris thing.” I tripped over the word. I have never known where to put the emphasis: clitoris or clitoris.
She stopped tapping and swiveled in her chair to face me.
“Ruth, you’re an enigma.”
It struck me that this is the kind of thing you want to hear only from a lover when you’re naked in bed and you’ve just said something really off topic but still terrifically sexy.
“Just give me a pill,” I said. “Seriously, any pill. Just make it go away.”
“I wish I could. But I don’t know what to make of this,” she said.
My file was open and she was using her lap as a table. I didn’t like the urgency with which she was taking notes. I didn’t like how quickly she passed me a copy of my file, or the intensity with which she urged me to make another appointment with the neurologist. I could feel my internal circuitry shorting out from worry, my mind pinging and popping with electric anxiety.
“Maybe you should try reading a sexy book. Watch some porn. Might get things moving down there.”
“Ha!” I said, a little too loudly. It seemed absurd to be obsessing over my sex life when my feet, legs, hoochie, and increasingly, my bum were slowly disappearing. What will my life be like if I cannot properly feel what the hell is going on when I’m having sex? What will that mean for my happiness? Maybe I was just being greedy. We’d had a good run of it, Rich and I. Shouldn’t the memory of sixteen years of good sex tide me over for the rest of my life? I played a game called What would I rather live without: the ability to walk or the ability to have an orgasm? My answer changed every time I played, which was every other minute.
I read the notes in the file Dr. Bright had given me. “Perineal numbness . . . This is a patient who never complains . . . Please explore.” I took the file home with me, but I didn’t make another appointment with the neurologist. I didn’t have time to dwell on my multiple concerns and what they might mean. I had a busy life to live, the needs of my children to be met, and a trip to pack for: The next day, our whole family was leaving for Peru.
•
In the days leading up to our July departure, Rich and I were locked in a game of chicken. Each time he sat at the computer to nail down the details of our trip, he would turn to me and say, “Babe, are you sure we should do this? I can easily cancel the whole thing.”
It was true—he could have canceled the whole thing, but that it could be done easily was a lie. There would be penalties to pay, trip guides to terminate, flight money lost, and, most worrisome, the need to face the fact that although I wasn’t sick, I definitely wasn’t well.
I had tried to be vigilant about getting to the bottom of things. I had kept all my doctor’s appointments, met with the magical chiropractor, had an MRI, stopped wearing high heels, cut out my hot yoga practice. I was doing everything right, but still, I was afraid to go. I had some serious trust issues with my body but was zealous in overcompensating so my kids would never know. I challenged them to Ping-Pong tournaments just so I could prove to myself how coordinated I was, when all I wanted to do was lie down and keep a wary eye on my feet. Or I encouraged them to go on bike rides with me even though I was half convinced my numb bum would veer off the seat if my tingling feet didn’t get trapped under the pedals first. I would sometimes swallow my aggravation at how much they were enjoying their lives, while also patting myself on the back for hiding my fears from them so brilliantly.
For years before this, Rich and I had discussed taking the kids on an adventure holiday. Now, when we were finally on the cusp of committing to this trip, I felt the least capable of doing it. How could I possibly hike the Inca Trail when I could barely make it from the driveway to our house without tripping?
In the smallest hours of the night when both of us pretended to be asleep, a fearful presence rested between us, the size and weight of a sick child. We took care not to jostle it, not to awaken it; if we just let it rest, maybe everything would be okay.
The trip moved forward.
•
“Lima is a donkey’s belly.”
I didn’t know what our Peruvian guide had meant when she said this—until the last day of our trip. We had to stay in Lima overnight. The sand on the beach was gray, the water was gray, the sky was gray. Even though it was chilly, the air felt heavy. We ducked into our jackets as if the clouds were pressing down on us. I moved through that day like a ghost, biding my time, masking my worry, checking my watch, just wanting to board the damn plane already and be gone. At the airport, we passed a tiny nail salon.
“I’ve got an idea,” Rich said. “Why don’t you treat yourself to a foot massage?” He didn’t know that over the past five months pedicures had not gone well for me. I half sobbed when my feet were touched. The foam space-keepers that separated my toes after a polish were padded instruments of torture. Rubbing a pumice stone on my heels made me hyperventilate. But I continued to submit myself to these monthly appointments because to do otherwise would indicate a problem, and I had already decided that there wasn’t one.
“That’s a great idea, babe,” I said, smiling.
I grabbed hold of the plush armrests, twisting in my seat and grimacing while my feet were massaged with exfoliating cream—a cream that seemed to have been concocted from glass shards, barbed wire, and cactus. Rich came by to check on me.
“All good?”
