A not-so-close shave

Dr. B1 does so much for me, and I do so little for him.

So when I woke up at 4 this morning so I could get to the admitting desk at Kaiser Hospital by 6 a.m. for my biopsy, I thought maybe it was time to do something nice for my doctor for a change.

If Dr. B1 is going to be staring at my homely mug for the duration of today's procedure, I figured, the least I could do is make it pretty for him. So I decided to shave.

Remember those Norelco commercials that ran on TV every Christmas when "Frosty the Snowman" was broadcast? You know, the ones with Santa Claus riding a Norelco razor over hills of snow?

Well, when I run my electric razor over my misshapen mug, my face reminds me of the hilly terrain in those Norelco spots. Shaving is a miserable experience —made even worse by the near-total numbness in the lower third of my face, which also seems to be hardening into concrete— and I don't do it often.

Reader, I should have left my puss alone.

In mid-shave, my electric razor sputtered out. Now my face is half-smooth, half-whiskery. I look like the front yard of a Beverly Hills estate if the gardeners went on strike in the middle of mowing the lawn.

I should have known that manscaping my mug today would lead to disaster. When Dr. B1 sees me in a few hours, knocked out on his operating table, who knows what he'll think?

I expect when I come to later today I'll find myself tethered to a bed in Kaiser's psychiatric ward.

Here's a thriller for you

Michael Jackson and I both were born in 1958 and we both lived a big chunk of our days in the San Fernando Valley, but parallels between my life and Jacko's pretty much dry up after that.

Well, now there's a new link tying the King of Pop with yours truly, the Prince of Pap. We're bookends in Dana Miller's Out and About column in the new edition of Frontiers In LA, Los Angeles' surviving gay news publication.

It's a treat to be mentioned in Out and About, which, in an obvious act of kindness toward readers of my generation, bumped up the size of type in the print edition from near-agate to 12 points with cushy leading.

Mr. Miller was absolutely correct in leading the column with Jackson and saving me for the end. He writes about a 1984 poolside meeting with Jackson in which the singer wore "Vulcan-like prosthetic ears" and had colorful things to say about the music business. I expect the bit about Spock ears to be picked up by the A.P. in the next news cycle.

Mr. Miller also describes Jacko "a tad daft" and generously leaves my mental state unaddressed.

If you're arriving at this blog after reading about it in Out and About, welcome. Put up your feet and stay awhile. I can't promise you tales of prosthetic ears, but wait till you hear about my rubber tubes and dentures.

The unkindest cuts

In Ronald Reagan's day, the misery index was the sum of the rate of inflation and the unemployment rate.

For me, my misery index is the sum of physical pain and anxiety about my health. As I count the hours to my biopsy on Friday and cope with burning sensations and swelling in my mouth, my misery index is soaring.

But what I really want to bellyache about tonight is Governor Schwarzenegger.

Yesterday, the governor signed a state budget passed by the Legislature but only after making $489 million in additional cuts, including $85 million in state general funds from HIV/AIDS programs.

According to a statement by AIDS Project Los Angeles, "the governor's signed budget includes the elimination of state general fund support for all HIV/AIDS programs except HIV epidemiology and the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) —a total reduction of more than $85 million. This leaves California’s Office of AIDS with only 20 percent of its funding for programs like HIV education and prevention, HIV counseling and testing, home health and early intervention."

Cuts in AIDS programs are personally scary to me. Just the other day, I picked up another month's supply of five HIV medications, which I access through ADAP. While Schwarzenegger spared ADAP in Tuesday's round of budget cuts, other programs that are just as worthwhile were gutted. And there is no guarantee that ADAP funding won't get reduced some time in the future.

Schwarzenegger crows about not resorting to tax increases in this year's budget —he mentions that four times in a brief statement announcing the new budget— and he also points out that the budget leaves California with a $500 million reserve fund.

Methinks that dipping into the reserve or imposing some kind of tax would have eliminated the need for the governor to veto important programs. Those vetoes raise the misery index of all of us.

If you agree, contact your legislators and let them know.

Biopsy or bust

In just a few days, I'll be back under the knife in the operating room at Kaiser.

I hope they wheel me into the recovery room when that nurse who thinks I am a doppelganger for Ben Stiller is on duty. Ben Stiller is an even hotter commodity than he was last winter, so rumors that the star of "A Night at the Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian" is recovering from surgery at Kaiser would create even more of a stir than it did the last time I was in the hospital.

Trouble is, the more famous Ben Stiller gets, the less likely it becomes that anyone whose vision is superior to Mister Magoo's would mistake me for him. But maybe I could rustle up a faux Anne Meara lookalike to sit by my bed and moisten my forehead with a washcloth until I come to, just for fun.

