I would break into sweat. Not a glistening sheen but rolling drops down the side of my face. My back would soak through my shirt. It didn’t matter that room was air conditioned or that it was a Ventura winter day of fifty degrees. Anyone who looked at me would assume that I was crossing the Mohave in the teeth of summer.

My physician, a strikingly beautiful Italian woman whose calm green eyes and lilting accent I can still remember clearly, told me that I was having a ‘thyroid storm’. It’s a condition where the thyroid gland goes crazy and starts over producing hormones. The sweats were the spikes in production. She scheduled me for tests and prescribed Inderal, a blood pressure medication, saying that it would reduce the symptoms.

My girlfriend at the time and I had a good sex life. It was a long distance relationship and we enjoyed, no, needed it to be that way. So it wasn’t a happy event when the desire was there, but the ability to perform suddenly wasn’t. She was confused, I was embarrassed. Basically uncool all around.
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