I saw my doctor today. He’s been on vacation. He gave me several prescriptions, one that might alleviate my breathing problem at night and relieve my dry throat.
He also said my spinal x-ray showed a slight lateral curvature. I’ll tell my massage therapist about that. She has already pushed a couple of my vertebrae back into place. I see her tomorrow.

He gave me a prescription for Tylenol with codeine and I did a little dance (he loves it when I do that) because this med definitely erases all pain. It is (except for Demerol) my dream pain killer.

My appointment was for 1:45. I didn’t see him till about 3:45. For 90 minutes I sat in the outer waiting room. I was getting uncomfortable because I can’t sit for long periods without my back going into spasm. A woman was talking to her companion.

Here is what she said, “I went for a pap smear. Then the doctor asks me do I want a rectal exam. Well, I got really angry. I told him he should know I DON'T HAVE A RECTUM. It was sewn shut, and don’t you read my chart and don’t you LOOK, it’s right there where your nose is. I didn’t go back to him.”

(Or, I might have said, yes, please, and then watched his face as he groped at the stitches.)

Well, I couldn’t blame her, but that wasn’t the end. She then proceeded to describe the prosthetic device that she used for elimination purposes. Truly, she had a lot of energy (vocal anyway) for someone with such devastating problems.

Finally, her rhetoric got too much for me and I stuck my fingers in my ears, and then, as if from a sign from above, the nurse came and got me. I sat in an intermediary room after having my bp taken and weighed (I was found wanting, yay). My back was really acting up by now so, ignoring the propriety of semi-public display, I pushed two chairs together and lay down on them with my knees draping over the backrest of one.

Then I was taken to the exam room. I flattened the exam table, which was at an angle, and lay down on it and free-associated, and my doctor came in and said he was going to wake me with a kiss. “My prince,” I said. “But wait, you are only a dream aren’t you, are you really here?”
I told him about my back. “I saw you in the middle room,” he said, “you looked adorable.” Well, he does know how to charm a girl.

He wanted to know what I might have done to start the back problem, so I showed him some of the stretches I do (I am guessing it might be a pinched nerve). I did an unsupported glissade/assemble with a beat, and told him that I do eight of those to each side, but using a railing as support because I can no longer sustain an entire series without help. He was impressed anyway. I told him I got to be 78 while he wasn’t looking.

My gynecologist is supposed to schedule an exploratory procedure that I have put off because I have to have anesthesia which requires I have nothing by mouth after midnight, the night before. If so, I am screwed because I have been for days up every half hour drinking water. I am not sleeping long enough and I wake up exhausted. I don’t want to have a procedure under these conditions. So, the plan now is to take the meds the doctor has prescribed and see if they alleviate my throat and sleep problem. When that’s done, I’ll let my test get scheduled.

My friend, Inese called from New York this morning and we talked about such matters. She is in recovery from breast cancer and her sister is too, so you can imagine our conversations. There was a time when our chit-chat was full of ballet stuff, who was taking whose class, who was drummed out of the corps, who was sleeping with whom, how do you work on jumps, how do you ramp up from three to four pirouettes, and who makes the best custom pointe shoes (there was a wizened little guy in Queens, working out of a hole-in-the-wall shop under an overpass; maybe even his name was Gepetto). Now we are a couple of geriatric babes exchanging medical remedies. Oh, @#^%$##, also ^&*&$!@!!!

xx, Teal