Pain in the Chest

I’m dying, I thought to myself as I woke up. It was my fifth day living with an unidentified pain that resided in my chest near my heart. As I rolled over, my arm felt numb. This is it, I nearly said out loud, this is the beginning of my end. For a few minutes, I was too groggy to realize that I had been lying on my arm, thus the pins and needle sensation. Thankfully, WonderWife™ wasn’t making toast for breakfast because that might have sent me into a tailspin. So I wasn’t having a heart attack, but I didn’t have an answer for the ache in my chest.

I’m not a hypochondriac. I rarely get sick. I didn’t want to go to the doctor. I wanted to hide in the back of my closet. This was impractical, unrealistic and foolish. I needed to act. People in this world depended on me and loved me. But I was scared. Scared of what this pain might mean. Scared of what the doctor could tell me. I forced myself not to look anything up on the internet.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I told WonderWife™ about the pain knowing that once I blurted the truth to her, I couldn’t run away from it. She wouldn’t let me.

“I need to go to the doctor,” I told WW™ quietly over breakfast. “There’s something wrong with me. I know it. I’m scared. I’m dying.”

She rubbed my shoulder and reassured me in a way that said, “you’re going to be fine” and “you’re a freaking lunatic.” I wished she would have said, “You’re not dying you just can’t think of anything better to do.” But that’s a foolish pipe dream.

At this point I did what any rational non-rational person would do and made an appointment with the my GP. After I carefully laid out my symptoms, the doc seemed rather nonplussed about my condition. I didn’t take this as a sign of encouragement, because the man might be the most blasé person I’ve ever encountered. He did tell me that it was unlikely I was dying, but so that I might someday be able to get back to sleep he would run a few tests.

I was escorted to a small, seemingly little-used back room of the office where, sitting amongst boxes of files haphazardly strewn about, was a treadmill. Electrodes were glued all over my body and I tried not to think about how they would feel later being pulled off of my fuzzy chest. I ran on the treadmill while the doctor and a nurse cranked it faster and higher all the while reading beeps and lines of the machine that was connected to me. Or they could have been playing Angry Birds. I’m not really sure because I was busy huffing it on the treadmill, silently pleading for them to stop the machine before I passed out.

As predicted, none of the things a doctor wouldn’t want to see on the test were there. Everything was fine. Sure I had blown through my deductible in one visit, but I now had peace of mind. For now. I’m getting older. It’s really just a matter of time before something else happens.

Exit Through the Parking Lot

There hadn’t been a Bean-friendly movie in theaters for many months, so I was excited when Hop opened. I had been planning to take the Bean for a few weeks and when I broached the subject with him, he seemed excited. Soon tickets were bought and a giant tub of popcorn procured. But about a half-hour into the movie, the Bean signed “all done”, which is the last remaining vestige of teaching him sign language as a toddler. A few moments before, I had noticed him sitting rigid in his seat, hands over his eyes.  As much as I wanted to see the rest of the flick, it would have been bad parenting to keep him there.  He asked to leave again.  We left. 

The Bean was despondent as we walked out of the theater. My attempts to find out what was bothering him went ignored. We passed by a furniture store and I suggested we go inside to test-sit the couches. When the Bean found a rocking chair, his disposition brightened some. After several minutes of chasing each other around the store, my boy was back. I found a nice over-stuffed sectional for us to crash on and I was finally able to coax his troubles from him.

There was a scene in the movie, where a cute and fuzzy talking bunny is hit by a car. Although the bunny was barely touched, he feigned hurt to gain the driver’s sympathy. The driver, thinking he had maimed a small animal picked up a rock in order to put the rabbit out of its misery. At the last minute the bunny realized what’s happening, a bit of chaos ensued and thus began the comic misadventures of man and bunny that drove the rest of the story.

Although all of this is played for laughs, this scene is what bothered the Bean. He couldn’t get over it and he worried that another “scary” moment might be around the corner. While having to bail before the end credits disappointed me, I understood that doing anything more than complying with the Bean’s wishes to leave the theater would have been incredibly hypocritical of me. Because when I was a kid, I was petrified of the movies.

My first movie memory is of Superman. When faced with the death of his beloved Lois Lane, Superman flies around the world backwards and turns back time. As a young child seeing this on the big screen, I completely and utterly lost my shit. For years afterward, I would have panic attacks at the mere mention of going to see a movie. When I did make it inside, I would often have to leave mid-flick. As a result, my dad and I spent a lot of time doing deep breathing exercises in many a movie theater parking lot.

Amazingly I not only got over my fear, but I transformed into a giant movie nerd. To those closest to me, particularly the ones who endured my phobia, my obsession with movies stands as the greatest of ironies. Any psychologist worth their salt would say that my connection to movies is a subconscious way of overcoming my childhood fears. Though I guess I didn’t just overcome them, I obliterated them.

All of this ran through my mind as the Bean and I ate lunch. I fought off the urges to try to explain to him that the movie wasn’t supposed to be scary, that even though some scenes can be thrilling, movies are filled with happy endings that make us feel good. But I knew that anything I said would have been as pointless as when people said them to me many, many years ago when I was a freaked out kid. The best thing I could do here was to accept that my son is my clone, to stand by him and to realize that this wouldn’t be the first time we walked out of a movie together.

