TMI

How much is too much?

Poplars on the Bank of the Epte (1892), Claude Monet

For years, the world was a mystery to me. People were living puzzles. I was always digging for more clues. I wanted to understand myself, analyze every scrap of information, dig through every layer of meaning, get to the bottom of every riddle.

Now I know too much. I’d like to know a lot less.

I have a new Garmin watch, an early birthday present. I use it to track the laps I swim so I don’t have to count. My new watch does a great job at this.

Unfortunately, it also tells me my sleep quality (poor) and training readiness (poor). It tells me how charged my body battery is (not very) and my fitness age (same as my actual age, therefore not flattering). It tells me that I shouldn’t do the things I’ve always done. I shouldn’t eat whatever I want whenever I want. I shouldn’t stay up too late or wake up too early. I shouldn’t drink a cocktail in the evening as the light starts to glow and every bit of random madness from the day comes together to form a clear and vibrant picture.

Glowing landscapes and vibrant pictures are not measured by my Garmin watch. Instead it offers me unwanted facts about the current state of my microbiome. But knowing so much about the vast universe under my skin stresses me out, which raises my blood pressure and drains my body battery.

I feel the same way about getting unwanted information from my oncologist. Every time I meet with her, I feel anxious that she’ll suggest some new test or drug regimen. I was diagnosed with Stage 1A breast cancer in 2020, and I opted for a double mastectomy because I didn’t want to stare at scary images and read words like “increased vascularity” and “non-mass enhancement” once a year.

I tried to cushion the blow after my scary MRI by telling my kids “This isn’t a death sentence. Worst case scenario, they chop off my tits and I go on living.” My kids did not appreciate this information or this language. But once the worst case scenario came to pass, they were nonchalant about it. “Chop boobs off… That’s what you thought would happen, right?” they mumbled without quitting out of Mario Kart.

Which proves that having too much information can be useful. It’s just a matter of how the information is delivered, and who the messenger is. My plastic surgeon was extremely handsome and charming, a vanishingly rare phenomenon, so I anxiously awaited his dispatches and asked him lots of follow-up questions. I also kept telling him my former bra size so he’d have all the information he needed to complete his little craft project. But he never wrote anything down. Finally I asked if he’d taken the breast meat and weighed it on a scale like a butcher. “Yeah, pretty much,” he said. Then he told me several other disturbing stories until the nurse finally interrupted him to say that he had another patient waiting.

Before surgery, I asked him why he was prescribing Valium and Percocet together. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

“Oh yeah, absolutely,” he said with a smile. “It can kill you!”

“So why do you do it?”

“It’s the industry standard in LA. Everyone does it.”

My plastic surgeon may or may not still have his medical license. That said, his craft project turned out great so I have zero complaints. The man is an artist, so it’s not surprising that he has an artistic temperament.

Occasionally I check up on him via his Instagram account, where he demonstrates how his new understudies (not him, possibly because no license!) sucks fat out of people’s arms using a device called a cannula. I don’t recommend this or any of his other gory short films, but I can’t deny his passion for his trade. I’ve also read more about lipo and fat transfer and the literature on the subject isn’t nearly as reassuring as his words (“This is the easiest thing we do, by far!”), so I’m glad I didn’t know any of it six years ago.

Living in LA for too long obviously gave me a terrible preference for style over substance. I often wish my oncologist here in North Carolina was as fun and edgy as my plastic surgeon, the George Romero of Beverly Hills, but she’s more like a very enthusiastic kindergarten teacher. This makes every interaction awkward, mostly because I am not five years old.

I’m not unsympathetic. Her line of work is bleak and she’s chosen a role that makes it possible for her to do her job without losing her mind. Unfortunately for her, the role that makes it possible for me not to lose my mind is “adult pretending she never had cancer in the first place.”

Even being transferred to the survivorship program doesn’t sound that good to me. At some point I’ll be thrilled to be greeted with the words, “My god, you’re still alive! Congratulations!” but I’m not quite there yet.

I wish my Garmin knew this about me. Instead it keeps condescending to me (“Look at you, breathing 12 times a minute! Who’s a big girl?”) while hinting that I might be more fragile than I realize (“Don’t even think about exercising today! Have you considered going back to bed and staying there until tomorrow morning?”) (Answer: Yes, I have!).

The other night, I had a single drink at a restaurant, but the way my Garmin watch reacted you’d think that I’d just swung by the mini mart to grab a quick fifth of Smirnoff and a pack of Marlboro Reds. I didn’t even tell my watch I was having a drink. I just started to feel tired, and sure enough, my body battery had fallen from 20 to 7. By the time I got to bed, my body battery was at 5.

“Well, at least I’m not flatlining,” I said to my husband. But the next day I looked it up and 5 is the lowest your body battery goes, presumably because Garmin doesn’t want people panicking and thinking that they’re about to die.

On the other hand, aren’t we all about to die, in world-historical terms? Maybe instead of throwing a party every time I climb ten flights of stairs, my watch should serve me existential reminders:

“This could be your last day on Earth,” my watch will say. “Better live it up while you still can.”

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Thanks for reading Ask Molly! My birthday is this Tuesday and the absolute best present you can give me is a brand new paid subscription. I deserve it, and so do you!

My book Foreverland is also good! Happy weekend, motherfuckers!