As far as I know, I have not heard back from the CT department at RGH about whether or not they heard from Doc Chao on my behalf or not.
I say “as far as I know” because I had planned to check our answering machine (remember those?) for messages when I was getting lunch, but I was in too much pain at the time and had to prioritize actually making it back to the computer.
So there might be a message for me waiting there right now.
I sure hope so.
I want to get to the bottom of this. I want to know what’s up.
I want to know if I need to get super mad with Doc Chao or not.
Because if he really did forget to put the req in for my lower spinal CT scan, I am going to go ham on that fucker.
This is my future as an ambulatory being on the line here. Smarten the fuck up.
The worst part, besides the possibility of avoidable dead legs, is how neatly this all fits into my internal mistrustful/controlling/suspicious narrative.
“See, this just proves that everyone is incompetent and stupid and that you can’t rely on anyone to do anything right without you watching over them like a hawk!” says a not very healthy voice in my head.
And the thing is, I suspected this would happen long before I had any proof.
Why? Because Doctor Chao didn’t print out the req and hand it to me. He didn’t even submit one electronically while I was there.
Instead, he told me he would do it after I left.
And then, it seems, neglected to do so.
And I hate it when that part of my mind is right. I don’t want to be a hostile, cynical, and suspicious Taurus who thinks everyone is an idiot until proven otherwise – in triplicate.
I want to be the expansive, genial Taurus who is possessed of a great bovine equanimity that lets him handle life’s little downturns with grace and ease.
But shit like this pushes me in the wrong direction.
I may end up having to make a special trip just to check the answering machine. Either that, or wait till there’s someone home to check it for me.
I hate being this hapless
I suppose I should be grateful that doing it myself is still an option, albeit a painful and somewhat risky one.
Earlier I had the bright idea to use the $16 remaining on my card to get a cheap lunch from 7-11 or the like.
But I had forgotten just how much SkipTheDishes adds to the total with their fees and tip. It’s often at least $10.
So I would have been looking for a $6 lunch, and not even 7-11 can do that.
I figure I will spend that money at 7-11 in person and cut Skip out of the loop entirely.
Go there after Wound Care tomorrow at noon. It means a bit more stress on my legs but I have been feeling a bit better so I might as well risk it.
Actually, seeing as the card is in no way tied to my identity, I suppose Julian could go in for me. Then again, my card might only work online.
I will figure something out.
More after the break.
Another fucking adventure
Having barely functional legs makes everyday life so exciting.
So I ordered pizza and a Caesar salad from Pizza Slut (look, that’s what we called it when I was a kid) tonight.
I knew that actually going to the door, paying for it, and getting back to the computer in one piece was going to be a challenge.
Logically, I probably should be asking Julian to do it for me.
But I don’t wanna.
Anyhoo, made it to the door, paid my fave Pizza Hunt delivery dude (a bald Russian dude who yells “PIZZA!” when he calls up to be let in) , and was on my way back to the home base here when my knees gave out and I went whomp down on my butt again.
Always fun, that.
So then I had the fun task of figuring out how to get back up. Always a treat, as understandably my legs are kinda wobbly after one of these incidents, and for extra fun, I was in our extremely narrow hallway.
Like, only slightly more than a person wide.
So I tried to get up. Julian offered to help but I was being stubborn and I felt I really needed to do it myself if at all possible.
But it was impossible where I was. Too narrow. I could not generate enough lift with my arms to get up high enough to get my legs under me.
So I had to crawl on my knees over to the couch where it was easy to boost myself up to the correct altitude.
I really hated having to do that because crawling on my hands and knees was how I fucked up my knees in the first place, all those years ago at Nerdvana.
But what the hell, it worked, and I don’t think it hurt my knees any.
Still, I am going to have to really contemplate my stubborn insistence on doing thing myself because that just might not be an option in the future.
Or worse, it’s an option, but it’s a really STUPID option. A bad idea leading to unnecessary pain, suffering, and damage on my part just because I don’t want to suffer the indignity of needing help.
I so grok all the “No, I’ll do it myself!” scenes in movies about handicapped people now.
In general, I don’t like relying on people at all due to the serious trust issues I detailed in Part 1 of today’s blog entry.
I find it extremely hard to believe people will be there when I need them.
That’s just not something that has happened a lot in my life.
Not that people have NEVER been there when I needed them. Far from it.
But that fucked up basic programming is still there in my head and it tells me that people will always let me down because they don’t care enough about me to put themselves through even the slightest bit of effort and so when push comes to shove, they will shove off.
That might be crazy. It’s certainly not good.
But it’s what I’ve got to deal with, like it or not.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.