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In a recent column, I outlined some of the problems I had obtaining x-rays for an upcoming doctor visit. It will probably come as little surprise, to those of you who are familiar with how our world works, that when I finally did have the appointment, nobody had any clue as to what had happened to the x-rays. I had to get a new set done. This I did willingly, because the alternative was to go back to work and be productive.
The x-ray tech assigned to me was suffering from a disease I have seen evidence of before - a psychological illness known as ILS, which is short for Inappropriate Laughter Syndrome. This occurs when a person repeatedly says things that aren't funny and then busts out laughing as if they had said the cleverest things in the world. My past experience with this particular ailment enabled me to diagnose it quickly. The problem is that when you first come in contact with this disease, and you don't know that someone has it, the initial reaction is to wonder "What is wrong with me? Why aren't I laughing? Are there jokes here of such subtlety and magnificence that I am just too dense to get them?" The answers to these questions are that you are just fine and that the person you are dealing with has a serious mental condition. Once the x-rays were finished and I knew and I had done my part to better my own health, I hoped against all probability that the x-ray tech would follow suit and go see a shrink. Getting x-rays was the first of three things the doctor recommended. The second was getting more blood work done, and I am happy to report that everything went perfectly well there. The staff was wonderful and friendly, and the blood was eager to get out of my body and into the little vials, like rats leaving a sinking ship. The last thing on the list was to pick up my prescription. This too, went well. But sadly, when things go well, it's not very funny and makes for a boring column. In some future column, I will describe a series of events in which everything went just as it should and you will never finish reading it because you will have fallen asleep long before you ever reached the end. "Where's the dramatic tension?" you'll ask. "Where's the conflict?" And then you'll wake up to find that you have dozed off and fallen asleep with your face in your soup. Or you might have a nice little dream in which aliens are trying to sell you farm animals. There are all kinds of things that can happen when you fall asleep, and almost all of them are more interesting than a day that's going well. Lucky for you, the medication the doctor prescribed for me had side effects. This is the case for all drugs I take. Before I take them, I might as well take the list of possible side effects and circle one at random, just so I'm prepared to deal with something weird. The drug prescribed this time might as well have been called "Bathroomidan." I suspect that the drug is secretly manufactured by the good people at Charmin, just so they can bring in a little extra cash. This was decidedly confirmed on my second day of taking the drug, which is about the time that I discovered a bruise on my arm from the blood work the day before. I realized that everything there had not gone as well as I thought it had. Now that I think about it, the lady who took my blood did seem kind of angry. At this point you're probably wondering, where does this all take us? Why do I even care about Bruce Smith's medical problems? I don't have the answers to these questions. But what I've learned from the medical profession is that that is okay! You don't have to have the answers. You can just keep experimenting and doing tests, and you still get paid! How convenient is that? So, see the receptionist on the way out, and she'll set up an appointment for next month. Meanwhile, take care of yourself. |
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