Monday night, The Chargers kicked the shit out of the Broncos. My doctor is a Denver fan. I don't know about the Avalanche or the Rockies or the Nuggets but he's a big Broncos fan. My guess is he doesn't even know about the Avalanche because he's from LA where they don't recognize hockey, the poor bastards. I had to go see him yesterday.
Recently he went to London,all the way to London, to watch the Broncos lose in Europe. I explained that I knew how that felt because I used to have to go all the way, back and forth, to Candlestick Park from our house in The Mission on the ballpark express bus laughing and singing and drinking to watch them get their asses kicked by the Forty Niners. He told me the flu shot was going to hurt this year. I could have waited an extra minute or two before I told him I thought John Elway looked like Bugs Bunny but I just couldn't. It was worth it, I got to needle him, he got to needle me, so we ended up tied.
He's alright, my doctor.
I have problems with the office staff where he operates out of, though. They tell me to be there at x-time, give me a flier that says be there at x-time and, a nurse (I hope) calls me the day before I go to tell me again to be there at x-time. I am always there at x-time. Then, I wait. The clock says it's past x-time, but I keep my mouth shut and glance at the stack of "Ladies Home Journal" on the little table. I have never ever picked one up. I think there's a pool on if I will ever pick one up. Too bad, I'm not doing it.
I expect it, the wait, so I bring a book. I'm a relic from the reading age. Noam Chomsky usually, so I can be steamed up as a motherfucker when the nurse checks my blood pressure.When she sees it, she looks nervous and fusses around a little extra. I like the nurse. She doesn't know. She's looking at the blood pressure machine and decides to check my pulse for real, the old fashioned way, which speeds me up even more than I was. Once, when she was looking nervous, I told her not to worry because I couldn't be killed and that I knew how to handle pressure.
"Are you still smoking?" she asks me worriedly. "No" I tell her because, what the fuck, I'm not going to take any shit from her for living like I want to, why should I? She gives me the old fish eye' when I lie to her, but what she doesn't know is I like it when I can get an authentic fish eye' from an attractive woman."Still not drinking or using drugs?"
She's posed there with her old chart and pencil routine going on, looking at me sideways over her glasses, it's wonderful the way she handles the delicate issue. I have to tell her the truth about this one so, I go ahead and do it. "I'm clean nurse Donna. No shit. I'm just as surprised as everyone else is about it."
"The doctor will be in in a minute to see you, Tim." I like that, the way she says it, snooty and uptight. So far she has never looked back on her way out. Yet.
When my pal the doctor comes in he always says the same thing during football season, while he's looking me over," Denver" this and "Denver" that, and then the regular old "we need to look up your ass,we can't help you if you won't let us, here's your mental and stomach prescriptions, no you can't have any morphine, we want more blood, you better quit smoking and quit fucking around," speech.
He's alright, my doctor.
He's concerned about me, even if I do hate the fucking Broncos. I might be his only patient he can talk football with. And then, I'm a bonus for his office staff too,who really like me.
My other doctor, who retired, helped me a lot too. "No one can take that much methadone at once and live," she used to say. " My journals and colleagues say there's a ceiling of 180 mg and then you go into a coma." I had to explain how I really liked being in a coma but you have to stay alive a little bit to enjoy it.
Squares have a hard time with that one, which is OK, I don't mind. I did the work and probably because of all that medical training she has I got through to her about whats what with guys like me. I said I wanted 250 mg a day, for my back.
"There is no way I'm giving you that much, it's just unreasonable. Jesus Christ, Tim, look what it says here in my book. You're really lucky. You shoud have died of an overdose a long time ago." "I'm different than other people, I'm not normal," I told her. "Eighty milligrams a day." she yelled at me, "TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT, GOD DAMN IT, if your back and leg and shoulder and whatever the fuck else wasn't so bad, I'd have to call the DEA just for you asking me that." Well, you know what I did. I took it. I could get more somewhere else, lots of friends of mine were happy to help. They understand exactly.
Then I decided I'd had enough and I wanted to kick. "It'll take a year to get you down to a level where you might be able to do that. Are you still using heroin? Have you been using cocaine again?Your tests are so fucked up we can't tell what you're on. Jesus Christ." "I plan it that way to keep you guys calm, I don't want you to worry about me." "You can't just stop, you've been on it all way too long for that." Before she was finished with me, she had to retire and gave me to the guy I have now.
I got off everything but thirty mg. of methadone a day in a month. "It's a miracle!" he said. "I feel awful, really bad, doc. Also, my back is killing me, how about some morphine since I'm doing so good?" I asked him. He's crafty though, he said "Not yet, lets see how things are in a month or so." I was clean by then and I still am. The morphine is there though, and I know it.
He says I may get some "next time." The crafty motherfuckers always seem to be out when I go in there. The sneaky motherfuckers. It's also miraculous the way it works like that. Maybe if I help someone fix the magazine pool they have going on me I can get put together. Probably not. I can't help trying to work something out in my mind, though. It's just my nature. They're always ready for me.
He's alright,my doctor.
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