Adrenaline Is A Potent Painkiller

I have a reputation for handling tragedy with great poise.

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I’m lying on the couch in the fetal position, screaming into a Jonathan Adler needlepoint pillow with the words “NEPO BABY” sewn across it.

My girlfriend is walking my dog, Luka, because exposing my right eye to light, be it moonlight or daylight, feels like fire scorching my cornea.

I’m screaming into the Nepo Baby pillow because I have a corneal ulcer.

I have a corneal ulcer because I’m reckless with my contacts.

What I mean is, even after publishing a book titled GIRL, STOP PASSING OUT IN YOUR MAKEUP, I still sometimes pass out in my makeup. And my contact lenses.

Which is reckless.

Sometimes I’ll even re-wear contact lenses made strictly for Daily Use Only™ for several days straight, when I’m awaiting shipment for a new batch. So reckless.

I find myself often awaiting shipment because I order my contacts from Dubai, so it can take several weeks for them to get to West Hollywood.

I do this to avoid the optometrist. In Dubai, you can order prescription lenses online, no doctor necessary.

Talk about fucking reckless.

I’d like to tell you I avoid the optometrist for frugal purposes; my insurance doesn’t cover eyes.

This is true, yes, but it’s not why I’m ordering my contacts from the Middle East.

I dodge doctor visits because I have catastrophic thinking.

It’s something that’s sprung up in the last few years. It’s probably PTSD from watching my brother die a gruesome death from pancreatic cancer; it hasn’t even been nine months.

A trip to the doctor feels like an inevitable cancer diagnosis. A pit stop on the way to hospice.

I was only able to get through my optometrist appointment, in which I learned I had this god-awful corneal ulcer to begin with, because my friend Ford gave me an Xanax. It was a game-changer. I will never not sedate myself before doing anything medical ever again.

My phone rings; it’s loud and piercing, and I feel it vibrate through my afflicted eye.

I open my left eye only and see it’s my mother calling.

It’s late night on the East Coast. Midnight. My cortisol levels skyrocket. Adrenaline pumps through me like the Electric Daisy Carnival.

Adrenaline is a potent painkiller; my eye no longer hurts. I don’t even have an eye at this point. I’m full-body numb. Pert like MeerKat, on red alert for looming predators.

“What happened?” I deadpan down the line.

I’m pacing around my apartment in an oversized Lana concert tee and ankle-grazing Uggs, feverishly craving a cigarette. I haven’t been a smoker in well over a decade, but I suddenly long to shove a pack of Marlboros in my mouth.

My mom pauses, which intensifies my craving for nicotine.

My mother was built for the theatre. Her greatest passion in life is delivering terrible news, and she does it with Tony-worthy performance, teasing your nervous system with stretched-out pauses and nebulous wails of anguish.

An old headshot of my mother.

I brace myself for disaster in the emotionally pregnant silence.

She exhales; my heart halts. “Guess what?” She says cryptically.

JUST FUCKING TELL ME! I’m tempted to snap, but my ego stops me. I have a reputation in the family for handling tragedy with great poise, and I desperately need to uphold it; it’s the only thing keeping me afloat; it’s a life raft.

“What?” I ask evenly.

“I’m in remission,” she lilts, her English accent melodic as music.

I’m speechless.

“Did you hear me?” my mother asks, “You know this house has always had dreadful connection—”

“I did hear you,” I cut her off, “you said you’re in remission.” I stand still and stare into the floorboards for a minute. “I think I’m in shock,” I manage, completely out of body.

“Me too,” my mother’s voice cracks, “I’m scared to believe it. But I have the report sitting in front of me. Let me send it to you. You’re the first person I’ve told. I couldn’t sleep and went on my phone when I saw they emailed me with the results of my scan.”

She texts me screenshots. I put on my removed, unemotional journalist hat to analyze the results accurately.

It’s clear as day: she’s in remission.

“Oh my god,” I say slowly, “you are.” I feel like I’m underwater. “I’m sorry, like I said: I’m in shock. But it’s strange. It’s a good shock. I’ve never experienced this.” I sit down. I still can’t feel my body, excruciating eye ulcer included.

My mom laughs, “Good shock. Who knew we could feel that after the year we’ve had?”

I start to cry, but only out of my healthy eye; the other one is too damaged to produce tears.