“All great!” I was smiling so hard he took a picture of me with his phone. Once the torture was over, I slipped my flats back on and walked unsteadily to our gate. What if someone tried to kidnap the children? What if we were being chased? What if a fire suddenly engulfed the terminal—would I be able to run?
“I’m sorry,” I said to the two airport staff as they attempted to shuffle us more quickly to our gate, as we were, literally, running behind. “I can only go this fast.”
They seemed to gather that there was some unexplained issue and slowed down. We made our flight on time and headed first to Miami. As soon as we landed, I called my sister.
“Please get me an appointment with the neurologist, Dr. Shure.”
“Are you okay?”
“And an appointment with Dr. Bright.”
“Oh no. Are you—”
“The earliest appointment possible.”
•
The second our cab pulled up to the house, I regretted my dramatic call to my sister at the airport. There was absolutely no reason not to think that all that climbing in Peru had taken a toll on my body. Plus, there was the altitude. The truth was, I was a woman in my late forties who kept asking her body to act like it was thirty.
“I’m canceling my appointments,” I told Rich that night, after we had gotten our exhausted boys to bed.
“Why would you do that?”
“Because this is dumb. I’ve had an MRI, which said explicitly that nothing was wrong with me. We just climbed a mountain for seven hours and my body just needs a break. Doesn’t yours?”
He said nothing.
“Anyway, the kids are leaving for camp in a few days and I will have the entire month to put my feet up and rest. I’ll be fine. I am fine.”
“Ru, I think you should keep your appointments.”
But my de
cision was made.
I called my friend Paula, who wanted to hear all about our trip, but it was the last thing I wanted to talk about.
“How are your feet?” she asked.
“Oh, you know. Tingly still, but all right.”
“Ruthie, can I say something without you getting mad?”
“I’m already mad.”
“Maybe you should consider having another MRI.”
“No point. There’s nothing wrong.”
“But maybe you should get one more?”
“Sex is weird.”
“What? Oh, that’s—oh.”
“I can’t feel things the same way.”
There was a long, awful silence. Paula has always known the right thing to say to me, but not this time. As soon as we hung up, I called the neurologist.
“I’d like to rebook my appointment,” I said. “And I need another MRI.”
•
“This is ridiculous!” my mother barked into the phone.
“No, it’s not, Mom,” I barked back. “The neurologist said this is not an emergency. She can’t just snap her fingers and get me another MRI right away.”
“It’s been five months since the last one and nothing has changed. You’re getting worse, not better. We’re going to Buffalo.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“We’re going. Hang up the phone and make the appointment right now!”
It didn’t matter that I was a grown woman; I still did what my mother told me. Three phone calls and two days later, we were on our way to Buffalo.
Cheery John, the MRI technician, set me up inside the capsule. He was short and moved like a garden gnome come to life. His smile said: This is all routine—we’ll have you out of here with a clean bill of health lickety split! I was grateful for his cheer. I had no choice but to do my MRI drug-free this time—I was the designated driver. While I did manage to doze for the first few minutes, remaining still soon became impossible. The back of my head was throbbing in one spot as if a nail were being pushed slowly, relentlessly, inexorably into it. I hummed along with my breath. I pictured my belly moving up and down. I tried to remember the lyrics to all the songs I knew. I counted backward from a hundred until the numbers collapsed into one another. My heart jumped wildly like it was leaping from one hot coal to the next. I pressed the rubbery panic button and the clanging inside the capsule immediately stopped. Cheery John rushed in and eased me out of the machine.
“What is it, Ruth? Are you all right?”
“I need to know how much longer this is going to be.”
I still wasn’t allowed to move. I hoped he could hear me. Between the earplugs and the little foam pillows around my head, I wasn’t sure if I had spoken out loud.
“The doctor on the other end tells me the pictures he’s getting are real good! But the thing is, Ruth, he wants me to inject a dye into your arm so we can get a real clear look in a couple areas. It’s called a contrast dye and it’s—”
“How long?”
“I’ll have to program the machine to get a better idea.”
“Fine.”
“You know these things don’t happen for free, right, Ruth?”
“It’s okay. Just do it.”
“Alrighty, then, Ruth. Let’s just get that dye in ya, okay?”
He lifted my arm to put the needle in and I turned my head just a little so the tears could run sideways.
It was one minute then one minute then three minutes then four minutes and I went through the Beatles songbook that sits on the piano where my younger son, Henry, and I practiced “Let It Be” as a duet for his piano recital just two months earlier. I couldn’t remember the words and I couldn’t remember the chords and the pounding of the machine as the slides took pictures of my spine matched the imaginary nail going into my head, which matched the words written on the computer chip inside my ears that was trying to brainwash me. Both my hands were sweating and the tingling in my legs had turned ice cold. I couldn’t feel my legs or my feet or my torso and I thought I was paralyzed. I jerked my legs to wake them and then panicked that I had screwed up the pictures by moving and would have to start the whole process from the beginning. Cheery John said, “Just ten minutes more,” and I started to count to sixty over and over, but I couldn’t count past thirty-eight and I couldn’t remember the words to “O Canada” and then almost two hours later it was over.
