No shit I'm pissed off, you took away my 'don't get pissed' pills!

The BBQ Pit
1

Note to any Brit Dopers: When an American’s pissed it means he’s angry, mad, hecked off, not drunk.

My experience with doctors is roughly like Murphy Brown’s with secretaries, just less frequent. I don’t know if there’s a crying need for doctors in this city (Montgomery, population about 250,000) or if it’s just that the good ones aren’t accepting new patients, or if they just don’t stay good long, but whatever the case, I’ve yet to have a good relationship with a doctor here. There was the one who ministered to me about Jesus while he had his finger up my ass, the one who was concerned at how I’d lost 200 pounds in 6 months (because he [or his assistant perhaps] had pulled the chart of a morbidly obese patient), the one who could never remember my name even when it was on the chart in front of him, and none can see you without 6 months of time to get their hair done and redecorate the office (except for the Our Lady of the Anal Fingering acolyte, I’ll give him that- he was always able to take you with only a reasonable wait).

When I hear the horror stories about socialized medicine and how you’ll have to wait 4 months to get an arterial spray sewn up or 11 months for prenatal care vacancy or whatever I always wonder if either:

1- The horror stories are just flat out bogus (as Michael “all Cubans get their own personal Che Guevara daughter and a VIP suite with the Buena Vista Social Club serenading them” Moore suggests)- I think not

2- If it’s that doctors outside Montgomery (a small city admittedly but we’re not talking “back in St. Olav” exactly- we’re not teeny tiny) are just a whole lot better at taking people in a timely manner and not having “Uninsured Delendo Est!” emblazoned in tile on their waiting room wall (I’m fully insured with BCBS, but I haven’t always been, and while I recognize that doctor’s have to pay their bills the “Do you have insurance?” as the first question when asking if a doctor’s accepting new patients always strikes me as callous- my sister’s a millionaire and has had trouble finding a doctor where she lives because she has a private policy through an agency that isn’t as widely accepted as Our Lady of the Blue Cross [peace be upon her])

or

3- Under socialized medicine Montgomery would go from bad as in ridiculous waiting periods/get-em-in-dope-em-get-em-out bad to to ‘cackling old women cutting chicken throats and putting leeches in your ears and reading your stool sample in a tin roofed un air conditioned hovel’ bad, which sadly I suspect is closer to the truth than at least number 1 is.

In any case, it’s gotten so ridiculous that when I have any kind of a medical problem that’s worse than ‘I have a cold’ but not quite as bad as ‘Gee, I do believe that’s my liver hanging out of my ass’ bad (i.e. something you need a doctor for but not an E.R.) I brush up on my Pakistani or Indian etiquette ("don’t show the bottom of your foot… unless it’s a Laotian then you can do that but don’t look them in the eye… or is that Cambodian?) and go to one of the Doc-in-the-Box places (aka SLUMDOG MEDICARE- that’s my own term, but you may use it;)).

So my current physician: I’ll call him Dr. Kenny since that’s not his real name or anything close. When I first started going to him ca. 1998 he was the best of the lot. He was young then, not long out of his residency and newly married (his wife’s also a doctor) and he would take time with you, listen to you, always remembered my name. (I’m not unreasonable- I really don’t care if my doctor knows my name if he sees me in the grocery store- but I do like it when he takes the time to read your chart and call you by name at least.) Back in those days he also didn’t like to refer you to a specialist unless he could help it, and while he’s not a “the healing powers of lice ridden potatoes can’t be overestimated” homeopath he also didn’t like to prescribe pills for anything that could be treated without them. I liked him. However I only used him for a little over a year because at that time I moved from Montgomery (to, incidentally, smaller cities where consistently the doctors were better [save for in one place which was just simply too tiny {about 16,000 people} to have enough doctors).

So anyway, I came back to Alabama four years ago and for a while I went to a doctor I really liked, but unfortunately she moved and her partner was a quack (not just my opinion: he actually lost his license for, among other things, prescribing gastric bypasses as absolutely essential for anyone overweight [even telling them to eat sundaes and mayonaisse to gain weight to qualify for their insurance plan to pay for it] and, the piece de resistance, selling saline solution as flu vaccine!). When I came back to Montgomery I tried to get Dr. Kenny again but he wasn’t accepting new patients, so I went to hand-up-my-ass-genealogist guy, then switched to another one who wasn’t really great or terrible but who moved to Nashville after my second visit (I don’t think I’m the reason why) and that time 'Dr. Kenny was accepting new patients so I went back to him.

