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No. Just no.
But of course I couldn’t tell Dr. Delgado any of this. It’s like my lips have been frozen into a permanent smile by all my media training (and compartmentalizing of my feelings).
“Well, that’s fine, then,” the doctor said, beaming.
Fine? It’s so not fine. Was it really so wrong of me to think that maybe, possibly, the palace physician might give me a little something to keep my eyelid from jumping around like a Chihuahua at dinnertime, or at least help me not lie awake all night?
And then when I do manage to fall asleep I have nightmares, like the one I had last night that I was married to Bruce Willis, and whenever Bruce got out of the shower, he would dry off his naughty parts while singing the song “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.”
I can’t even tell Michael this. How do you explain it to the kindly old physician they found who is still willing to do house calls?
You cannot.
“I’ll make sure the lab gets the blood and urine samples you insisted I take, Your Highness,” Dr. Delgado said. “I should have the results in about a week. But I have to say that medically, I doubt they’ll find anything wrong. Your pulse is strong, your skin tone looks even, your weight is within the normal range for your height. Despite this twitch you say you have—which frankly I can’t see—and your fingernails, which I see that you bite, you seem to be glowing with health.”
Damn! He would notice my fingernails. I must be the only female left on the entire planet who doesn’t get manicures because there’s nothing left of my fingernails to file, let alone paint.
“Maybe,” I said, trying to keep the eagerness out of my voice so I wouldn’t sound like one of those crazed Oxy-addicts on Intervention, “I should be written a prescription for a very mild mood stabilizer.”
“Oh, no,” Dr. Delgado said. “Nail-biting is a bad habit, but very common, and hardly worth treating psychopharmacologically. The worst that could happen from compulsive nail-biting is that you might incur an infection, or pick up a pinworm.”
Oh my God. I am never biting my nails again. At least not before thoroughly washing them in antibacterial soap.
“What I suggest you try,” he added as he packed up his bag, “is journaling.”
“Journaling?” Was he joking?
He was not.
“Why yes, I see you’ve heard of it. Journaling has been shown to reduce stress and help with problem solving. My wife keeps what she calls a gratitude journal. She writes down
three things every day for which she feels grateful. She keeps a dream journal as well. She says it’s helped tremendously, especially with her mood swings. You should try it. Well, I’ll be in touch in about a week about that blood work. Good day, Princess!”
And then he left.
Which leaves me here. Journaling.
Why couldn’t I have lied to make myself seem more pathetic so he’d have written me a prescription for an antianxiety medication, or at least a low-dose sleeping pill? Even the veterinarian does this for Fat Louie when I take him on the private jet back and forth to Genovia, and Fat Louie is a cat.
Granted, he’s an extremely elderly cat who now needs a tiny staircase to climb up and down from my bed and tends to revenge-poop on everything when he doesn’t get his own way. But still. Why does a cat get tranquilizers but the expensive concierge doctor we hired will not give them to me?
Oh, dear, I just read that over, and it sounds a bit odd. Of course I don’t revenge-poop on things when I don’t get my own way. I’m simply saying that it seems a bit unfair that we have the one concierge doctor in all of Manhattan who refuses to prescribe antianxiety medication. I’m sure every other celebrity (and royal) is loaded up on them.
• Note to self: Check on this. This would explain a lot about their behavior, actually.
But if “gratitude” and “dream” journaling really does help with stress, I’m willing to give it a go.
At this point, I’ll try anything.
Let’s see. I already wrote down what I dreamed about. Here are three things for which I feel grateful:
1. I don’t have a brain tumor.
2. My father didn’t die in that race-car incident. Though given how reckless it was of him to have been in it in the first place, he probably deserved to.
3. Michael, the funniest, handsomest, smartest, and most forgiving boyfriend in the entire world (even if every once in a while lately I’ve noticed there’s something going on with his eyes, too. Not a twitch. More like something brewing in there. If I still wrote historical romance novels—which I had to give up, not because of RoyalRabbleRouser’s threats but because I don’t have time, between all my public speaking, running the Community Center, and worrying about Dad—I would describe it as a “haunted shadow.”)
I know it’s selfish, but I hope if there is something wrong with Michael, it’s that he’s passing another kidney stone—even though he said the one he passed last May was the most painful experience of his life, and the nephrologist compared it to giving birth—and not that Mr. G’s death has caused him to re-evaluate his life and make him realize he’s with the wrong person. I’m totally aware of the fact that it would be much, much easier for him to be with a girl who could meet him for drinks after work at T.G.I. Friday’s without it first having to be swept for bombs, or go to the movies with him without having a plainclothes sharpshooter sit behind us, or simply stroll around Central Park without being followed by a phalanx of photo-hungry press.
