DEAR DOCTOR, IT HURTS WHEN I DO THIS

Who dreams of telling their dear doctor what hurts and they make it all better?

Me, I do, and so does everyone who ever had a ‘hitch in their get-along.’

That’s what my Dad called the way our old babysitter Violet’s way of walking.

She had a rolling gait on one side, what I now know had to be a hip injury.

Painful? No doubt, but she plugged along, eventually taking a seat in a wheelchair late in her long life.

What about the rest of us? Plugging along?

I’ve tolerated discomfort, a variety of them, and dodged the remedies that make it all go away.

No thanks to opiates like oxy and liquid oxy.

Why trade temporary comfort for a potentially devastating drug habit?

That was the question I asked myself before the first dose of oxy pill, and again with my first dose of liquid oxy.

My discomfort got me to the point of, ‘this better work.’

It didn’t.

I fell asleep both times and woke up with nauseousness added to the elevated pain.

I needed to take more? Of course.

That’s what I heard from the pill bottle and juice bottle:

 

“Just a little more, pal, and we’ll get you through this with no problems. Trust us.”

 

I didn’t trust them. Or myself.

I’d obviously make a classic junkie, hitting up, nodding out, and slobbering on myself.

Or maybe I’d be a lifestyle junkie with a maintenance dose on a regular schedule.

Instead I lifted myself out of the downward spiral after a lively intervention from wife and adult kids.

Later on I dropped both bottles into the pharmacy’s prescription return instead of taking them downtown for auction in Old Town.

 

Fight For Your Life. Why Not?

This is a scene from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with Butch on the left, Sundance on the right.

Just two guys living their lives the way they want, which created a different lifeline.

No spoilers.

They had chances of living completely different lives, but their romantic notions about a life of crime interfered.

I give them credit for sticking to their guns.

They learned to fight for their lives, their way of life.

You’d do the same? Do you fight for your life?

If the answer includes benzos and statins and blood thinners, keep fighting.

If the answer doesn’t include any meds, you’re winning.

You’re either winning, or ignoring dangerous symptoms.

Broken down by generations, baby boomers need more frequent dear doctor appointments to keep up to date; millennials have more time before their ‘check engine light’ goes on.

As the two largest generations in American history, these are where the leading voices come from.

It’s also where the most followers of leading voices come from.

If you hear someone say, “Lay down and quit,” they are not leading anywhere you want to go.

 

Lead By Failure

The more you try something, the more reps you get, the more your experience grows.

Some things work better than others, which you only learn through trial and error.

Call it the scientific method.

It starts with observation, but what does that mean?

I spent a night in the local ICU for observation, which meant getting woken up every five minutes to make sure I wasn’t dead, or dying.

Since neither happened I walked out the next morning, which means I was wheeled to the curb.

Like Mike, I can accept failure, but I can’t accept quitting.

By all means, use your time in ways you feel are useful.

Spend your time getting better organized, better equipped, better Feng Shui-ed.

Once you’re caught up enough to take a quick breath, look around for more to do.

If you know someone who shows signs of their mental health changing for the worse, help out.

How to tell?

They start talking in Bob Dylan lyrics:

“Where have you been my blue eyed son during these times that are a changing?”

Or they start talking in what passes for modern government:

“We don’t need expertise or experience in how departments run, we need people who look like zealots.”

 

The Michael Jordan Amendment

I can accept failure, but I cannot accept a failure in every measure imaginable telling me how successful they are.

When a known failure uses another known failure for reference and the group you’re with all nod their heads in understanding?

Unacceptable.

Time to find another group.

That’s me holding the NBA Championship Trophy from the 1977 Portland Trail Blazers.

It’s a picture from the Blazers’ offices, not me celebrating my role in a championship.

The trophy was part of a museum exhibit celebrating our team.

Nothing more, nothing less. It’s not about me, I’m just part of the picture.

It could be more about me if I were a kooky fuck with a few loose screws. Something like:

 

Yep, I picked this up from Big Red’s weed man over in Goose Hollow where you walk down the alley between old Victorians and up the bag stairs on the right to a room with a pantless man surrounded by jars of bud. 

And the O’Brien trophy.

 

So that makes me a superstar?

Aaaaaa, no.

And neither is anyone else spreading intentional ignorance.

It’s a temptation worth resisting.