Well, a lot had changed in almost ten years. He wasn’t that good anymore. One problem was that it takes

FOR FREAKING EVER

to get an appointment with him. This is fine when it comes to the yearly ‘turn your head and cough’ stuff, but when it’s something like excruciating eye pain and they can’t/won’t work you in and you have to go to a Slumdog Medicare facility and they misdiagnose you (I told them “I have iritis… I know I have iritis because I had iritis 10 years ago and this is what it felt like”— no no no no, you have a scraped cornea [it was iritis, incidentally- not just my opinion but the retinologist to whom the opthamologist the doc-in-box referred me to referred me [Dr. Kenny’s office wouldn’t refer me to him, incidentally, because he hadn’t seen my eye— because I couldn’t get an appointment]). Then Dr. Kenny had just stopped listening- but had gone off the “no pills unless necessary” thing, now you walked through there and you practically picked a balloon out of a bin and when it popped you got the mystery prescription inside.

TO BE CONTINUED

2

I’d like to see some real stats on whether or not wait times in socialized health care systems is as bad as it is here in the US, too. Any decent doctor around here has a wait list 2 to 3 months long.

Your post is hilarious, btw!

3

Then a few months ago I had a lot of leg pain. It felt like a badly pulled muscle. As fate would have it I had an appointment scheduled for Dr. Kenny for the turn-your-head-and-cough thing anyway so while there I wanted to see if it was a broken bone or a torn ligament or whatever- at the time it was really painful, so I thought “an X ray might be needed”. (I’m not a hypochondriac generally, in fact it takes outright pain to get me to go to a doctor.) Well suh, Dr. Kenny looks at my leg and deduces, based on- no exaggeration- about a 12 second examination, “oh, you have varicose veins. You need a vascular specialist. Now turn your head and cough.”

So one visit to a vascular specialist later- short version- I sat in a waiting room with people who had a median age of 70 and were in wheelchairs and looked like the elephant man’s less fortunate sister with imploded and exploded and rubber hose sized veins and paid $50 so that a vascular specialist could look at me less than a minute (no exagg) and say “I have no idea why he thought you needed a vascular specialist. You have slight varicose veins but so does pretty much everyone at some time or another… you’ve got a pulled muscle.”

Well, I was pissed, but then came the ordeal of the pills.

Okey dokey, for starters- I’m narcoleptic. This is not my opinion, it was diagnosed by one of the best neurologists in the south, a man who literally wrote the definitive text on sleep disorders. My narcolepsy is not of the catalepsy variety (i.e. I don’t suddenly fall asleep and fall down like the narcoleptic Argentinian in Moulin Rouge) but it’s a less severe/more common variety (essentially I’m always sleep when I don’t have my medicine and I can literally sleep through a chorus of alarm clocks- waking up is a chemical process and mine is messed up, plus I go pretty much straight into REM when I fall asleep, do not pass go). My neurologist who diagnosed this gave me Adderall and then he took me off that and gave me one called Provigil, which is not so much a stimulant as something that addresses the chemical waking process. (I actually prefer the Adderall to be honest, but it does have some wanky side effects.) Anyway, with Provigil, as long as I get a reasonable amount of sleep I can actually wake up in the mornings- no sleep paralysis (which if you haven’t experienced it is, even when you know what’s happening, horrifying and one of the reasons I was a chronic oversleeper) and I’m not always feeling like I’ve been awake for 22 hours.

But, for longer than I’ve been a narcoleptic, I’ve had a little bitty mood disorder. The usual- depression, anxiety, and anger management. I’m a nasty little shit at times when I’m off my medicine. Had a little incident here when I decompensated once but

[FORREST]That’s all I got to say about that[/FORREST]

I’m really not walking through Waffle Houses with a baseball bat or kicking 90 year old transvestites in the nuts or anything like, but I basically have a short fuse. Usually, having coping mechanisms developed through a lifetime of experience with mood disordered loved ones (my entire family has major anger management issues, I’m just the only one who ever decided it’s not a good thing [others seem to think that the family temper flare-ups are a little quirk that means ‘we don’t take shit from anyone’ while I see them as the reason most of us are miserable and lonely people].) I’ve always held my tongue, perhaps more than I should actually, but it’s not cowardice… it’s the fact that I know what the rest of the family doesn’t seem to care about. It’s one thing to smile and nod and think “Man, you’re a fucking dickwad whose functional brain cells wouldn’t fill up the littlest bee drone’s left gonad aren’t you?”, it’s another thing to say it, and also there’s the perspective factor: I know that the “point of no return” is somewhere between the “fuc” and the “ick” and that if get to the ‘wad’ part then the drone’s gonad is absolutely gonna happen but it probably won’t stop there and that the ass-chewing probably won’t be proportionate to the crime. I read Kurt Vonnegut describe his mother’s tantrums as vomit and it was one of those “Wah wah! Cap’n Keller, she knows!” moments- perfect analogy. If I ever start to get visibly and openly mad it ain’t gonna stop til it stops, and this can be a very very bad thing. The person’s going to probably take the heat for things they didn’t do, if their offense was a 3 the asschewing is going to be a 8.7 minimum, and it’s what is called both within and outside of my family our “let’s see… you called me fat, I smashed in your car windshield and put your two youngest children in the hospital after making your left arm permanently unusable and letting you know that your biological mother isn’t who you think it is and showing you a picture of your husband fucking a mule… I think this makes us more or less even, wanna grab a Latte?” temper.

