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Ramblings (April 2004)

04/09/04 -- 12:53 a.m.

Well, I'm winding down one of my suckier weeks in recent memory. It all started innocently enough when I went to Aikido on Monday night. We were doing some fast falling and rolling drills, and I got sloppy. On a backroll that went horribly wrong, I came up hurting in my side. It subsided pretty quickly and I made it through the hard callisthenic part of the class, and then we started doing front rolls over a couple of piled up kicking shields. I went over a couple of times, no problem, and then on one of them, I really hurt myself.

I crumpled over in the corner of the dojo for a few minutes, watching the others practice through my pain, and I was convinced that I had broken a rib somehow. I gingerly, and very slowly, got dressed and went home.

The next day, I wasn't feeling any better, so I decided to go to the emergency room and get an X-ray. I went to the local hospital, St. Joseph's, and was promptly told that, even though this was the emergency room, I couldn't get an X-ray without a doctor's orders.

But I'm not from here, I explained. I can't get a doctor's order.

Too bad, the receptionist's look said (I'm still very pissed about this whole scenario).

So I went to one of the local immediate care places and, even though I was the only person in the waiting room, had to wait 40 minutes before they called me back. The doctor had all the personality of Eeyore and didn't seem particularly interested in being there. But they X-rayed me and determined that nothing was broken - just some badly torn muscles amongst my ribs. So he prescribed some pain medication, even though I told him I wouldn't take it and that the pain wasn't keeping me from sleeping.

Completely ignoring me, he prescribed some Vioxx for the day (no big whoop), but then he prescribed Loritab for the night. Loritab! That's pretty heavy duty stuff! Everytime I mentioned it to someone, they'd get a look in their eyes and go, "Ooooooh, Loritab!"

Turns out that I'd unknowingly run into a Dr. Feelgood. Asking around the office later, I found a few people who knew him from previous practices, and none of them could believe he hadn't lost his license yet. Apparently, he's been under investigation several times for his loose prescription pad.

I still haven't filled it, and probably won't, much to the chagrin of many pain medicine afficionados around me. The rib muscles are healing nicely, and I only scream in pain when I cough or sneeze.

This morning, I was driving to work and got a ticket for an expired license plate. The highway patrolman was very nice and courteous, but fined me 85 bucks anyway. Can't really blame him, since the plate had been expired for a year. I've moved around so much that I guess the county hasn't been able to keep up with me, as I certainly got nothing in the mail. At any rate, I have to pay the ticket, pay the taxes on the car, and pay whatever ludicrous fine they pile on top of it. And stand in line at the courthouse and the DMV (the third and secret tenth circles of Hell, respectively) to boot.

On top of it, I'm stone broke for another six days, since I had to shell out major bucks for my wedding duds (a tale in itself).

On top of that, I was so exhausted from pain on Wednesday that I had to cancel my plans with M to catch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless M ind.

Sigh.