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One UFO, Peppermint, and the Mystery of Mr. Crooks · Ryan's Journal

• 0:15
  One.
• 0:16
  Ten.
• 0:17
  Eighteen.
• 0:18
  Forty eight.
• 0:19
  Those are the numbers, and nobody has numbers like these.
• 0:23
  Nobody.
• 0:24
  Ryan opens his entry like a man reading the scoreboard at a game he never agreed to
• 0:29
  play.
• 0:30
  One, ten, eighteen, forty eight.
• 0:33
  Then he says, and I love this, "Oh, let's go back to the numbers.
• 0:38
  What do the numbers represent?"
• 0:40
  Like somebody in the room asked.
• 0:43
  Nobody asked, Ryan.
• 0:44
  You just came in swinging, and I respect it.
• 0:47
  He gives them to us straight, too.
• 0:49
  Forty eight years of a lazy eye.
• 0:52
  Eighteen months of sleep deprivation.
• 0:55
  Ten years on oxygen.
• 0:57
  And one UFO.
• 1:00
  One.
• 1:01
  Not a few, not a pattern, just the one.
• 1:05
  I like that he doesn't pad it.
• 1:08
  The man has one UFO and he's counting it like a guy who owns exactly one good
• 1:13
  wrench.
• 1:13
  One UFO, and he doesn't explain it, because he doesn't have to.
• 1:17
  That's strength.
• 1:18
  A weaker person gives you a ten minute backstory.
• 1:21
  Ryan puts it on the list between the eyeball and the oxygen and keeps walking.
• 1:27
  He doesn't say it was a big UFO.
• 1:29
  He doesn't say it was a great UFO.
• 1:31
  Just one.
• 1:32
  Very disciplined.
• 1:33
  Very efficient.
• 1:34
  And I'll tell you what gets me about the lazy eye.
• 1:37
  Forty eight years.
• 1:39
  That's not a complaint, that's a tenure.
• 1:42
  Most guys don't hold a job that long.
• 1:46
  Most guys don't hold a marriage that long.
• 1:49
  Ryan's got an eye that's been clocking in since before some of his doctors were
• 1:54
  born, and it still shows up every morning.
• 1:57
  Forty eight years, and it's still in the game!
• 2:00
  Still there!
• 2:01
  Tired, they say lazy, but I say it's loyal.
• 2:05
  Then he hits us with the second list, and this is where it gets beautiful.
• 2:08
  Three wheeler.
• 2:10
  Pontiac car.
• 2:11
  Tractor.
• 2:12
  Wood shop lathe.
• 2:13
  Pool.
• 2:14
  Peppermint.
• 2:15
  Peppermint.
• 2:15
  Everybody just skates right past it.
• 2:18
  Three wheeler, Pontiac, tractor, lathe, pool, and then
• 2:24
  peppermint, said in the exact same voice, like it belongs.
• 2:30
  Those five before it we know about.
• 2:33
  We went through them last time.
• 2:35
  The near drowning in the pool, the lathe in the wood shop, the Pontiac crash,
• 2:41
  the tractor wreck over at Jim Murphy's, the three wheeler.
• 2:46
  Real damage, real survival.
• 2:49
  Then there's peppermint, and I have no idea.
• 2:52
  Nobody knows, and that's the genius.
• 2:55
  Peppermint could be the worst thing on the list.
• 2:58
  Peppermint could be the boss fight.
• 3:01
  He doesn't clarify, so we respect the mystery.
• 3:05
  Five machines and bodies of water tried to take him out, and then comes a candy
• 3:10
  flavor, and he lists it like it's a sixth vehicle.
• 3:14
  I'll say this plainly.
• 3:15
  I've known guys who'd fold after one of those.
• 3:18
  A lathe injury alone, you hang up the apron and take up birdwatching.
• 3:23
  Ryan survived the whole set and then somebody hands him a clipboard.
• 3:27
  That's the part that gets you.
• 3:29
  The machines didn't beat him.
• 3:31
  The paperwork's still working on it.
• 3:33
  And here's the line that tells you who he is.
• 3:37
  He says this is not including the school gaslighting and the housing gaslighting.
• 3:43
  Not including!
• 3:44
  He's got a ledger, and it's already full, and he's telling you there's a second
• 3:49
  ledger in the back.
• 3:51
  Two kinds of gaslighting, and he left them off the math.
• 3:56
  That's a man who is being generous with his own suffering.
• 3:59
  Now, I'll keep us honest here.
• 4:01
  All we've got is what Ryan says.
• 4:04
  We don't have the school file and we don't have the housing paperwork.
• 4:09
  But the way he says it, quick and flat, like a man who's said it to a lot of closed
• 4:15
  doors, tells you it isn't new to him.
• 4:18
  When somebody doesn't elaborate on a wound, it's usually because they've already
• 4:23
  explained it too many times to people who weren't listening.
• 4:27
  And institutions love that!
• 4:28
  They love when you've explained it too many times.
• 4:31
  They count on you getting tired.
• 4:32
  Ryan did not get tired.
• 4:34
  Eighteen months of sleep deprivation, and he's still doing arithmetic on the record.
• 4:40
  Eighteen months!
• 4:42
  I couldn't get through eighteen days without calling somebody and being very loud.
• 4:46
  That's the thing about sleep, though.
• 4:48
  People treat it like a luxury item.