Anyway, I take medicine for it. Usually.

4

So…keep going…

5

Narcolepsy, remember? :wink:

6

And the same medicine helps with depression. My natural states are anger, inertia, and sometimes for shits and giggles a twelve second Jubilee where the two sort of run together. I’ll freely admit that sometimes I wish the anger WASN’T as under control as it is, but I also know, unlike my family (love them though I do) that forty-eight seconds of "GOD IT FELT GOOD TO ACTUALLY SAY THAT OUT LOUD TO HIM/HER! can result in forty-eight months of GOD I REALLY SHOULDN’T HAVE SET THAT OUT LOUD TO HIM/HER! Alright, you get the air mattresses set up and I’ll try talking them off the ledge since the psychologist has gone non verbal and the hostage negotiator is crying like a pussy. I could give examples of this but… they’re embarassing. (Self deprecation’s one thing, self embarassment is another- suffice it to say, and I am most certainly not bragging, that there is a war room in my mind that begins to accumulate information and frailties and all possible avenues of effective assault against every person I meet the second I meet them and if the “This is not a drill… Commence Hostilities” alarm ever goes off I can napalm a person’s ego and pile skulls into 280 foot tall statues of myself in nothing flat, and only two or three times in a lifetime can this be a good thing…

Quick side anecdote: one of my closest friends is a psychologist, specifically a family therapist (a surprising number of my friends have been psychologists, none in a professional capacity, largely because I’ll admit I largely agree with Alex P. Keaton’s line “I love psychology, in fact it’s my favorite of the false disciplines”… where was I, ah, yes.

My friend’s a family therapist for the state. She’s counseled families that have endured incest, physical and verbal abuse, dysfunction of every kind, she’s no ivory tower denizen. Some years ago I had just had a major blowout with my mother. This one I’ll admit was actually one of those ‘very few times’ necessary ones- I think I’ve mentioned once or twice that my mother (God rest her soul if He knows what’s good for Him [but don’t release the restraints just yet]) could be a difficult person, and could say very bad things. I tolerated this for many years, almost never raised my voice to her, learned early the best way of dealing with a drama queen is

1- go to your happy place in your mind if all other exits are blocked
or better yet

2- go to ANYWHERE they’re not if any exits is unblocked, by which I mean physically leave- because in addition to sparing you an argument and a sore throat in the morning and bringing the world a little bit of peace, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING FUCKING PISSES OFF A DRAMA QUEEN LIKE THE AUDIENCE LEAVING.

Anyway, so I’m telling my friend, who’s sensed that I’m upset due to the mannerisms friends look for and the fact that I just stabbed the waitress in the shoulder [not really {Eddie Izzard- nods head… shakes head… nods head… shakes head}, “I had a major argument with my mother. She said some things that I really think she crossed a line in saying… and I said some things back that I really thing I crossed a line in saying…”. My friend, I’ll call her ‘Ska’ since that’s not her real name, says, “Tell me about it.”

“No, it’s a bit nebulous. And a bit embarassing.”

“Well try me. Jonathan, I’ve counseled women who gave birth to their father’s baby when they were 12, I think I can handle this. Tell me about it, start at the beginning.”

So I start from the beginning. An hour or so later she asks

“So how can you possibly know all that happened while you were in the birth canal? Move ahead maybe 15 or 20 years.”

So I move forward to the argument we had that evening.

