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So here’s how my hairy upper lip looked just prior to its execution on the morning of December 1:

The above moodily lighted moustache was cultivated throughout the previous month as I participated in the annual Movember movement to raise awareness of men’s health issues and funds for cancer research.

I had an easier time growing the thing than I did growing donations, and want to thank my beloved wife Susan and my fantastic friend Michael Baffico for answering my calls to contribute. All told my relatively weak collection efforts consisting of this previous post here and a couple tweets on Twitter yielded a total of $195 — $20 of which was mine. Overall efforts of my Movember team, dubbed The Hair Force and led by my coworker Chris, topped out at $1,775. Way to go, team!

It was fun watching the thing take shape, but I won’t lie: I was happy to see it go and get my upper lip back to normal. I’d done the moustache/goatee thing in the past, but never just the ’stache, and I learned I’m just not much for it. That said, I would probably have kept the ’stache until December 4 if it and I had been available to attend the Movember celebration party scheduled that evening at The Avalon in Hollywood, but since I’ll be enjoying Susan’s office holiday dinner instead, out came the razor Tuesday morning and down the drain all them hairsesses went.

Perhaps until next year.

At face value, the visual I am unabashedly about to force upon your eyes might seem like one thing, but it is another thing entirely.

(close to actual size)

Sure, it’s easy to look at at that incongruous mix of light and dark hairs stubbily extending out all over my upper lip and say “Ewwwww!” or “Kill It!” Or “John! Where’s Ponch?” But what on the surface is simply nine days of moustache growth, is really much more than that. It’s a call to action.

In previous years when this month has rolled around I’ve been known to participate with varying degrees of success and failure in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), but for November 2009 I’m all about NaMoGroMo: National Moustache Growing Month.

See, I was convinced prior to the end of October to join my coworker Chris Piehler and become a member of his team of moustachio’d mercenaries collectively known as The Hair Force, who together throughout this month are growing us some hirsute lips as part of Movember, a moustache growing charity event held during November each year that raises funds and awareness for men’s health and benefits the Prostate Cancer Foundation as well as the Lance Armstrong Foundation, Livestrong.

While growing my ‘mo is the fun part of the challenge, the more serious part is the raising of some cash, which is where you come in. Please find it in your heart and wallet to support my efforts and participation with a monetary donation of your choosing. Doing so will be greatly and humbly appreciated by me and will be of benefit to all in increasing awareness for men’s cancers — specifically prostate and testicular cancer.

Visit my page on the Movember website, and click the “Donate To Me” button. And whether you like them or not, stay tuned for additional in-progress ’stach stills… or as I like to call them: mo’mentos.

After the better part of the last six days spent holed up and hawking up a whole buncha nevermind, I’m finally diving back into the saddle (yeah I can mix metaphors with the best of ‘em)  to see how much backlog I’ve gotta wade throughjust  to get caught back up to even.

Sure, what I’d really like to do is plaster my ass to the couch and play some more of the awesome “Uncharted 2″ on the PS3 in between meaningless twittering and motivated bits of finally storytelling a terrifically tall tale I’ve long let simmer, but instead I’ve gotta see if I haven’t forgotten how to ride a bike  and if anyone remembers me at the office.

Onward.

If things have been morgue-quiet this week it’s because following our awesome Halloween, I’m pretty sure I sent my white blood cells into panic mode after inhaling a whole bunch of particulate matter while sweeping up the results of last week’s high winds and doing some emergency trimming of dead fronds and flowers of a particularly giant giant bird of paradise in a bid to reduce the precariousness of its southward lean over the north fence from our neighbors’ yard.

By Sunday evening, my various airways were well-angry and I was sporting a fever and  by Monday morning I had a bit of a dry cough that I took with me to the dentist where he had to employ copious amounts of anesthetics in order to numb the entire right side of my head so that he could work his special grinding brand of magic on one of my not so pearly whites.

Then I got on my bike and rode to work, wherein the anesthetics eventually wore off and I was popping ibuprofen like m&ms and I didn’t get out of there until near 8 p.m. for the bike ride home in rather cool and moist weather conditions, which actually proved somewhat soothing to my various air intakes and gave me some albeit false hope that maybe the symptoms were abating.

By Tuesday morning my jaw ached from the dental work, and I was generally walloped and thus notified my immediate superiors that me and my symptoms were staying home. Fever. Cough. Sneezing. Squeezed sinuses. Aches. Dizziness. All the usual headcold suspects to which  I’m accustomed. Plus the right side of my tongue was really pissed off because while under the long-lingering local numbstuff I’d apparently bitten into it quite a few times unawares.