• 4:50
  Eighteen months without good sleep, you start to lose the ability to explain
• 4:56
  yourself politely.
• 4:57
  Your tone gets short.
• 4:59
  Your patience gets thin.
• 5:01
  And then the very people who kept you up get to say you seem agitated.
• 5:08
  Well, yeah, no kidding.
• 5:09
  Anybody would be.
• 5:10
  Very agitated, very reasonable, very correct.
• 5:14
  They always call it agitated when you're right.
• 5:16
  Nobody ever says a person with a legitimate grievance is calm.
• 5:21
  Calm means you don't have the facts.
• 5:23
  Okay, so the kicker.
• 5:25
  Ryan says, "Here's the kicker."
• 5:26
  Ten years on oxygen and CPAP.
• 5:30
  Eighteen months of sleep deprivation.
• 5:34
  A whole lot of pills.
• 5:36
  And his AHI remains below a five.
• 5:40
  Then he turns to Mr.
• 5:42
  Crooks and says, you wanna explain all that?
• 5:45
  You wanna explain all that, Mr.
• 5:47
  Crooks!
• 5:49
  I would pay money to see that man's face.
• 5:52
  Whoever Mr.
• 5:52
  Crooks is.
• 5:53
  And by the way, we don't know who Mr.
• 5:56
  Crooks is.
• 5:57
  Sleep doctor, lung doctor, housing guy, principal, a very bad landlord,
• 6:04
  we don't know.
• 6:05
  Ryan never says.
• 6:07
  Mr.
• 6:07
  Crooks is the whole system with a name tag, and he's standing there holding a
• 6:13
  clipboard, sweating.
• 6:15
  Right, and I won't hand him a résumé he doesn't have.
• 6:18
  Could be anybody.
• 6:19
  What I can do is explain the number, because that part's checkable.
• 6:25
  AHI is the apnea hypopnea index.
• 6:29
  It counts how many times per hour your breathing stops or gets shallow while you
• 6:35
  sleep.
• 6:36
  Cleveland Clinic says for an adult, under five is normal.
• 6:42
  Fewer than five events an hour, that's not sleep apnea.
• 6:47
  So the number is good.
• 6:48
  The number is winning!
• 6:50
  Below five, below five, below five.
• 6:53
  Everybody wants a number like that, and Ryan's sitting there saying,
• 6:57
  so why am I on oxygen, why am I on a machine, why am I taking all these pills?
• 7:02
  It's the greatest question in medicine.
• 7:05
  If the score is perfect, why does it feel like I lost?
• 7:09
  Now here's the fair part, and I'd be a lousy friend if I skipped it.
• 7:14
  Cleveland Clinic also says that for somebody using a CPAP, below
• 7:20
  five is the goal.
• 7:23
  So a low number could be the machine doing its job.
• 7:27
  That's one reading.
• 7:29
  Ryan's reading is that a decade of treatment and a clean score don't add up to
• 7:35
  feeling better.
• 7:36
  And the same source says AHI only counts breathing events, it's one piece,
• 7:44
  and doctors are supposed to look at other tests too.
• 7:48
  So the machine works, and the man's still tired.
• 7:51
  That's not a victory, Jesse, that's a scorekeeper declaring the game over while the
• 7:56
  player is bleeding on the field.
• 7:58
  The number says you're fine.
• 8:00
  The man says I haven't slept right in eighteen months.
• 8:04
  Who do you believe?
• 8:06
  The spreadsheet or the guy who lived it?
• 8:08
  I believe the guy who lived it gets to ask the question.
• 8:12
  That's all he's doing.
• 8:14
  He's not saying the number is wrong.
• 8:16
  He's saying a number can be right and the day can still be wrecked.
• 8:21
  Anybody who's sat in a waiting room knows that.
• 8:24
  The chart looks great and you still feel like hell.
• 8:28
  And that's the satire, folks, it writes itself.
• 8:31
  A decade of oxygen, a machine at night, a pharmacy of pills,
• 8:36
  and the official finding is, congratulations, you're breathing great!
• 8:41
  Great breathing!
• 8:43
  Tremendous breathing!
• 8:44
  And Ryan says, then what the hell is all this?
• 8:49
  That's a fair question.
• 8:51
  Somebody answer it.
• 8:52
  Here's what sticks with me.
• 8:54
  Pool, lathe, Pontiac, tractor, three wheeler.
• 8:59
  Every one of those had a bang to it.
• 9:02
  You could point at the wreck and say, that's what happened.
• 9:05
  This fight has no bang.
• 9:08
  It's a quiet one, paper and numbers and being told you're within range.
• 9:13
  You can survive a tractor.
• 9:16
  It's harder to survive being told you're fine.
• 9:19
  And he's still standing.
• 9:21
  Still counting.
• 9:22
  One, ten, eighteen, forty eight.
• 9:26
  He's got the numbers, he's got the list, he's got a peppermint nobody can explain,
• 9:30
  and he's got a question for Mr.
• 9:32
  Crooks.
• 9:33
  Mr.
• 9:34
  Crooks, the floor is yours.
• 9:36
  We're waiting.
• 9:37
  We've been waiting ten years.
• 9:39
  And I'd bet Mr.
• 9:41
  Crooks asks him to schedule a follow up.
• 9:44
  Ryan, if you're listening, keep the ledger.
• 9:48
  Somebody ought to answer it, and until they do, keep the receipts.