Guest Blog: What I Learned From TV

By Angela Whiting

I’m a Propmaster on a medical show on one of the big three networks. Every episode brings a whole new set of research to be done, sort of like cramming for a college exam. It’s a little stressful, but I love it. It’s what keeps me interested in the job. Every week, I learn something new. In my decade-plus long career, I’ve had the great fortune to be immersed in a lot of different worlds, from the pell-mell get it done world of TV to the in-depth, weeks to months research on feature films. I know way more than I ever wanted to about the manufacture, use and effects of meth amphetamines (very bad, don’t go there). With one inch cloth tape, I could wrap the hands of any professional boxer and protect his/her hands safely. And I could tell you what weapons are carried by an elite Los Angeles law enforcement unit and what a drop holster is. Arcane perhaps? Ah but, for all those days I wondered what the hell I would do with this information once the project had wrapped, since each, I have had many epiphanies, the first of which is, we are the sum of our experiences. Plus, I make a great dinner guest.

In the fall, just before the writer’s strike came to pass, my mother became ill. Initially diagnosed with pneumonia and bronchitis, she took to her bed. I arrived at Thanksgiving for what turned out to be a providential hiatus, and she was still plagued by breathlessness and a loss of energy. She got a CT, (ding ding, I know what this is - thank you medical show) which is a magnetic image of her chest. The week after Thanksgiving, the radiologist (the expert who reads the film itself, more skilled than your average GP), called. It was a controlled emergency - the tech said pretty much, run, don’t walk to the ER, you have PE in your lungs. In medical parlance, that’s bad. Pulmonary Embolus, blood clots in your lungs. Blood clots break away and can give you a stroke or a heart attack. Ding effing ding, I know what this is and know enough to calm fears and get us off to the hospital and get her checked in. After a series of tedious admission tests, another chest CT, chest X-rays, blood pressure and heart monitoring (ding, ding and double ding), she is admitted. But we are still in the midst of a House-like medical mystery. What the hell is wrong and why the hell does she have clots on her lungs? But I gotta tell ya, I knew what was happening, from a medical standpoint, as a laywoman, every step of the way.

Suffice to say, it got worse before it got better. She ended up in the ICU, having an Echo (an Echocardiogram, kind of like a sonogram for the heart) and an Angiogram or a Cardiac Catheterization (an invasive procedure that checks out your heart with a probe up through your femoral artery) and she was ultimately diagnosed and treated. But more ding, ding, ding, I knew what was happening, again, every step of the way, able to describe the procedures to her and my family and keep a lid on everyone’s anxiety. Plus she had her own McDreamy (well, really her own Preston Burke, a Cardiologist) who gave her heart a clean bill of health.

So what is the point of all this blow -by-blow? Aside from making you the resident expert on your subject matter, it makes you the go-to person when the hundreds of folk (it feels like) ask you the innumerable questions about the world you have created. The actors (who, justifiably, have lots of questions), the director, the producers, the prop/costume people will all come to you and you have to, at the very least, create the illusion of expertise. And when you do the work, immerse yourself in the world of your project, you educate yourself, in ways for which there are unforeseen payoffs. You never know what you might learn and you never know when it might help save a life, or at least calm the fears of those you love. Plus, you too, will be a great dinner guest.

And by the way, my Mom is doing great.

Angela Whiting is my best friend, can make a salad out of anything in the fridge instantly and lives in Echo Park. She has an impressive IMDB which is only missing one thing - a picture of her beautiful face. She does indeed make a great dinner guest.

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