“Well, Mama” (who had recently learned I was gay) “opened with a you ajofja ozijoi 8elz naojd faljd f aonof a dng father was a fag Oiuaod ua voaj adf a burn in hell OUoa dfaj difj a;lzijn c and I would rather hear you were dead than a faggot oizujoiuadofjal alkdnf aoijihjovzla dfnoaidjf a df agnad fa wish you would just bury a knife in my neck aiujpoiua zo pojdaf oajpd fja aijovj ozj ocijv aoiejr aodjja dfadfa znoijf ane oar adn ad a adiwowr only .22 calibre, I want my 9 mm now jozju adijf aljdio ja zzioj fal zlvvoadf ao88w zxvijoa d fwaw era sodiiva should have known when you bought that Johnny Depp scrapbook with mohad aujzoij fpaiejr aojoijzojoi aiweujra znc fa adfan df and when I think of what I did woaiauoizuj voijaodjf adfiajiorj aoij ozjucvaiojdf aerad”. Well, usually I’d let this go, it was Pork Roast night after all, but I’d just had it and I cut her off with a izj adf aljzoicjf aodjf aldnfijx zfadf aa but if I’ve killed you I am a good son because it means I took vengeance on my father’s killer iaju zpijf aoijz oij foadjf o zoxfa anf adnoaiozo aadfjiozijd guafadf rot and decay in the hell of the frigid realms of despair you weave for others with silks shot from your frigid cunt like the spawn of Lilith a pzij aojd faljd foaj ald you black hearted bitter old bitchoiau dioja a fnadf adn fadlao eic adg gto ajoa jzo joiafj adfjad zpijaf adf aoizj adf BITTER in letters the size of the Hollywood sign you queen of nightmares adjf aojdfpa zdofjda fddj anoz vna and that pork roast is the drying fucking thing I’ve ever seen. And the worst part Ska… while I only had just a pinch of it before storming out… that pork roast was the meal prisoners in the Hanoi Hilton would have bashed their heads in when they dreamt of and then were woken it was absolutely delicious. Well anyway, there’s nothing more boring and pathetic than a family squabble to an outsider. Ska? Ska?"

This part is not exaggeration: I look over at Ska and her mouth is LITERALLY hanging open. Ska rarely uses profanity, incidentally.

SKA: Motherfucker… you people don’t play around! Just… fuck… do arguments in your family start with a low bow to your opponent and then flicking on the light sabers? Goddamn.

So this is another reason I like my little pink pills. Even when channeled into a necessary surgical strike or carpet bombing, you feel bad afterwards. Though my mother and I were on amazingly good terms after some treaties were signed the next week [though the stay at Versaillesand the Swiss intermediaries left us broke and in debt]).

Next time I promise I’ll get to the point.

7

And the same medicine helps with depression. My natural states are anger, inertia, and sometimes for shits and giggles a twelve second Jubilee where the two sort of run together. I’ll freely admit that sometimes I wish the anger WASN’T as under control as it is, but I also know, unlike my family (love them though I do) that forty-eight seconds of "GOD IT FELT GOOD TO ACTUALLY SAY THAT OUT LOUD TO HIM/HER! can result in forty-eight months of GOD I REALLY SHOULDN’T HAVE SET THAT OUT LOUD TO HIM/HER! Alright, you get the air mattresses set up and I’ll try talking them off the ledge since the psychologist has gone non verbal and the hostage negotiator is crying like a pussy. I could give examples of this but… they’re embarassing. (Self deprecation’s one thing, self embarassment is another- suffice it to say, and I am most certainly not bragging, that there is a war room in my mind that begins to accumulate information and frailties and all possible avenues of effective assault against every person I meet the second I meet them and if the “This is not a drill… Commence Hostilities” alarm ever goes off I can napalm a person’s ego and pile skulls into 280 foot tall statues of myself in nothing flat, and only two or three times in a lifetime can this be a good thing…

Quick side anecdote: one of my closest friends is a psychologist, specifically a family therapist (a surprising number of my friends have been psychologists, none in a professional capacity, largely because I’ll admit I largely agree with Alex P. Keaton’s line “I love psychology, in fact it’s my favorite of the false disciplines”… where was I, ah, yes.

My friend’s a family therapist for the state. She’s counseled families that have endured incest, physical and verbal abuse, dysfunction of every kind, she’s no ivory tower denizen. Some years ago I had just had a major blowout with my mother. This one I’ll admit was actually one of those ‘very few times’ necessary ones- I think I’ve mentioned once or twice that my mother (God rest her soul if He knows what’s good for Him [but don’t release the restraints just yet]) could be a difficult person, and could say very bad things. I tolerated this for many years, almost never raised my voice to her, learned early the best way of dealing with a drama queen is

1- go to your happy place in your mind if all other exits are blocked

  • go to ANYWHERE that isn’t close to her if any exits are unblocked, by which I mean physically leave- because in addition to sparing you an argument and a sore throat in the morning and bringing the world a little bit of peace, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING FUCKING PISSES OFF A DRAMA QUEEN LIKE THE AUDIENCE LEAVING.

Anyway, so I’m telling my friend, who’s sensed that I’m upset due to the mannerisms friends look for and the fact that I just stabbed the waitress in the shoulder [not really {Eddie Izzard- nods head… shakes head… nods head… shakes head}, “I had a major argument with my mother. She said some things that I really think she crossed a line in saying… and I said some things back that I really thing I crossed a line in saying…”. My friend, I’ll call her ‘Ska’ since that’s not her real name, says, “Tell me about it.”

“No, it’s a bit nebulous. And a bit embarassing.”