Star impersonations aside, there's a lot riding on Friday's procedure.

My face has all of the pliability of a Grecian bust at the Getty Villa. Still, Dr. B1, my head and neck surgeon, believes he can get his sharp tools into my mouth far enough to capture tissue at the back of my tongue for a biopsy —without fracturing my jaw in the process.

On Monday, I asked Dr. B1 how he would know if my jaw fractured during the procedure.

"We probably wouldn't know," he replied, referring to the rest of the surgical staff. "But you would be able to tell, from all of the pain."

I have complete confidence in Dr. B1, of course. These days, I barely flinch when he pushes the fiber-optic camera in my nostrils and drops it down my throat. If anyone can pry open my mouth wide enough to capture tissue off my tongue for a biopsy, he can.

Before I get knocked out on Friday morning, I'll slip a black Sharpie between my fingers.

Just in case anybody on Kaiser's nursing staff wants an autograph after I come to.

Monkey business

I've been walking with a spring in my step all day.

Last night, under balmy midsummer skies, something magical happened: I got hit on!

Yes, you read correctly. In a venue where there were as many as 17,735 other people to get fresh with, someone chose ME —trach-sportin', G-tube-swingin', toothless AARP-card carryin' me— as his object of desire.

Here's how it happened: I was at the Hollywood Bowl, killing time between acts with a group of friends, waiting for headliner Grace Jones to hit the stage, when one of my friends made a remark about about monkeys.

Always eager to come off as hip and wise, I scribbled furiously in my note pad before the conversation went in a different direction. "Hey, remember J. Fred Muggs?" I wrote.

My three friends, all of whom are younger than me, stared at my pad and shook their heads. "Who?" one of them asked. "Never heard of him," another said. "Must have been way before our time, Paul," the third suggested.

"Well, he's a chimp," I wrote, holding the note pad over my face to cloak my embarrassment.

My friends just shrugged. How could these men not be familiar with J. Fred Muggs, the chimp mascot of the Today Show?

I slithered to my seat to wait for the show to resume.

I squeezed past a half dozen pairs of knees and picnic coolers and found my assigned place: Seat 109 in Row 1 of Section N2.

Just as I parked my fanny on the bench, a man several spaces to my left slid to my side so fast I'm certain that he got third-degree splinters. "HIIIIII!" he said in a voice that would have made Alan Sues sound like Jessica Tandy in the final reel of "Driving Miss Daisy." "My name is JOHNNY!!"

Johnny squeezed my thigh hard enough to bruise the denim and my skin. I pointed to my mouth and shook my head no, hoping Johnny would get the idea that I was not able to speak.

He stared at me silently, fingers still digging into my thigh. Then his eyes widened, and he started to sign the letters of the alphabet. I was happy to give his hands something else to do.

I opened my note pad. "Sorry, Johnny," I wrote. "I don't sign."

Johnny snatched my pen and note pad and from my hands and turned to a fresh page. "MY NAME IS JOHNNY," he scribbled, filling up an entire page.

I was tempted to explain to Johnny that I already knew his name and that I was able to hear him fine. But then I thought, the longer he kept his hand wrapped around my pen, the longer he would keep it off my thigh.

"I'M JUST HANGING," Johnny wrote in my pad. Flipping to a fresh page, he continued: "WHERE DO YOU LIVE?" And on yet another clean sheet: "I AM FROM THE VALLEY!"

Johnny flipped to another page —a brush fire in Santa Ana winds could not have consumed paper in my pad faster than he was. But rather than reveal his Zodiac sign, Johnny confided: "I AM VERY DRUNK."

Johnny's gaze locked onto me and he began to lean forward. He was either going to collapse, throw up or kiss me —or all three, in reverse order.

Just then a woman grabbed Johnny's shoulder to pull him back. "Who's your friend, Johnny?" she queried.

The lights went down, Grace Jones took the stage and Johnny jumped up, waving his arms and swinging his hips. I'm certain he had forgotten all about me at this point. At any rate, he and the woman disappeared after three or four songs.

It was nice to be desired, however briefly, even by a drunk.

When I got home I hopped online and looked up J. Fred Muggs. Turns out that Muggs was before even my time. He left the Today Show the year before I was born.

I wasted no time emailing my friends the news.

Culture Club

At the end of my appointment on Friday in Kaiser's Infectious Disease clinic, the nurse slipped me a small package. I gave her a quizzical look and she said, "Just follow the instructions inside."

I've never gotten a homework assignment from my nurse before. Her tone had me a little spooked so I waited till I was in my car before peeking in the package.