But thankfully the bug or whatever had invaded my airways hadn’t really worked its way deep into my lungs. Then came Tuesday night and after dinner perhaps with my immune system already being so taxed and on high alert, came a nicely severe and prolonged onset of Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EE), which you might recall I finally was able to self-diagnose last April after years of dealing with its mysterious occasional constrictions.

Just what I needed.

My general thrashing and coughing throughout the night drove Susan to seek refuge in the guest bedroom, and by Wednesday morning I felt even more beat up and took another sick day, spent combating my feverish chills  by cranking our central heating to the max while actually attempting to get some work done and delusionally hoping the Cold Fairy would deliver a humidifier unto me along with a fifth of Nyquil and some nasal spray,. But alas I had to accept that the Cold Fairy was an imaginary figment and instead spent several semi-catatonic hours working up the energy and motivation to drive myself to the local Rite-AID and get such things.

With Susan deciding ahead of time to take the guestroom again last night, I chased ibuprofen with shots of Nyquil and crashed around 8 p.m. under the soothing steamy vapors of the humidifier, thankful that dinner had not brought about an EE encore. But last night proved the worst for the coughing and I was regularly being awakened by it.

This morning though? Ahhh. Things are better. The cough is still there, as is the fever, but both to lesser degrees. Still, I opted not to get suckered in by the first signs of relief and have taken another sick day.

Before suddenly retiring from motorcycles 15 years ago last month, the helmet that saved my life featured a little slogan I’d stenciled onto its back in bright orange letters that read:

HELMETS ARE SMART
HELMET LAWS AREN’T

To put that phrase in context, it was my indignant/snarky way of expressing my displeasure with the “Government Knows Best” nannies up in Sacramento at the time who passed a law a year or two earlier making the world a safer place for everyone by decreeing it illegal to ride a motorcycle without something protective strapped to one’s head.

I know, I know. There are idiots out there alive because of this law that would otherwise be dead or a vegetative drain on taxpayer resources.

But see, having been a rider of various two-wheeled motor-driven conveyances since I was 15, I never needed a law to tell me that I’d better damn well don something that would afford some level of protection for my vessel’s central processing unit. Whether it was to school, the beach, or a few blocks away, I had sense enough to sport a brain bucket between points A and B.

This is because I’m not stupid. I’m no genius either, but you don’t have to be to understand that pretty much any scenario involving your head coming into contact at speed with any variety of surfaces or obstacles… well, let’s let Sancho from “Don Quixote” explain it:

“Whether the pitcher hits the stone or the stone hits the pitcher, it’s bad luck for the pitcher.”

Surprise, surprise: the same holds for any biking I do. I simply do not crank a pedal on my bike without a helmet on my head.

Wait, I’m a liar. On hot days mountain biking uphill along wide fire roads at 3-5 mph when the probability of me busting my head against anything is at its most remote, I have been known to shed my hat and hang it from the handlebars.

But a helmet on the streets? Oh, it’s on baby.

Over the years I’ve heard of studies that reinforce the safety factor of helmets. I’ve also heard of studies that dismiss them, showing that helmets actually can increase a cyclist’s risk of injury. I’ve read arguments that helmets make even the most leisurely cyclist come off as competitive and elite-ish. I’ve listened to people who don’t wear them because they’re goofy looking, uncomfortable, give them hathead, or don’t coordinate well with their sense of style.

I have friends and acquaintances who don’t leave home without ‘em, and I have friends and acquaintances who do. I also have friends and acquaintances that previously eschewed helmets, but converted following injuries sustained either to themselves or people they know. I don’t have any friends or acquaintances who used to wear helmets but now don’t.

My point? Let’s call it a no-brainer. It’s that official validation (or official invalidation) is going to reinforce or dissuade me from recognizing the simple fact that whether it’s a windshield or the roadway there’s a potential benefit in having something between my scalp and the point of contact. Even if a helmet is only designed to absorb the initial impact of a collision at a maximum of 12 mph, am I not going to wear one because my average speed exceeds that benchmark by 3 mph? Of course not. Conversely neither am I going to imagine that a layer of plastic-encased styrofoam is anything more than it is.

But whether I’m bombing the 4th Street Drop Zone at 49 mph or leisurely cruising the L.A. River Bikeway at 4, the way I see it is it’s still better to have a helmet and not need it, than the other way around.

As to looking something like The Great Gazoo? Gladly.

Just a quick base touch to express my appreciation for all the kind words and advice that’s come in.

Good news: I’m feeling 100% better physically. And even better: I’ve been bolstered emotionally by my daughter agreeing to get together Sunday with me for a chat.

It’s Eosinophilic Esophagitis. EE for short. Kinda cute as disease acronyms go.