“Well try me. Jonathan, I’ve counseled women who gave birth to their father’s baby when they were 12, I think I can handle this. Tell me about it, start at the beginning.”

So I start from the beginning. An hour or so later she asks

“So how can you possibly know all that happened while you were in the birth canal? Move ahead maybe 15 or 20 years.”

So I move forward to the argument we had that evening.

“Well, Mama” (who had recently learned I was gay) “opened with a you ajofja ozijoi 8elz naojd faljd f aonof a dng father was a fag Oiuaod ua voaj adf a burn in hell OUoa dfaj difj a;lzijn c and I would rather hear you were dead than a faggot oizujoiuadofjal alkdnf aoijihjovzla dfnoaidjf a df agnad fa wish you would just bury a knife in my neck aiujpoiua zo pojdaf oajpd fja aijovj ozj ocijv aoiejr aodjja dfadfa znoijf ane oar adn ad a adiwowr only .22 calibre, I want my 9 mm now jozju adijf aljdio ja zzioj fal zlvvoadf ao88w zxvijoa d fwaw era sodiiva should have known when you bought that Johnny Depp scrapbook with mohad aujzoij fpaiejr aojoijzojoi aiweujra znc fa adfan df and when I think of what I did woaiauoizuj voijaodjf adfiajiorj aoij ozjucvaiojdf aerad”. Well, usually I’d let this go, it was Pork Roast night after all, but I’d just had it and I cut her off with a izj adf aljzoicjf aodjf aldnfijx zfadf aa but if I’ve killed you I am a good son because it means I took vengeance on my father’s killer iaju zpijf aoijz oij foadjf o zoxfa anf adnoaiozo aadfjiozijd guafadf rot and decay in the hell of the frigid realms of despair you weave for others with silks shot from your frigid cunt like the spawn of Lilith a pzij aojd faljd foaj ald you black hearted bitter old bitchoiau dioja a fnadf adn fadlao eic adg gto ajoa jzo joiafj adfjad zpijaf adf aoizj adf BITTER in letters the size of the Hollywood sign you queen of nightmares adjf aojdfpa zdofjda fddj anoz vna and that pork roast is the drying fucking thing I’ve ever seen. And the worst part Ska… while I only had just a pinch of it before storming out… that pork roast was the meal prisoners in the Hanoi Hilton would have bashed their heads in when they dreamt of and then were woken it was absolutely delicious. Well anyway, there’s nothing more boring and pathetic than a family squabble to an outsider. Ska? Ska?"

This part is not exaggeration: I look over at Ska and her mouth is LITERALLY hanging open. Ska rarely uses profanity, incidentally.

SKA: Motherfucker… you people don’t play around! Just… fuck… do arguments in your family start with a low bow to your opponent and then flicking on the light sabers? Goddamn.

So this is another reason I like my little pink pills. Even when channeled into a necessary surgical strike or carpet bombing, you feel bad afterwards. Though my mother and I were on amazingly good terms after some treaties were signed the next week [though the stay at Versaillesand the Swiss intermediaries left us broke and in debt]).

Next time I promise I’ll get to the point.

8

Spawn of Lilith.

Yum.

9

Why can’t all double posts be so entertaining?

And whenever I’m involved in a family argument from now on, I will hear a tiny little voice in that back of my head saying “Ska? … Ska?” Damn you.

10

So it’s in everybody’s best interest if I stay drugged.

Now about Provigil: it’s a stimulant, but it’s considered a miracle drug by some because unlike most stimulants (Adderall for instance) it doesn’t have that many side effects. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it miracle, but it’s definitely a natural wonder. It’s also… well, I’ll leave this for people more medically knowledgeable than me (i.e. most anybody with any medical knowledge) to shed light on if they so desire- while I don’t know if it’s addictive like an amphetamine [it’s not an amphetamine], it’s DEFINITELY a bitch to withdraw from.

So, a couple of weeks ago I saw that my Provigil prescription and my Zoloft prescription were both almost out. I called the doctor and asked for a refill. I didn’t speak to him of course but to his nurse. She said she’d put in the request.

A couple of days later- I’m not out yet- I drive by the pharmacy. “Fish fish, have you any Provigil and Zoloft for me?” Nay my Lord. But do try the herring.

Well, perhaps they’re not to it. This was a Friday and he wasn’t in, so I’ll call back Monday.

MONDAY: 48 Hours to ZERO MED day.

I call Dr. Kenny’s office.

“Mr. Sampiro, he says he doesn’t want to refill the prescription until you come see him in person.”

“Alright then… got anything for Wednesday?”

“Oh I can tell you right up front I don’t… how about April 16?”

“That’s the April 16 as in the month that comes after March which isn’t quite here yet because this is last week April 16th, yes?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, April 16th is fine for an appointment, but can I have a tide me over month and a half prescription til then?”