I hope that the Bean doesn’t develop the level of fear that I had as a kid. It was something that haunted me for a long time. But if he ever does, he’s lucky because he’s got me for a dad—somebody who understands what he’s going through and will stand by him unconditionally, and somebody who knows plenty of deep-breathing exercises and where the best places are in parking lots to do them.

Be Very Afraid

Here is a list of things the Bean is not afraid of:

Tai Lung from Kung Fu Panda
Things Under the Bed
Things in the Closet
The Dark
The Garbage Truck
Pirates of the Caribbean ride
The Haunted Mansion ride
Skeletons
Monsters Inc.

The one thing that seems to have really spooked him:

Swiper from Dora the Explorer

I don't know why.

Wimpy Activity

I am a huge wimp.

Let me rephrase that. I am a huge wimp when it comes to all things scary. Growing up, this was especially true of horror movies. This phobia was particularly difficult seeing as I came of age in the 80s, the decade that birthed the modern horror flick. My friends saw just about every one. So naturally, despite me never having seen any of them, I knew all of the grizzly details.

I was 10 years old when I saw Poltergeist on cable. Even though I knew in advance nearly every scare, and even though it was a sunny Saturday morning when it was on, that movie had a profound effect on me. I tied a rope around the doorknobs of my closet for over a year after.

During horror movie nights at summer camp, I would be forced to spend the evening hanging out with the kids who were “docked”—a suspension of sorts for campers who had gotten in trouble that day and were not allowed to participate in that evening’s activity. When my bunkmates returned I was subjected to mockery while they spent the rest of the evening talking about all the gruesome scenes they had earlier witnessed in The Thing or Creepshow.

Only a handful of my closest friends knew of my fears and I tried very hard to keep it that way. This was not always easy to do. One weekend night in junior high there was a screening of Aliens at the house of a girl I kind of liked. As we gathered around the TV, I purposely positioned myself in a corner that had an obstructed view of the screen. I sat there trying not to listen and wishing for time to accelerate when somebody popped up behind the couch and screamed “boo.” Weather or not, this was actually intended for me will forever remain a mystery. Instinct took over and before I knew it I had leapt over the couch. My next memory is that the lights were turned on and I was sitting on top a guy whose head I had pushed through the drywall. To call the aftermath mortifying is an injustice to that word.

Now that I’m an adult, and a movie geek, I’ve shed a lot of my fears about horror movies. I’ve seen a handful of them and for the most part, have emerged unscathed. I can openly and honestly admit my wimpish tendencies.

There is a movie out right now called Paranormal Activity. Over the past few weeks, it has been shown to sold out audiences at midnight screenings. It is fast becoming a phenomenon, similar to The Blair Witch Project of a decade ago. I don’t usually listen to platitudes, but Paranormal Activity is being called one of the scariest movies ever. Like Poltergeist, it takes place in a regular suburban home. I have heard it’s the kind of flick that creeps the skin and haunts you long after you’ve left the theater.

As a fanboy, I am compelled to see it. But as a wimp, I’m afraid. Most of the time, I go to movies by myself. Nearly all of the time, I see them at night. After the movie is over, I would have to walk alone through a subterranean parking garage to my car and arrive at a darkened house where everyone is sleeping.

Total. Wimp.

I am not the type to miss out on a pop culture phenomenon, but in this case I’m afraid that I may have to make an exception.

Terror At 90 Feet!

As we drove towards the pier, it was the Ferris wheel that caught the Bean’s attention.

"Can we ride that?” he asked enthusiastically.

We looked up. The Ferris wheel spun lackadaisically in the sun, it’s peak offering majestic views of the surrounding beach.

“I’m not going on that thing,” scoffed my dad. My parents were visiting for the weekend, which is why we were at the pier in the first place.

“Don’t look at me,” offered my mom.

WonderWife™ was certainly out of the equation. I knew this, having learned before we got married that her threshold for amusement park rides does not stretch much beyond Fantasyland.

That left me. Except that I’m afraid of heights.

“Sure buddy,” I replied to the Bean. “We can ride that.”

One of the things that is really important to me about being a parent is working to put aside my personal fears for the sake of my kids. Fears are learned behaviors. Kids are largely blank slates until we impose our phobias on them. My dad is afraid of heights, therefore I too learned from him to be afraid. I don’t want my kids to know about my fears. They should not inherit from me the sweaty palms and rapid heartbeat that goes along with the thought of riding a chair-lift or a Ferris wheel. I had no choice. My son wanted to ride the Ferris wheel and the rest of my family was too chicken to take him. It was up to me.

We strode up to the ride, waited in line and boarded the compartment. All the while my family stood on the boardwalk, watching and thinking to themselves, “thank God it isn’t me going up there.” The wheel began to turn.

A Ferris wheel is one of the worst kinds of heights—a leisurely ride nine stories up in an open-air compartment. As we began to rise, I instinctually put my arm around the Bean. He probably thought it was a sign of affection. But the truth was, for the next 10 minutes, he was my security blanket.

Eons passed before we were back on the ground. The Bean loved every minute of his ride. And not for one moment did he realize that I was terrified the entire time.