I didn’t always have EE. It arrived about 6-7 years ago (around the time I moved out of the Valley and into Silver Lake… hmmmmm). Pretty much came from out of nowhere. But in that time since, I’ve been at a total loss as to identify it — and not for a lack of googling, let me tell you. And the one time I attempted a diagnosis from a doctor several years ago I was told it was probably gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). Nevermind that I told the so-called medical professional that it wasn’t GERD, I was given some prescription anti-acid meds and sent on my way. They had absolutely no effect whatsoever.

What would happen is that on occasion during meals, my esophagus would basically swell shut and trap whatever food I’d swallowed. At first and unawares, I’d keep shoveling food down my gullet, which would eventually build up pressure down there and send me into a steady fit of building hiccups until I’d be forced to adjourn to a bathroom and, uh, reverse engines so to speak. Fun stuff, especially when it would happen at dinner parties or restaurants. Compounding the dilemma was the subsequent worry while bent over a toilet that I may have had some sort of ulcer or cancer. The good news was that when it happened, I could usually bring up only the stuff stuck, leaving alone whatever had made it into my stomach. Usually.

But as time went on and  I became more aware of its onset, I’d simply stop eating when I felt the constriction beginning. More often than not if there wasn’t more than a biteful of food in transit, things would remain manageable and eventually my esophagus — like a doorman before a velvet rope at a Club Stomach — would relent and let the food pass and I could continue my meal without further interruption.

Eventually, I narrowed down the source to white rice. Of course, that didn’t stop me from eating white rice, such as last night when I got home late from work and sat down at my desk to a plate of breaded tilapia, corn and rice Susan had left on the stove for me.

Almost immediately I felt the sensation, but I was really hungry and this time I stupidly kept on eating. Sure enough within a few minutes I was sitting there hiccuping until I had to get to the bathroom and, uh… yeah: expunge.

After all that joy, sitting back at my desk I typed “goddam esophagus allergies,” into the Google slot of my browser  window, which I’m sure I’d typed countless times before but with no specific result. This time, thanks perhaps to the “goddam,” up popped several sources of information on EE, including the nugget that it’s a “newly recognized” disease.

Eosinophilic esophagitis (EE) is an allergic inflammatory disease characterized by elevated eosinophils in the esophagus. EE is a newly recognized disease that over the past decade has been increasingly diagnosed in children and adults. This increase is thought to reflect an increase in diagnosis as well as a true increase in EE cases. Fortunately, the medical community is responding and new scientific information is emerging to guide management of this disorder, which often persists with ongoing or recurrent symptoms.

Eosinophilic esophagitis is characterized by a large number of eosinophils and inflammation in the esophagus (the tube connecting the mouth to the stomach).  These eosinophils persist despite treatment with acid blocking medicines.

The good news is that from what from the information I’ve digested (ha!) EE doesn’t seem to be something that becomes something worse. That good news is made better because the bad news is for an official diagnosis I’d have endure an endoscopic exam with biopsies taken from one end of my digestive tract to the other.Don’t ya know that’s at the top of my Things To Do list.

I may get that done some day, but for now, the best treatment is to Stay The Hell Away From Rice. It has  happened with other foods, but rice (or whatever is in rice that triggers the affliction) is the primary culprit.

A lot better than expected given how it looked the day it happened, thanks for asking. Pardon the stubble after the jump… hard to shave that promintory without opening things up:

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My friend Julia inquired recently about how our Russian tortoise Buster might be doing in her new digs:

I’m way happy to report she has really taken well to her new 25-square foot outdoor residence. It’s a far far more improved thing than the aquariums she’s lived in since 2001 when my mom found her in her Sherman Oaks backyard. She’s getting loads of natural sunshine and exercise — I’ve even set up a rock-filled pond (OK, so it’s just a water-filled pan with some stones in it) in case she needs a sip.

PS. Last weekend I reinforced the screening material of the roof/door with some old fencing material we had hanging around — the better to keep squirrels and other such critters from getting in as well as to deter any of our cats (namely Pepper and Jig) from stretching out on it and stretching it out.

There’s another pic on Flickr, here.

Better than they look. I’ve been dousing them pretty regularly with isopropyl alcohol and hydrogen peroxide (no, not at the same time), which has been key in minimizing what coulda/woulda been a gnarly infection since there’s still a fair amount of burning and bubbling of the respective liquids when applied. And I’ve been pretty persistent in keeping them slathered in antibiotic ointment and bandaged up, while also letting them out in the open air to make Susan go “Eeeeesh!” and to promote the healing that will replace the channels of flesh I plowed off of them as if with a linoleum knife.

Somewhat mercifully color-desaturated snap of the carnage as seen this morning, mercifully after the jump. You don’t have to go there if you don’t want to.

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