“Well, I’ll ask.”

“Good, because I run out on Wednesday. And… well, these things can be a bit turbulent to come off of.”

“I’ve heard that.”

“Well, you take care now… tell your mama I axed how she’s durrin’…”

“Oh did I tell you Mama’s dachshund finally found a kidney donor?”

“Oh I’m so glad, I remember you being worried about that…”

“Well there was this lady in Texas whose dachshund was killed by a chimp and adajaojdf ao adj aoj foadfj adf”

and after a few minutes of small talk- I don’t know this nurse well but she’s always garrulous and unlike Dr. Kenny she actually does remember you- I say “You have a great day darlin’” and she says something similar and we part good friends.

TUESDAY
24 HOURS TO 0-MED

“Kirstie, this is Jon… the CVS doesn’t have a call in and this is my last day of medications. Have you talked to Dr. Kenny?”

“Not personally but I did leave the request on his voicemail and he checks that at least twice a day. When I see him in person I’ll make sure.”

“Okay love, thanks.”

“No sweat.”

Not yet, but there was to be.

WEDNESDAY

NOMEDS DAY.

“Hey Kirstie, this is your pest. Has Dr. Kenny called in that prescription? I’m out of meds and while you can go a day or two, you know it gets a little rough after that, plus I have a bit of a cold that’s been going around.”

“Oh Lord everyone’s had that. My daughter and her baby both have it, you know that half of Conecuh County has the flu they’re gonna have to close the school if three more students get it. Well, I talked to Dr. Kenny, he pulled your file, said he’ll take care of it.”

“Thanks hon. What’s the name of that dachshund dialysis place? I want to donate some of my old sweaters to their drive.”

We’re friends.

THURSDAY
NOMEDS + 1

“Kirstie… hey, sorry to be a nuisance, but is there any way I can talk to Dr. Kenny? I’m starting to have some turbulence and really need to get this taken care of.”

“Oooh… he’s gone off to a conference for today… did he not call in a refill?”

“No you fuc… fudge… have you tried that new GIRL SCOUT fudge?”

“No but if it’s anything like they’re almond toffee, Lord, I made myself sick on that stuff…”

“Oh Almond Toffee’s wonderful isn’t it? Can Dr. Kenny’s wife get my refills called in?”

“No, she’s gone with him.”

“OOOoooookey doooookey… are they back tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay I’ll call back then, but please let him know I’m having some withdrawal here.”

“Will do. You take care. Oh and tell your mom I asked about her. She was my favorite history teacher ever.”

“MY MOTHER’S DEAD CUN… come this August it’ll be three years.”

“Oh I’m so sorry when did it happen?”

“Ummm… three years ago this August. Ouch! Sorry, I just broke a pen that was between my teeth. Anyway, if you’ll let Dr. Kenny know I’d 'preciate it.”

“Alrightey.”

FRIDAY
NOMEDS + 2

“Hi Kirstie. Medicine… head cold plus withdrawal. Withdrawal plus cold… baaaadd. Jon not like.”

“Ooooh baby… he only works a half a day on Friday. I did see him though, he said he has to see you before he can call in a refill.”

“Jon sleep lot. Jon head hurt.”

“Weyyyyyulll… you know I’m not a nurse practitioner, and Dr. Susie’s here but says she doesn’t like refilling Dr. Kenny’s prescriptions.”

“Dr. Susie baaaad. Hurt.”

“Well… at this point, the best I can do is have him personally call you back, but I can tell you he’s not gone do that this weekend, it’ll be at least Monday.”

“Weekend baaaaaad.”

“Well it’s supposed to be a cold one… they say we’ll get snow on Sunday.”

“Sunday baddd. Pills.”

“I gotta run…”

“Run badddd.”

WEEKEND

NOMEDS + 3
NOMEDS + 4

SNOW

BADDDD.

Between the head cold and the headaches from withdrawal (which I’m not much exaggerating, it’s withdrawal, and I’m decompensating to boot), not a pleasant weekend. I felt like I had the flu basically.

MONDAY

NOMEDS+ 5

“This is Kirstie.”

“I WANT MY FUCKING DRUGS!!! I mean, hi Kirstie, how are you? Did you get through the snow okay?”

“My grandbaby was over saw we got pictures of him int his little parka…”

“They’re adorable when they’re that age aren’t they unless of course they’re stillborn in the Victorian era in which case they’re just bones and gross can I have my drugs please?”

“Honey, I asked him again, he said he’s not gonna give 'em to you til you come see him.”

“Did you explain that I can’t come to see him for another month and I need these pills? I’ve been on them both for years and years… whatever harm he’s afraid has already been done I assure you… another month and a half won’t make a difference…”

“You know how he is.”

