Saturday, October 17, 2009

Don't Call Us, We'll Call You: The Dramatic Conclusion

Just when I was beginning to think, "Hey, maybe now that all those searchers looking for the kid in the homemade balloon aren't busy, I could send them to look for my surgeon," a minor miracle happened: four days into SurgeonWatch 2009, my surgeon called. Well, okay, technically my surgeon's secretary called...and she managed to evade any questions I had. L-Cro pointed out that the secretary seems to have taken a page from the Alberto Gonzalez' playbook, because the entire conversation was a case-study in how to speak words without actually saying anything:

Secretary: *calling before 8 a.m., perhaps out of spite* Hello?
Me: *in that husky, I-was-fast-asleep-dreaming-of-not-walking-like-a-broken-robot-until-3-seconds-ago voice* Mmf? Hello?
Secretary: I'm calling from Dr. ___'s office. I talked to the doctor and he says the neuro is fine.
Me: The neuro from the nerve tests or from the MRI?
Secretary: He didn't really say. And he's sorry for not calling you sooner. He wants to do an MRI to look at your muscles.
Me: Did the other MRI show anything?
Secretary: He didn't say.
Me: Because I've had two MRIs in the past three weeks...and I'm assuming they showed the muscles....
Secretary: *getting annoyed* He didn't say. He just said to tell you that he wants you to have an MRI and we can go ahead and schedule it. So someone will call you.
Me: *still groggy and lacking the ability to go from fast asleep to full-on rage in 30 seconds* Ok....so there's no timeline on when he wants to see me next?.....
Secretary: Look, he really didn't say. If you could get me the address of the MRI place you go to, that would be great. You can just phone and leave it on my answering machine. (Translation: I am screening your calls and will not even pick up the phone when I know that you are calling to give me relevent information I've requested because that's how badly I don't want to hear your voice).
Me: Ok...
Secretary: Ok, bye now! *click*

Alright, Dr. ___ well played. You managed to deliver the phone call you promised (kind of) without giving any information at all. It's obvious that in medical receptionist school, the secretary got an A+ in verbal ninja skills. Someone from Philip Morris or the U.S. Department of Finance give her a job because homegirl is good; ("But aren't cigarettes cancerous?" "We don't have access to that information." "But doesn't lung cancer kill thousands of people each year?" "I haven't been given information on that question.")

In other news, my physio tried again to teach me how to walk properly and everyone ended up frustrated because my hip just. Won't. Fucking. Work. We tried for probably half an hour and nothing could stop by hip from giving out whenever I put pressure on it, which causes my shoulders to dip down in the lurching motion I've been complaining about for weeks. As I was futilely practicing some exercise the physio had given me while holding on to the balance bar (looking rather like a demented ballerina), I heard her whisper to the physio helper lady that things were not looking good, that something is seriously wrong with me and that somebody's going to be in big trouble. Yeah, you know things aren't looking great when the physios begin to whisper about you.

2 comments:

  1. What an unexpected non-answer answer to the situation. MRIs suck but at least you're not paying a ton for them, right? I know, not much of a consolation. I'm sending psychic wake-up vibes to the hip. Hang in there. Hang in there like a ferocious poster kitten!!

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  2. Thanks, Karo! I will unleash my inner ferocious poster kitten!

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