Anyway, I spent about 4 hours at Kaiser Permanente on Tuesday getting two sets of X-rays and visiting the orthopedist twice as well. Though I did gain the ability to see through walls from the seven x-rays I had done, that wasn't the point of my visit to the ole' HMO joint.
(ABOVE) My non-adamantium skeleton and its unintelligent design
You see, I went skiing in Vail back in February during which I fell...over and over and over again. The biggest fall was also pretty much my last, and the one that I think landed me in the situation I'm in now. I chose the words "fall" and "landed" very carefully, because during the Minturn Mile run I hit the third of a set of three man-sized moguls a bit crooked and ended up sailing through the air into the side of a hill, landing on my right shoulder.
I'd be lying if I said that a spill I took during my first run at Whitetail a week earlier in Pennsylvania wasn't the instigator of all of this shoulder trouble, but that'd be a pretty fucking pathetic story to tell at bars...as I found out the other night.
I still blame my inadvertent hang-time out in the backcountry in Vail for wildly exacerbating the injury, though. My friend Eric was there, he'd back me up on that spill. In fact, I can still remember him laughing hysterically when it happened, followed by the compensatory "uhh...are you alright dude?" Of course, as a guy, having "dude" and "you alright?" in the same sentence mandates a response of "fuck you dude, I'm fine."
According to those ability-enhancing x-rays, however, my shoulder doesn't think so. I've either got a fractured glenoid (the cup that holds the ball of the humerus) or a slightly torn rotator cuff (the thing that helps my curve ball hang instead of drop). If it's a fracture there's a chance that there's a few bits of bone hilariously floating around in my shoulder causing me pain, in which case I'd need arthroscopic surgery to reunite them with my savings account. No matter what it is, I need an MRI, which is cool but not cheap. With an MRI I'd also get to enjoy a "magnetic shit" injection, as I call it, directly into my shoulder. Since I love needles so much, I may as well plan on hyperventilating and passing out that day, in addition to driving to fucking Fairfax. Maybe I'll take advantage of the situation and pick up some delicious suburbs-only fare like Noodles & Company while I'm at it.The really fun part is that I got to wait 2.5 weeks before I could see the orthopedist, and I get to wait another 4 weeks to see her again (assuming I can fit in and afford an MRI in the meantime).
Now, I'm not ragging on MRIs, they're pretty cool shit. From what I've read on CNN.com's tech section, they can see into the future to predict how shitty your life is about to get. They also excel at making you feel like you're stuck in a really expensive trashcan for an extended period of time. Pretty amazing stuff.
Anyway, no matter what happens, I'm on pins and needles about finally being able to join in on conversations when people talk about broken bones, because I never have before (KNOCK ON WOOD !!! /.... LOL!!!LLOL!!1LO!O/!!7O11!L!L). I can also join those supermacho conversations about sports injuries, which in most cases, are probably more underpinned by acute office-related atrophy than Dan Cortese-esque extreme sports accidents.
Whatever happens, I wish god had given me an adamantium skeleton instead of this intelligently-designed bullshit.
3 comments:
That is all kinds of miserable, Dave. I hope it is at least an "open" MRI.
I would consider bringing an Ipod. I don't know if they necessarily will let it in the MRI room, but it is worth the canse. I do know that it might be a better alternative than the pop music they will probably play overhead to help time pass.
that's why skiing should only be a water sport! I've always heard those radioactive injections are among the most painful shots one can get, something to do with them been will-burn-plain-skin acidic and poisonous. Let's us know how it goes.
Steak: I appreciate that. The ipod idea is good, buuuuut, the way MRIs work is that they create a big magnetic field (magnetic resonance imaging), which somehow causes certain things in the body to do something observable and create a picture of your body. That's why they tell you you can't have anything metal on you, or in your body, cuz it'll be dangerous if you do. Aside from the ipod's hard drive getting wiped instantaneously, it'd become a projectile, which would be cool, but would make it hard to keep the ear buds in place.
Also, since it's an HMO, i really doubt they have accessible MRIs. I hear the tube is pretty fucking creepy, like being loaded in a torpedo tube. All in all, it's gonna be fucking great.
Anonymous: Thanks for the pep talk. If what you say is true, they get the radioactive injection fluid from the creatures in Aliens. That went over well for the space marines. "Game over, man! Game over!"
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