“Can I speak to him?”

“He’s busy today but…”

“Tomorrow then… creeps in it’s petty course from day to day, I love ya tomorrow, you’re always a day away, told by an idiot, filled with sound and fury signifying bet your bottom dollar…”

“Yeah… well, you take care.”

TODAY

NO MEDS+ 6

11

This is quickly turning into an epic.

12

Today was actually a bit better. I felt more humanoid. Yesterday twixt the headaches and the jumpiness and the cold (which that part isn’t Dr. Kenny’s fault I’ll grant) I had to take a sick day. I was miserable. I’ve been through withdrawal before, they weren’t pleasant then either. This time add in having a cold.

Time were I would have just called my sister in such a matter. She’d have Fed-Exed me some (she’s a pharmacist) and then filled my prescription minus the “advance” and eventually it would turn out okay, but that was when

1- She had her own drugstore (she sold it)
2- We were talking a week’s supply, not well over a month’s

Slumdog Medicare’s don’t do prescriptions for these things. Irritating thing about the Provigil incidentally is having to CONSTANTLY remind the doctors, including Dr. Kenny, that it’s not for fucking ADHD (though I may have that I don’t dispute anyone see BIG BANG THEORY last night? The green paintball on the sofa was hysterical and about the same shade of green as FlavorAde, which is what they used at Jonestown rather than KoolAid, and did you know Jim Jones’s son is now

Sorry. The Provigil is for narcolepsy. Now this is the one that I REALLY don’t want back. It’s embarassing as all hell when you can’t get to work on time and it’s impossible to explain- and I don’t even blame folks for not understanding- that the reason you overslept is because yeah, you heard the alarms going off, and the snooze alarms, but it was… I’ll describe it as falling asleep with the TV on and a John Wayne movie comes on and there’s gunfire and Indians attacking— you really don’t instinctively reflex and go into “holy fuck there’s Indian attacking!” mode because while there’s familiarity and recognition to the sounds they’re also not real to you. That’s what the alarms can be like with narcolepsy- you hear them, they went off perfectly, and somehow it never registers in your mind “the alarms mean get out of bed”, and the sleep paralysis makes it impossible for you too somedays if you want to. Provigil doesn’t stop all that, but it at least lets you know “Hey, this alarm means something… and in fifteen minutes or so I’m going to figure it out… let’s see… does it mean 'win one for the Gipper? Nooo… does it mean the clothes are in the dryer… nooo… oh wait a minute it means… and let me digress a little here to say that I absolutely loved the DVD commentary on TROPIC THUNDER, especially Robert Downey’s ‘aw man miss me on that fuckin’ bullshit!” ad lib as Kirk Lazarus’s Lincoln Osiris, and does anybody else feel like a dirty aging lecher for the way they’re checking out Nicholas Hoult’s butt and package in those tightie whities on SKINS? Damn, somewhere between ABOUT A BOY and the first episode boy went to Sexy Camp didn’t he? And I’ll tell you something about Varina Howell Davis I bet not even Jefferson knew, her breath would OH WAIT I REMEMBER WHAT IT WAS I MEANT TO TELL YOU… WAKE THE FUCK UP!
and that’s incomparably better than just sort of gradually and naturally waking up 5 hours later. After sleeping for 16 hours. And you wake up tired. That’s, no exaggeration, the difference Provigil makes- it doesn’t make you run and hop and skip like the other children, but it does make you able to give a reasonable facsimile.

To me it’s fucking sadistic to deny me the refills. Oh, this isn’t the lack of Zoloft talking, I don’t really think Dr. Kenny is somewhere wanking over thoughts of my withdrawal, I just think he doesn’t give a shit. Which really is in a way kind of worse. A sadistic doctor has to give you at least enough quality care to keep you coming back.

Well anyway, I’ve “overed” the worst part of the withdrawal process now. I’m still getting some headaches, but the worst part is that the reasons that I take medications for in the first place are starting to resurface. The student who blames the fact she’s an obnoxious stupid bitch on Asperger’s is edging just a little closer to being called an obnoxious stupid bitch, or “like I told you the last 40 fucking times you asked” followup to smiling while showing somebody how to use a database, or the “you know what I’d like to do today? Neither do I. So I won’t” effects of the lack of anti-depressant.

Anyway, Kirstie called me today.

“Hey Jon-Jon…”

I actually stopped myself before telling her “That grew old before I was ever born and the last people who called me that are dead, though I’d love for you to meet them”. I just said, “Hi Kirstie. Let me guess. Dr. Kenny is not going to call them in?”

“No, I tried. But he’s not going to call them in until you meet with him. But I was able to move you to an appointment a little closer… April 9th.”

“No thanks.”

“You have a conflict?”