I imagine my mother in her four-poster bed, bald, next to my sleeping father, processing this information alone, in full disbelief. My go-to is to feel a heavy sadness on her behalf because I only know disbelief to occur in the aftermath of cataclysmic news.

I remind myself that this is not cataclysmic news.

This is amazing news. This is what we dreamed about. This is what I’ve been praying for.

Picture of my mother two days after finding out she’s in remission.

What seventy-seven-year-old woman gets diagnosed with stage four Ovarian Cancer, three weeks after losing her only son to cancer, and six months later gets to claim remission?

It feels as unlikely as losing my brother so young.

We say good night, and I love you. I’m still frozen on the couch when my girlfriend bursts through the front door with my dog.

Something about looking at the two of them, standing by the door, my dog in his Burberry collar and leash, my girlfriend dressed in all black, clutching his pink poop bag, makes me slightly less disembodied.

“Guess what?” I whisper.

“What?” She asks, her large chocolate eyes are warm and concerned; cookies and milk. She unhooks my dog from his leash and both of them hop on the couch next to me, cocooning me from both sides. It suddenly occurs to me that I’m safe. In a multitude of ways.

“My mom is in remission,” I stammer, still slightly suspicious of the words, still slightly anticipating a lion bursting through the walls, ready to maul us.

My girlfriend leaps up, “That’s AMAZING!” she yelps, tears stream down her face.

“Oh, my god,” I mirror her and leap up, and so does Luka. “It is,” I exclaim.

My eye starts to throb hard again, and I know it’s a good thing.

Being able to feel is a good thing.

Chronic survival mode has wreaked havoc on my nervous system; you can’t feel how much you’re hurting or running yourself into the ground when you’re in survival mode.

I don’t want to live like that, so the eye pain is worth it. I feel the ache, but I’m also feeling a dense swell of joy. A joyfulness I haven’t been able to access in such a long time, I’d forgotten how gratifying the human experience can be.

But you can’t snap out of survival mode that fast. A week has gone by, and I’m still conflating this positive turn of events with tragedy, so it’s been a strange week of rewiring.

Thoughts swirl my brain, “You know the cancer can come back,” I’ll tell my joy protectively.

But then my joy tells my guardedness that while that’s true, my mother’s remission is a huge, unexpected win. And then I remind all parts of myself that my brother’s story isn’t my mother’s story.

And then I’m knocked to the ground with feelings of irrevocable grief for Blake.

And then I feel guilty for being consumed by grief about losing my brother when I should be celebrating the healing of my mother.

And then I hear my therapist’s voice in my head, assuring me that I can hold two contrasting emotions at once, that grief and relief often coexist.

The weirdest thing is that in the past week, when I’m experiencing this confusing hodgepodge of newfound feelings, all I’ve wanted to do is what I do best: distract myself with writing. Transform the pain into a pretty, curated product wrapped up in a big, beautiful bow.

But I haven’t been able to write (until today) with this corneal ulcer, staring at the screen feels like pouring peroxide into the eye.

I can’t even numb out to reality TV, either.

Not to mention, I launched the first installment of the new Sex & Dating column, I’ve been excited about for a month, “MASCARA LESBIAN,” and I can’t even wear mascara for another three weeks.

All the things I hide behind have been taken away from me.

Which is interesting timing, to say the least.

I haven’t been able to fully grieve my brother’s death because grieving takes vulnerability. And I was still armed for the cancer battle with my mother.

But now, there’s a moment of reprieve, Mom is okay, I don’t need to wear the bulletproof vest, you know?

And even if I wanted to wear the bulletproof vest, because let’s get real, grief is harrowing and who wants to feel that shit, I simply can’t.

I’ve been stripped raw.

Unable to do anything but sit in my own memories, thoughts, and feelings.

No phone, no work, no TV, no eye makeup.

I’m so uncomfortable.

So, so uncomfortable.

I’m an adolescent writhing around the sweaty sheets at night, experiencing brutal waves of growing pains.

This, I realize, is what they mean when they say, “the only way out is through.”

And I can’t help but sometimes think that this eye ulcer had little to do with me being reckless with my contact lenses, and *everything* to do with something greater than me—the universe, my Atheist brother who’s probably trolling me from the afterlife for thinking this, my guardian angels, whoever, whatever it is—*something* is giving me exactly what I need, at a time when I have no choice but to receive it.