Archive for May 6th, 2009

I went to one doctor at 9:00 am, went to the other at 11:30. The second doctor made me an appointment with a third doctor on Friday, but we agreed that the third doctor would benefit from MRI results. So we started the ball rolling for the necessary approvals. I was told that someone from my doctor’s office would call me with the details (where to go and when). I hung around Manhattan for an hour, waiting  and window shopping. I called the lady who was supposed to give me details, got her voicemail, left her a polite message, waited another half hour and decided to go home. I got home at a little after 2. Called the lady who gave me the approval lady’s number. She said she’d find out what’s going on. She called me right back and said that the approval lady hadn’t forgotten about me. She needed approval from Oxford.

The ball continued to roll.

Approval lady got the approval and called me with a 6:30 p.m. appointment at Lenox Hill. I briefly considered a hot bath to soak my discomfort in when I decided instead to plan a dinner in the park with my wife (she works near Lenox Hill and gets off at 5:30). As we coordinated that, approval lady called back to ask if I could do 5:30. I agreed, cooked some green beans for Teresa and hopped a train back to the UES.

Got there at 5:10. Seen at 6:20. MRI’d for over half an hour. Didn’t get home until 9.

No snark tonight. I am woozy, oddly shaped and in need of matrimonial snuggles. Tomorrow I have actual writing-for-money to do, but I’ll try and write something here if I can.

Is that what I have in store for me from here on out? Slowly decaying until the children I don’t have don’t want to call me because all I would talk about is how my back hurts nowadays?

Le sigh.

Yesterday started out with the beginnings of pain, and ended with me in a whole lot of pain. A patch was affixed and a pill was popped and this morning it’s a little better, but good Lord.

I am this close to storming into the nearest church and pulling a Raoul.*

I will mos def write later but for now, I’m off to Park Avenue — a magical street that has flowers growing in the middle of it, no public transportation on it, and doctors flow like running water!

Mwah!

*This was possibly my favorite story in the John Ostrander/Del Close comic book anthology Wasteland. Raoul is short and ugly and he gets so fed up with how awful his life is, that one day he stands in the street and loudly challenges God to meet him (“at such and such a time and at such and such a place”) for a one-on-one fight.

God doesn’t show and Raoul starts to get a little cred. So he does it again. And again. Eventually, he has become a big shot with everyone afraid of him. Then a little boy in a pinwheel beanie and a giant lollipop shows up and tells Raoul that God wants to meet him for that fight (“he’s been busy”). Raoul reluctantly attends and gets beaten up by the kid. It’s drawn by Don Simpson (Megaton Man) and it’s far funnier than my abbreviated description.