I took my time sitting up. Cheery John was there, holding his arm out toward me. I wiped my damp eyes and then bunched the front of the green hospital gown in my hands.
“Did you tell my mom I was going to be a little longer?” I whispered.
“Oh, yes, Ruth. Don’t worry. She knows. She’s waitin’ for ya.”
“Thank you, John.”
I picked up my purse and clutched it like a shield. I walked back to the cubicle to change. I sat down on the little stool to pull on my jeans and let out one last terror-stricken moan before I shoved my companions—Worry and Fear—into a private closet inside my brain and kicked the door shut. Already, I had forgotten what it was like to move through the world largely unburdened. As I walked toward my mother, I tried to laugh. “Sorry that took so long, Mom!” My big smile was almost outmatched by her big smile.
“No problem! They told me you’d be a little longer. They’re very nice here.”
“Very nice,” I said.
“Very nice,” she said.
“Very,” I said.
“Nice,” she said.
We got back in the car and drove home. We did not mention the MRI ever again.
•
The sky was unusually dark for an August evening. We arrived at my house and I waved to my mother as she got in her own car to go home to my father and talk about me. I walked into my house without turning on any lights, dropped my bag at the door, and headed upstairs. Rich wasn’t home from work yet; the kids were still at overnight camp—I was completely alone. I tore my jeans off before I reached my room. They were driving my legs mad, had been all day, but I thought that wearing them instead of leggings—the only clothing I was comfortable in anymore—would mean that I was still normal, and normal people are able to wear pants without wanting to rip their hair out. My thighs and calves looked like they had always looked but felt ravaged by a thousand tiny cuts. I leaned on my dresser and clasped my hands under my chin. I closed my eyes.
“Listen, I don’t really know how to begin this conversation since I only call on you when I fly, but tonight I need your assistance in just one small matter and I’m not going to promise that I’ll never ask anything of you again if you help me, because I have children and a husband who I love more than myself, but something is very wrong with me. I know Cheery John saw something bad on my MRI, so all I’m asking is this: Please God, don’t let it be cancer.”
•
I wanted to be an actress from the time I was six years old and have been one since I was twenty-five. My career has been notable for three reasons: I got naked in my first film role; I was in a television series with Billy Ray Cyrus; and for eight seasons I played a mom on the Canadian teen drama Degrassi. The biggest chunk of my career, however, has been made up of commercial voice work. My voice has sold everything from Ikea kitchens to condoms.
The day after I went to Buffalo, I had a voice-over gig for Shoppers Drug Mart, a frequent client. It was hot as hell out and the air-conditioning in my house was wheezy at best. I was already having second thoughts about blow-drying my hair, knowing that I would only start sweating again the second I was done. I kept up a gentle, mantra-like monologue in my head to help me slow down and redirect my focus away from the looming results of my MRI and onto the little things, like: Was it a stupid idea to wear silk on a sweltering August day? I decided that the uplifting periwinkle blue of the dress canceled out practicalities. I shaved my legs. I wore gold-and-silver sandals that tied up around my ankles. I wore a long silver necklace with a green teardrop pendant. I put on mascara. I looked at myself in m
y full-length mirror. My tingly feet fought the urge to escape my sandals. They were unwilling to accept anything but total nakedness while I was unwilling to accept such brattiness; pants were optional, shoes were not.
I was able to stand for the entire voice session, ignoring the temptation to rest on the stool behind me. Neither the producers nor my voice partner seemed to notice the effort it took for me to remain perfectly upright, making me wonder for the thousandth time: If no one else was noticing, was anything wrong with me?
When the session was over, I got in my car and headed straight to Rich’s office. He was standing outside his building waiting for me even though I hadn’t called to say I was coming. United in fear, our connection had become supernatural.
“Have you heard anything?” he asked without preamble. In addition to being able to get an immediate MRI booking in Buffalo, they also guaranteed a one-day turnaround for the results.
“No,” I said, just as my cellphone rang. It was Dr. Shure’s office. They had the results.
“Should I make an appointment to come in?” I asked her.
“Are you close by?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you make your way over right now.”
“Oh . . .”
“What’s going on?” Rich asked.
I covered the phone. “She wants me to come now.”
“Can you do that, Ruth?” the voice on the phone asked me.
“Tell her we’re on our way,” said Rich.
“We’re on our way.”
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