Me, and Damien Walters; Damien Walters and I!

parkour:  The art of moving through your environment as swiftly and effectively as possible using only the human body.

You should have seen me. You would have cheered.


It was the perfect storm of good things:  I slept an incredible four hours straight, enjoyed a balanced, rich cup of coffee in the predawn, then relaxed and laughed with the flitting, fighting chickadees.  


And, if I do say so myself, I was quite nattily dressed.


Yes, there were the normal oddities.  La Bonne et Belle Bianca Castafiore was, inexplicably, curled up on the lower shelf of the kitchen block table, covered with an antique Point de Venise lace tablecloth.  Granted, she was sacked out in a kitchen that I don't normally use, as the replica of the Karaboudjan's galley is not my idea of the ideal place to prepare or consume food.  Still, for an early morning view of the cluster of spruce trees and the bud- and canker- worms so beloved by my beloved chickadees, nothing beats the view out of the galley's over-sized portholes.


Right. Well, anyway, things began well.  That's all I am saying.
I was feeling good; I was feeling lean and mean.


I had an early morning cardiology appointment and let's face it, early mornings are not exactly what we are known for around here.  Fred and I even retrained the circadian rhythms of all the livestock and domestic animals so that their days don't actually start until mid-afternoon.


Despite my penchant for equating left with west and north with straight ahead, we had an uneventful trip into Lone Alp. 

My MDVIP Go-To-Guy referred me to a new cardiologist this year.  It's not that the old one was in any way not a great doctor, he was.  Is.  No, it is more, for me, that I just cannot tolerate dealing with anyone or anything associated with the CrapAss Hospital that has so contributed to the demise of my earthly usefulness.  Not that I've given that much thought or anything!  


I remember, in fact, my Former Cardiologist with great affection, for he once told me that I would not die so long as he was taking care of me.  I loved that brash idiocy.


Unfortunately, ever since he actually had the chance to snatch me from the jaws of death, he has been caught up in the evil machinery of CrapAss Hospital.  Because of the great Shoulder Adventures of the last three years, I've only gone in to get an echo done, and only once, and did not deal with the doctor at all -- except to have one of his partners bless me out over the phone.  (When he was done blessing me out for having skipped a few echos, he told me not to worry about my aortic dilation blowing up, "because you will never see it coming...")


Oops!  Oh, well!


So we cruised into the Free Gimp Parking, gave Ruby the Honda CR-V a pat on the butt, and found the office with nary a wrong turn and not a bit of confusion.  [We don't do well in new office buildings.  Sometimes we duck into the first cozy looking waiting room and pretend we're in the right place.  It's usually the urologist's or the plastic surgeon's joint, though, and they catch on pretty quickly and toss us out.]


The New Cardiologist's place is incredibly well-organized.  I didn't realize how much I appreciated that until I was there, in the midst of streamlined forms and efficient people.  Everyone was so good at what they did, and they communicated!  Not just with me and Fred, but with each other.


Excuse my excitement.  Little things just send me!


Now... here is the part where it's all about me, and Damien Walters, Damien Walters and I!  That's this post's title, in case you've been distracted. 


I've long been a fan of parkour, then free running, free styling -- the martial arts, too.  As my body has crapped out and essentially imploded on itself, I've traveled beyond this body via the Internet and television, finally carving out for myself niches of the imagination.  


On one of my baseline days, I'll cue up the greatest of tennis matches, admire the most powerful and musical ballet dancers, and I let my body go.  It's enjoyment.  It's distraction.  For a few years, I could even pretend it was muscle memory!


On intolerable days, I might visit PopThatZit and replay Pete Popped a Pustulant Pimple ten times in a row... or I might not!  But I will *always* end up watching Damien Walters, usually his showreels, one right after the other.  I fly, jump, fall, push, pull, defy gravity and embrace gravity, all at the same time.  I feel no pain and my tendons never retract, my muscles never seize.  I'm lithe, light as air, fast as lightening.  Pliant, compliant, but steel, I am jiu-jitsu.


When I was escorted back to the echo room, this morning, the first thing that jumped out at me was the behemoth of an exam table.  It looked as tall as a freaking elephant.


The nurse asked me if I could change into the gown on my own.  "Sure!" I said.  She asked if I could walk to the exam table.  "You betcha!" I crowed, adding, "I brought my magic cane, even. But then you are out of luck, because there's no way I can get *on* it." 


"Not even with this stepladder?  How about if I hold you up?  How about if you hang onto me?"


Because of the instability, swelling, and pain in my ankles, knees, and hips, I cannot step up or down.  The last time I tried to use one of those stepladders was in a radiology department and the tech did not entirely believe my protests that I couldn't trust my legs.  I ended up on the floor that day, and pretty mad about it, too.  I have fallen quite enough in this lifetime, thankyouverymuch.


She picked up the phone to call for the nearest Big Guy, so that my own petard could be hoisted...


But something of the spirit of Damien Walters showed up in me, today, unexpectedly.  I told her that, no, we would not be needing assistance, and that, yes, I could do this if she wouldn't mind parking my wheelchair somewhere out of the way once I vaulted out of it, pirouetted in midair, onto the beastie table.


She looked a tad bit skeptical.  She was staring at my legs and wincing.


It might have been choreographed by Balanchine.  Danced by Edward Villella.  You'd easily imagine that I was inhabited by Martina, Chris, Monica, Hana, and Steffi, tour à tour.  


But it was in every way inspired by Damien Walters.


I planted one leg here, the other there, becoming my own source of symmetry.  I plumbed the potential energy of every surface.  Briefly, I was here, then there, now attracted, now repelled.  Once, twice, I was standing --sideways -- on a cabinet.  Thereafter, I was free of surfaces altogether.


I usually crane my neck and nervously watch the progress of the echo -- it's kind of neat to see your heart as it beats, to listen to the woosh-woosh.  The nurse, after verifying that I had survived my feats of athleticism with bones and internal organs intact, was all business.  She reminded me that talking, coughing, and such interfered with the test, so I stopped talking, never coughed, held my breath when instructed, but mostly just ran Damien Walters' videos in my head.


In a first, I managed to crack up both myself and the test operator, and did, I guess, disrupt things.  They record the sounds produced by various parts of the heart, concentrating, I think, on the valves.  I heard a series that were familiar from past tests... and then, out of the blue, came what can only be described as Island Music.  "They're having a party in there!" came out before I could stop myself from talking.  Seriously, we are talking ukuleles, tambours, maracas, and seven kinds of guitars.  


Go, mine heart, go!


There were a few abnormal results from the echo, but none of them were new, none of them were worse, and one of them was actually better.  I'm really happy with this new place.


The nurse was on the warpath as we left, threatening to quit if she wasn't given an adjustable table for her echocardiogram patients, going on and on about some "debilitated" people of her acquaintance.  Whoever they are, I hope they get better soon.


And I hope the cardiologists keep that massively tall, unwieldy table, maybe tucked away in some storage room for when I come back next year.  


I haven't had so much fun in I-don't-know-when.