Tuesday, August 14, 2012

A Sneeze Is A Cough Through Your Nose

9:45 a.m., on the ferry en route to Swedish Pain Center, this time to inform the director that DSMO ( horse linement, for God's Sake), was perhaps a mistake.  Mistake is the nice way to put it.  Horror story is more like it.  I found the linement in its pure (ha) form at Bainbridge's infamous Bay Hay store and on line in a more  civilized mix of 70% DMSo and 30% aloe vera. I purchased seventy dollars of the latter form, so high was my hope. First, I gave it a go with the undiluted form and my  bottom was red for two straight weeks.  I looked like the Marqui de Sade and I had spent a holiday together.  Do you know the not-so-lady-like-phrase "that burns my ass?"  Well, I was the living example of that not-so-lady-like-phrase.

I tossed the undiluted DSMO.  I suppose I'm lucky the doctor didn't want to have me shoed.  To be fair, chronic pain is inexact and annoyingly difficult to treat.  I don't know how he does it.  Perhaps he's ust a masochist. Or a sadist. I can't tell. His South African accent, though, is awfully pleasant.

Anyway, I'm on the ferry, reading the science section of the New York times; it's an article  about exploding colons and the fact that one can not complete a yawn with one's eyes closed.  I used to worry about that, most specifically, about having to yawn and, just at the end of my yawn, closing my eyes and bashing into somebody or something with my car.  Since I, the World's Worst Driver, have bashed  into any number of things (not people, not so far) with my eyes open, it only seems reasonable that it wouldn't take too many yawns for me to make my way through all sorts of contraptions out there on the highways.  And yet, I am glad to report, I haven't. Yet.  And this, from the same article - certain antidepressants produce yawns that trigger orgasms. Hey!  I've been a therapist for nearly thirty years and have spent many many hours trying to make the case, when truly required, for antidepressants. Come on, doctors of America, come on, you smarmy marketers of pharmaceuticals, let's hear more about this!  If this be true, USE this! (And, by the way, which antidepressants trigger these, um, orgasms?)  Modern therapists want to know.

So now it is twelve-thirty p.m. and I'm ferrying back from my appointment, which went something like this:

The Director: "Hello, there, how's it been going?"
Me: "The DSMO nearly burned my bottom off, the mixture of it  with aloe wasn't much better, the Nortriptyline didn't do a thing so I've weaned myself off, I've studied coxxydinia and have come to the conclusion that not much can be done, I'm fine except for sitting which is excruciating  but sitting is my job, I can't go on  opiates because of my job, I've ordered three chair-things specifically crafted for coxxydinia, here's the photograph, I'd like to give the Lamactyl you mentioned last time a go, I now have a sheet saying I'm good for medical marijuana and that's about it."
The Director: "I'd say you have things well in hand."
Me: "Yes, well, thank you."
The Director: "You're right, you know. Other than removing the tailbone there isn't much we can do.  Thirty percent of people with this diagnosis respond to medication and the rest don't.  It's bloody painful, we do know that.  I don't know how you manage to remain so cheerful."
Me: "I don't."
The Director:"Well, you seem to do better than many people I see with this."
Me: "What are my choices?  Besides, I cry and tear my hair and feel sorry for myself as well......but, look, I can walk, I can dance, I can hike, I just can't sit.....and that's not true, either....I can sit, I just can't sit without pain.  Lots of people have it way waaaay worse than me. In fact, I feel sort of embarrassed that I'm even hear at all."
The Director: "Oh, good Lord, you can get over that one. Here. I'm writing you a new prescription for a cream compound.  With a higher degree of a numbing ingredient.  But you must tell them that you are highly sensitive to anything like DMSO because, believe it or not, they do use emollients like that to push the rest of the ingredients through.  Will you do that?  And call me with the results."

We didn't make another appointment. Hey.  What's the use. 

It's now three-thirty and I have a four o'clock, although normally I don't see patients on Tuesdays.

 Here's an insightful joke the commedienne Dick Gregory used to tell about pain:.

"An old man falls down the stairs and breaks his legs. If he screams, people will run away and he will be alone. If he laughs, they will come to share the joke and stay to help him. That's how you deal with pain."