“Yes. If by conflict you mean a new doctor.” (actually said, not just thought.) “So I’ll need you to get my medical records ready for transfer. Though no rush, you don’t have to today or anything since I haven’t even chosen one yet.”

“Ummm… really?”

“Yes, really. I won’t be coming into Montgomery Area Local (MAL)Practice anymore.” (The acronym’s not real.)

“Why? Dr. Kenny is a great doctor…”

[one of those shouldn’t have said it things, but at least it’s just a single shot bitch carbine rather than a bazooka]

“Dr. Kenny is a name I’d expect to hear from a guy wearing a lab coat and rainbow Afro wig on a kid’s show, probably with a puppet named Mr. Giggle Bladder. Dr. McCormick {Dr. Kenny’s equally not real last name} is, and I mean this not at all insultingly to you please know, is not somebody I would bring my dogs too.”

“Why not?”

“Well for one thing they’d probably be dead of old age before they could get an appointment and also because I’ve had several miserable days due to whatever he thinks he’s proving about not giving me refills on pills I’ve taken for years that have never had adverse side effects except when I go off of them.”

“Well, you should reconsider…”

“Okay, I just did. Yep, I’m going to another doctor. You take care, I really do mean it when I say this isn’t anything to do with you and I hope the dachshund’s new kidney takes and the pics of the grandbaby in the parka come out alright. Bye now.”

So a few hours later I get a call from DR. KENNY himself.

13

Dr. Kenny: 'Hey Jon, this is Dr. Kenny."

Images of the Nickelodeon version of Hannibal Lecter and Anatoman.

“Hi.”

“Kirstie says you’re leaving us.”

“I don’t work for you. I’m going to a new doctor however.”

“Can I ask which one?”

“Sure.”

[long silence before he figures it out]

“Well which one are you going to?”

“I’m not sure. I need to begin the process of looking.”

“Well we’d hate to lose you, you’ve been coming here for years. And if it’s the waiting process for an appointment well, I know it’s frustrating but it’s par for the course for this city. You see, because of insurance companies and all we all have to take a whooole lot more patients than we really want to just to pay the bills, and because of that our schedules are just crammed.”

“Yes I know, but I’ve never had a problem getting refills while waiting for an appointment before.”

“Well that’s the way I do things.”

“Well fair enough. This is they way I do things. I get bad service at a business and I stop going to them.”

“Jon there is no need to be snippy!”

"I… that… hah hah hah hah hahahahahahahaaha… " This was sincere laughter.

“Did I say something funny?”

“It depends on how you define funny. More absurd really, but not an intentional absurd, so that’s really a great debate more than a Pit Thread.”

“Well we hate to lose you…”

“Why? You just said you have more patients than you can handle.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“No need to be snippy.”

“Look Jon, I just wanted to call and tell you that I’m not comfortable refilling prescriptions without an office visit, but I’m not going to trade zingers with you.”

“Yeah, that’s a pretty good idea.”

“So I hope you reconsider, but I can’t refill the scrips til you come in. Have a blessed day.”

click.
So my doctor made me go through withdrawal for a week from my anger management medication, and then refused to refill my anger management medication, and then did and said things that I think would piss off any reasonable person, and then says “don’t get snippy”. (Do people really say ‘snippy’ anymore? And does anybody still wear a hat? I’ll drink to that…".) Which I guess is the much shorter way of telling the story, one that wouldn’t have required admitting to family dysfunctions and a lecherous aging fondness for a teen Brit actor’s buttocks. But then I’m unmedicated at the moment, and even if I weren’t where’s the fun in that?

So what I’m asking, do any Montgomery Dopers know of a good doctor? It turns out mine is actually a performance artist willing to do anything for a set up to an absurdist punchline (“FISH!”) of sorts, but I really prefer one with a more reasonable refill policy.

14

Hm. I guess Ska thinks you really do take it one step beyond. This is madness. Will she advise you to twist and crawl right out of there?

OK, I’m done.

15

“Pissed off” though means the same to Brit and Irish Dopers, so the thread remains understandable.

16

[wild applause; whistles; standing ovation]

RANT OF THE YEAR.

and I hope you find a good doctor soon.

17

Wow.

I read every word. Can I have a sticker or something?

18

A gold freakin’ star. Two, in fact. On your forehead where all the others can see.

I thought **Sampiro **was narcoleptic, not manic.

19

I read every word as well, although in an effort to be true to the OP’s apparent condition, I didn’t read them in exactly the order they were written.

Dr. Kenny’s comeuppance was a pretty good payoff, though, and well worth slogging through the rest.

20

Isn’t that the Sampiro Award?

Good luck with the doctor search, and hope you find one soon. Withdrawal sucks like a cheap hooker while all the sailors are on shore leave. I agree–not providing refills is just plain sadistic.