It Might Get Messy

Jazz innovator Thelonious Monk was, as his biographer put it, “an American original” [1]. He was also, unfortunately, desperately ill with bipolar disorder, which, according to his son [2], became obvious to his long-suffering wife quite early in his adulthood. But when his life became impaired by his illness, in the 1970s, his wife (who handled his business matters, personal grooming and dress, acted as travel assistant, dietician, and interpreter for media interviews) turned to “juicing”. She purchased two industrial-strength juicing machines, and, given the necessary lifestyle of working musicians in New York, ran them constantly, including between midnight and dawn. Much to the annoyance of neighbors in their apartment building. Between the noise and the huge volumes of vegetable pulp, they were actually forced out of one building. 

The thing about Monk was, he completely innovated jazz piano (and ensemble) music starting in the 1950s. He developed a method of playing dissonant notes that startled but were so logical they sounded consonant. As I read somewhere (can’t recall just now), “he singlehandedly changed the minor second (interval of one-half a full note) from mistake to resource”. You can hear all this on his recordings. But by the 1960s, others (Cecil Taylor, Bud Powell, Coltrane, Miles Davis) had taken the music to new places. My theory is that as Monk’s innovations became mainstream, he got bored, and the work that allowed him to suppress his symptoms no longer sufficed. 

But the juicing, as you might expect, didn’t help. Neither did the musician’s ominous and ubiquitous use of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and injectable narcotics. Lithium did, but it slowed him down and dulled his creativity. His doctors even tried electroshock therapy [3], to no beneficial effect. Despite a diet rich in juiced carrots and other vegetables, his schizophrenia killed him—he became catatonic and simply died. 

To a much less dramatic degree, I know how Monk felt when Nellie insisted he take his juices and that they would help his health. I’ve been on powerful antibiotics for months now, to treat a persistent throat infection. We started with Ciprofloxacin, which kills pretty much everything in the human body that is not human, and takes a bit of your liver with it for good measure. Moved on to Augmentin, a combination of high-powered biocide with acidifiers to reduce the pH of bodily fluids. This worked for a while. But the infection is back, big time. I produce copious quantities of mucous from my throat and sinuses, and recently it’s taken to smelling like a dead bluefish behind the seat of a pickup truck parked in the hot summer sun of southern Virginia (but that’s another story). 

Anyway. After I awoke from surgery last spring, I never thought I would come to grips with life lacking a tongue. My voice was far too important to me. Along with, of course, my devotion to food and wine. But I’ve managed to accept the trade-off of being alive vs. being able to speak, eat and drink. My mental state is good. I’m optimistic (at least leading up to September’s PET scan, when we’ll find out if I’m actually cancer-free). I’m as happy as someone whose life is limited to reading, writing, watching TV, practicing guitar, and occasionally taking walks or trips to the archery range can be. But man, I really stink. And I can’t imagine why I should have a persistent infection in my throat. I don’t eat anything by mouth except the occasional spoonful of ice cream. That hardly seems like a basis for powerful bacterial infection. 

But, like so much of the outcome and treatment of cancer, it’s just something else to endure and eventually, I suppose, accept. As is the danger of eating a sliver of ice cream now and then.

I was at the hospital yesterday for a “swallowing study”. The technician has me eat a small scoop of ice cream and try to swallow. Then she peers into my maw with a flashlight. She could see the little food bolus perched right on my dysfunctional epiglottis. As it melts and slips downward, some of it slides into my airway and some runs down my throat. The bit that reaches my airway is dangerous. Apparently, pneumonia is a constant threat for people in my condition. I don’t choke or cough when I eat (or sip water when I brush my teeth or coke once in a while). Which I suspect is not a good thing. It means my airway is accepting the foreign matter, and has to deal with it. 

Hopefully, it CAN deal with it. Reverse “peristalsis”, with the cilia lining my bronchi returning stuff to my oral cavity needs to be strong. I certainly don’t need pneumonia on top of the other health threats my battered body faces. But I do like my spoonful of ice cream every few days. 

If I DO contract pneumonia, rest assured you’ll be the first to hear of it. No other weblog activity this week, this is the only piece going up (except, hopefully, I’ll get a new blog up at www. aehsfoundation.org, go to the lower left on the home page and click through to the nominally weekly column). And don’t miss Dr. Crossley’s weekly musings at http://www.daccrossley.typepad.com . I believe DAC has a new novel coming out later this year, look for that as well. My love to you all, and my thanks for being here for me! 

Notes

[1] Kelley, Robin D.G., 2009. Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of An American Original. The author apparently spent 14 years writing this, and it shows. He pretty much tracks Monk’s every move from the 1950s to his death in February 1982. Despite the exhaustive detail, the book is easy to read—Kelley’s language moves like Monk’s left hand on a good piano. Highly recommended—No Household Should Be Without. While you’re at it, go to your Amazon account and download all his Columbia Records recordings, and be prepared to dig deeper, back to his days with Riverside. “Genius” is an overused word in popular music, but Monk was, thanks to his incredible work ethic (like Coltrane, he practiced whenever and wherever he could find an instrument) and imagination, a bona fide genius. 

[2] While you’re on Amazon buying the Monk biography, you might as well order a copy of excellent documentary film “Straight No Chaser”, a Warner Brothers film directed by Charlotte Zwerin. The opportunity to watch Monk play piano is not to be missed, and the interviews with his manager and son are priceless. 

[3] Your reflex revulsion at the thought of electroshock therapy may be at least somewhat misplaced. My Mom’s mother had, by Mom’s recollection, at least 13 electroshock treatments in her later life. Mom said they worked to the extent that her mother could function for 6 or 7 months after each treatment, and that without them, she would have been completely intractable and institutionalized.