A post in which I have a CAT scan

I woke up feeling like absolute hell. There wasn’t anything I could do about it, since I could have nothing by mouth this morning until after the scan. I dragged myself through the morning routine pretty miserably. But it had to be done. I had to go to work afterwards too.

Finally I dragged myself to the car. I had left myself a half hour to find the radiology room, despite being only about five minutes from the hospital, because of the perverse tendency of architects to house medical facilities in gi-normous homogenized and featureless concrete buildings, around which sadistic hospital designers erect no signs. There are plenty of signs at St. Francis that invariably provide absolutely no help whatsoever in finding the department you seek. I was supposed to report to 3 St. Francis Drive. St. Francis Drive is about two and half blocks long. It’s more a driveway than a drive. I saw two road numbers this morning, 290 and 172. I’m like WTF? After a frustrated call to the radiology lab, I found (with their assistance) the road number – not at the road with the multiple useless directional arrows, but at the very top of a nine-story building in an oh-so-unhelpfully-tasteful color scheme I’m quite sure some idiot designer called “toast on mocha” or something equally dildonic. It was very slightly darker tan on very slightly lighter tan - not exactly screaming out at you from nice stories up. Nonetheless, because the letters are about six feet high, you feel like a total tool when someone points it out to you.

Having successfully found the building, I then had to find a parking space. The parking lot was a bit smaller than that Huston Astrodome, but was at about ninety percent capacity. Apparently half of the population of Greenville County had been scheduled for simultaneous treatment this morning. I eventually did park somewhere in Western Uganda. After summoning some native bearers and loading the elephant, I began the trek to the entrance – and I’m thinking how in the hell could a really sick person ever make this hike?

In short, I felt like shit, and was fully prepared to be grumpy as all get-out. I was also tortured by thirst, having had nothing to drink since the night before. Fantasies involving the orgiastic guzzling of V-8 juice, chocolate milk, and Ruby Red Grapefruit punch lit my fevered brain like a desert mirage.

Once I found the building and (eventually) reached the entrance, finding radiology was surprisingly easy, unlike at Greenville County Hospital, where one is forced to engage the free-lance services of an ex-employee of Dionne’s Psychic Friends to find out where you’re supposed to be.

The waiting room was gray, grim, vaguely but quietly grimy-looking without actually being dirty, and depressing. Kind of like the waiting room for purgatory. Everyone there was about 110 years old with the exception of myself and the staff. It was a mark of distinction that I was moving unencumbered under my own power. I reflected for a moment on what a selfish SOB I was to be so pissy and sorry for myself when there were so many people who have it so much harder than I do. I watched an elderly married couple check in. She was obviously having problems, and he was gallantly managing the process for her. It was so sweet it broke my heart. They had obviously prepared meticulously for the visit to the hospital; she with her hair and makeup done, he with his hair freshly washed and in a tweed jacket.

For any treatment at St. Francis, you have to register. Being fully prepared to be as cranky and ungrateful as the most cantankerous Alzheimer’s patient, I was completely disarmed by the woman who registered me, who was an absolute angel of kind sympathy. If ever a person was perfectly matched to her job it was this woman. She laughed obligingly and seemingly with genuine amusement when I told her many people would probably think it was a great idea for me to get my head examined. I’m sure she’d heard that one a million times, but bless her heart, this woman deserved an Oscar (or at least an Emmy). I didn’t even snap when she broke my heart a little. “Do you still have a life partner?” she asked. “No.” I replied. I had no gallant to fight the process on my behalf. I thought about Michael’s mother explaining to him that one of the reasons you stay together as you get older is that you help take care of each other.

Unsurprisingly, the preliminary mechanics took much more time than the treatment itself. In short order my brains (such as they are) had been photographed, and I was told I could leave. I then began the process of navigating the labyrinthine hallways that are another common feature of the modern health care facility to find the exit. Had I known I would be doing this solo, I would have brought some string, or pebbles, or bread crumbs, or something. I thought I had lucked out when I spotted an EXIT sign pretty quickly. It did indeed lead to an exit, which opened onto – dirt; and locked behind me. There was no sidewalk (well there was one that led back to another locked door), no sign, no path, and nothing I recognized to be seen. After a minute or two, I realized that I had to be facing Eastern Uganda at this point. Dammit. And I with my elephant double-parked in front. Following a vestigial graveled service drive, I circumnavigated the building, and then made the hike across the Great Lot to the car. As I made the journey, I reflected again on the unlikeliness of any sick person being able to make this trip. I flashed on the old couple up in purgatory, and it came to me that you weren’t supposed to have to make this trek injured. You were of course supposed to have a loved one to drop you at the entrance and park the car. I felt really, really alone. (Hospitals and airports, for some reason, do that to me.) I went straight from crotchety right on through to my big ole Pity Party.

With the Southern Baptist rationalization of my upbringing, I decided that one of the reasons I probably felt so bad was that I had nothing on my stomach, which I resolved to rectify immediately. I felt too bad to stop by the store for the planned bever-orgy, but I had iced tea in the fridge at home, where I retreated. After eating (and drinking - yay) something, I didn’t feel much better. There was just no way I could go into work yet. I took my pills and a nap.

I woke feeling surprisingly better. I guess it was that second dose of meds that did it. I got ready, ate a bit of lunch, and went on into the office.

I got done what needed to be done. Alan will be back tomorrow and I’ll be ready. But as the day progressed my blue mood continued. Just when I get my finances semi-together, my body falls apart. I’m quite sure my blood pressure (and probably other things as well) are symptoms of the increasing stress at work. So my job is killing me, but I can’t afford to quit. Dad could only do the corporate bullshit thing for 15 years before it wrecked his health, and I’ve been doing it for over 17 years. Of course if I did quit then I’d be poor, my health would deteriorate because I wouldn’t have the money to buy healthy food, and I’d have stress then because of not having any money. So the choice seems to be dying with or without stuff. Either the job can kill me, or poverty can. I suppose I’m choosing with stuff.

Since I was depressed about my health, I stopped for junk food on the way home. I know. I feel like a Cathy Guiswite character. Of course cartoon characters suffer remarkably few ramifications from diet, unless you count the occasional inadvertent consumption of lit dynamite and/or bombs. Even that doesn't usually kill them.

I talked to Justin tonight. He’s been worried about me because the blog has been behind (it has never before been as behind as it was this week). We had a great time talking about the ridiculousness of corporate bullshit. I knew from a friend of my parents that school administration is just as bad (if not worse), and he’s a teacher. When I shared the ‘death with vs. death without stuff’ theory, he suggested I look around for another job. I’ve thought about it in the past, but of course every job has stress, so my theory has always been ‘better the devil you know than the one you don’t’, but at this point I’m giving some serious thought to dusting off the ole' resume. The devil I know seems to be on a body-building program lately. But I just don’t know if another job would resolve anything.

It was good to talk to Justin though, and I went to bed feeling a bit better.