Inside was a slim tube with my name on it, a sheet of paper, a plastic bag with a Biohazard label on it, a sturdy envelope addressed to my doctor's office, and the sheet of instructions that the nurse mentioned.

The heading on the page —"Package Insert for Personal Use Kit"— didn't reveal much but once I started to read the instructions, I caught the gist of the assignment. Kaiser wants me to float the paper in my toilet bowl, poop, collect some of the poop in the tube and then mail it back to them so they can do a stool culture.

The envelope is stamped "Business Reply Mail." Well, I guess you can call it that.

You might think that any average guy handed this assignment would find it simple enough. My first reaction, however, was to panic.

What if the paper sinks in the toilet water? What if I can't get the poop in the tube? What if I drop everything into the bowl? What if my mailman refuses to pick up smelly outgoing mail?

I wrote my concerns on a sheet of paper and marched right back to the clinic to tell them what was on my mind. They attempted to calm me down by giving me a plastic tub, about the size of the "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!" container, to add to my personal use kit.

The alternate strategy is to poop into the tub instead of the toilet bowl. They didn't provide a lid, so I guess I would still need to collect some of my business and stuff it into the tube.

So I have an option No. 1 and an option No. 2. The assignment needs to be postmarked by Monday, so there's time to sort this all out. The task is top priority on my to-do list this weekend —I mean, my to doo-doo list.

I'm not always able to predict or control when nature calls, so to be sure I don't miss the opportunity, I'm toting my poop kit wherever I go this weekend.

Come Sunday night, I know I'll be tempted to mail the sample back to Kaiser in an actual "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!" container. But I really don't have any way of knowing that the Kaiser employee who opens the mail has a sense of humor. Or maybe he or she would have too much of a sense of humor, and stick the sample in the fridge in the break room.

Best not to do anything I'll want to deny later. After all, that poop sample will have my name on it.

Just like this blog post.

A wise man, indeed

Learning that Dr. Joel D. Weisman passed away on Saturday at the age of 66 jolted me back to an era of the AIDS epidemic that exists only in the memories of those who lived through it.

Dr. Weisman was one of the first doctors to identify the disease that later became known as AIDS, and the co-author of a landmark report in 1981 in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Dr. Weisman was also one of the doctors whose patients I visited while volunteering for AIDS Project Los Angeles in the mid- to late 1980s.

Sherman Oaks Community Hospital was one of the many sites where APLA volunteers visited with AIDS patients. In those days, many hospitals in Los Angeles had dedicated AIDS units that housed patients suffering from opportunistic infections caused by AIDS. Hospital stays could last weeks, and many patients died in their hospital beds or were transfered to AIDS hospices. Severely limited treatment options meant that the average length of time from diagnosis to death was just a few years.

My role was to spend time in the AIDS unit at Sherman Oaks Community Hospital and sit with patients who accepted visitors, and support the nursing staff. It wasn't easy work.

Whenever Dr. Weisman or another doctor entered a room while I was visiting a patient, that was my cue to say goodbye and move on.

I don't think Dr. Weisman knew my name, but he knew why I was in the ward and he was always gracious and kind to me.

I eventually stopped being very useful as a hospital visitor. Patients who were alert, engaging and funny were easier to visit than the patients who were angry, depressed and silent. When I realized that I was passing by the rooms that housed difficult patients and spending time with patients who were in good spirits, I dropped out of the volunteer program.

On Sunday, I ran into a friend named Rick at an Outfest screening. Rick is the man who was my mentor in the hospital visitation program, and he lasted much longer in the gig than I did. I think he continued volunteering all the way up till the day that Sherman Oaks Hospital closed the AIDS unit because fewer AIDS patients were being hospitalized.

Rick always had the inside scoop on all of the doctors treating patients in our unit —Dr. Rothman, Dr. Scarsella, Dr. Rogolsky and a few others— and it was always fun to chat with him when we were away from the unit. To us, these men were heroes, pioneers and mavericks.

We also knew these doctors as gentle, human men who were as emotionally affected by the ravages of AIDS as anyone.

When I saw Rick on Sunday, neither of us knew that Dr. Weisman passed away the day before. But I bet that the news of his death also jolted Rick back to those plague years of the '80s and '90s.

The Outfest film that Rick and I watched on Sunday was a gay romantic comedy with lots of sex and not one mention of AIDS. Back in the '80s and '90s AIDS was embedded in the fabric of the gay community. It's a different era now.

It was a privilege to be one of the many people to work in Dr. Weisman's presence, even in my small capacity. It was also unforgettable. I hope that the times we lived will never be forgotten.

Dr. Joel Weisman dies at 66, among the first doctors to detect AIDS