It's been too long!

I'm sorry it's been so long. I will never do that to you again. (I might do it to you again.) 

On with the show! 

I went to a sports medicine doctor a few months ago, because my regular doctor told me to go. This is what I told the people in my life when I mentioned I was going to a sports doctor. 
“Why are you going to a sports doctor when you do not sports?” 
“Because I follow directions.” 

It’s pretty funny they would even let me in such a place. I tripped walking up the stairs. I was there to get answers about this nagging back pain, and the weird foot pain, and also hand pain, plus hip pain, oh and also neck pain. The receptionist gave me a diagram of a body and instructed me to circle what hurt, and I festooned the entire thing with circles and wrote PLEASE FIX across it. 

The doctor was a terse and beautiful Russian woman with an impeccable manicure and I felt bad that she had to handle my clammy feet, among other parts. I mean my other parts weren’t clammy, but my feet, whooo. They had just come out of my insulated snow boots which I had worn out of an abundance of caution, as there had been a full quarter-inch of snow on the ground. 

She seemed unhappy with me. After looking me over she said “You don’t stretch” and I said “But I do” (but I don’t)—and oh, the look she gave me. Then she accused me of having “atrophied fingers” and she was like “or do they always look like that” and I said “yes, yes they’re always like that!” But then I thought, oh my god, have my fingers always been atrophied? I use them all the time! I’m using them right now! 

She had clearly been given the directive at some point to smile occasionally at patients. “You are beautiful but frightening,” someone told her. “Flash those chompers at your poor patients, why don’t you.” I don’t know why they called them “chompers,” I wasn’t there. Anyway she looked miserable and furious and then she would flash this stunning wide smile at me and then go back to being surly. “We have to do several tests because you have so many problems,” she said, frowning, then beamed, then frowned even harder. 

Meanwhile I did what I generally do with doctors, which is to lie a lot. This is a great idea and absolutely in my self-interest. “How long have you had this pain in your lower spine?” she asked, and my answer would honestly have been “Either last week or since the dawn of time, I couldn’t be bothered to keep track of when I became a walking catalogue of aches.” But what I said was, “A year, I think?” 
“How long have your feet been hurting you?’ 
Oh god was I supposed to take notes in my diary? Dear diary, today is the day my foot pain began. Will it ever end? I know it was less than the time my back pain has been acting up, so—
“A few months.” 
“A few months? So like, four or five?” 
I pretended to think. “Five, let’s say.” Sure, let’s say that. Because this is all a fiction.
“And how about your neck pain? 
“Uh, the same? Five months.” 
“Five months. Same time as foot.”  She studied me as I started sweating. 
I’m not normally a liar. I’m terrible at lying. But there i was, doing it. I even lied about things I never lie about, even to doctors, like I didn’t mention one of the two antidepressants I’m on.
“That’s irresponsible!” I can hear you shouting. I know, I know, stop yelling at me! It’s not like she’s going to prescribe me medication, I thought! She’s just going to prescribe volleyball or something! Sports medicine joke! 
Then she prescribed me medication.
So: “I forgot that I’m also on Abilify,” I said. “If that changes anything.” 
“Well,” she said, “it changes our relationship. It destroys my trust in you and anything you say. Do you even have pains? Are you even human?” 
Actually what she said was, “Eh, it’s okay.” And the prescription was a high-powered anti-inflammatory I didn’t even take! So there. (I did LIE about taking it, during subsequent visits. Of course.) 

After numerous x-rays and MRIs the conclusion was 1) I’m getting old and 2) I need to exercise more.

“I feel like I exercise all the time, is the thing,” I told my new physical therapist, who was unimpressed.
“You’re not doing the right exercises,” he told me. And then gave me an hour of exercises to do, every day. 
“This feels like a job,” I said to him. “Like I should get paid.” 
“You’ll get paid in good health,” I swear to you is a thing he said to me. 

So I did the fucking exercises, reader. I did them every day. And you know what? You know what’s really terrible? I got better. I went to my sessions and showed the physical therapist what a good student I was, and he praised me, and I ate that shit right up.

And then, six weeks later, came the day when he said, “I’m ready to discharge you. Come next week for your last session and then you’ll be officially discharged.” And I thought, “Oh no no no, you’ve just discharged me. Why do I need to come for an extra session, exactly? Why? So you can charge my insurance company one last time? I don’t THINK so. In fact I’m never coming back here. You’ll wonder if I was ever really here at all, or if I was just a wonderful dream.” 

I THOUGHT these things. What I said was, “Sure, Kip, I can’t wait to come back! See you next week!” 
And he was like “My name is not Kip” and I kept waving violently as I tripped out the door.