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Horrible night. I couldn't wait for morning to get here. It's difficult to cope with so-called "authorities" telling me in no uncertain terms the un-tempting fate that awaits me. I've already got plastic eyes, and I like them. Thank you very much. Getting stainless steel knees should be a snap. It's not. I don't want them. Except, that one day I might be grateful. I can't see it now. Not from my seedy, run-down mausoleum.
I asked the two doctors if they had a drug that could turn me into a masochist so that all my arthritic aches and pains would serve to get me sexually aroused. They looked at each other and rolled their eyes. No blame. They based all their conclusions on statistics and the scientific method. Why take a chance on archaic systems? I've never formally studied statistics. I didn't see it as a useful tool for me, and therefore baggage. Not baggage for the statistics junkies. Por mio.
Their relationship was with each other. The senior Fellow performed for the newbie Fellow. Until I started going to this arthritis clinic in Durham I never knew about Fellowship programs. I still don't, but I'm getting treated for my ills by them. In my opinion my general MD could do as good as they do, and maybe better. He's got a lotta experience as a physician, and while the Fellows are all licensed MDs, their experience, I'm guessing, is pretty much exclusive to getting their medical license.
That's why I feel like I have to resist these pedigreed paper chasers. They're making decisions about me for themselves to become registered Rhumatologists with full privileges of all that implies. Mostly, it seems, it applies to being able to practice medicine without being bothered by the problems of poor people. They can't afford you. No blame.
I hexed them. They may be experienced good-grade makers, but they're still soft about life in general. I meant to help them build Rome even if it did take more than a day. Rather, incrementally, one day at a time. They didn't realize the confrontation was between well-versed academians with honed medical lexicons and a shamed man. I never took no Hippocrates Oath. I resort to trickery with great delight.
It was their supervising physician I wanted to get up with. My trickery was designed merely with that intent in mind. Mind is speech. Speech is mind. In effect I sent them to fetch their master. They seemed pleased with a viable excuse to leave the room.
Their supervisor was an older man. Maybe in his sixties. He calmly looked at me and smiled, and even a fool of my caliber knew it was time for straight talk with a twist. I knew immediately I wasn't gonna get over on this dude. Period. It's be a waste to try. I asked for an emotional investment. Due to his absolute security in his own rap he let me reach for humor.
Basically, I was asking for additional time to think over what his chelae were suggesting. They wanted to change my entire treatment program, and if that put me in dire straits, it seemed unimportant to them. It was important to me. I needed this wise dome to intercede in my behalf so that I wouldn't have to git wooly and sull' up. I plowed a mule like that once, so I know the ropes and the most effective way to say "Gee" and "Haw".
This ol' boy must have been raised on a farm. He understood my use of the vernacular, repeated it a couple of times weightily in front of his Fellow, as if grateful for an outlook to torment him with. Without ado, he told me they would not change my prescriptions if I would agree to come in for a complete lab work up in two months. I knew the jig was up, so I acted all humble, and said, "Yes sir."
A complete lab workup, the first since 2008 (which I didn't know. Time flies), is not an exciting idea. Rheumatoid arthritis is a progressive disease. Three years is a long time for a progressive disease to progress. Considering that and the fact that I have two kinds of arthritis, is exactly what the crude senior Fellow was impatiently explaining to me.
That's why a call him a statistician instead of a physician. "Look", he boldly informs me, "You have two forms of arthritis. Either of them can lead to leukemia and diabetes. That's the percentages. You probably will not be mobile for very much longer, that is, if you don't die of a heart attack first. Right? You do know more people with RA die of heart attacks than anything else. Right?"
I thought for a moment there he was trying to murder me with words by telling me what my statistical odds were for getting through the next short while without some of my parts either falling off from cancer or getting chopped off by some eager-beaver surgeon determined to get rich and famous by being a butcher. Jeez! He made it quite obvious that soon, by hook or by crook, I'm a goner, and it's gonna be a horrific death to boot. Selah
That is why I had such a unrestful sleep. I woke up occasionally for the sole purpose of feeling my body to see if it was still there. This does not bode well. Yet, I admit to being a little excited. Maybe I really will become a masochist and get sexually aroused by my inevitable and inimitable personal aches and pains, and my parts falling off. Maybe the video clip I viewed yesterday about the trials of the biblical careactor Job was not coincidental.
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