How I Spent My Summer Vacation........

[blackhaus7]

This is a much better schtick delivered live. SSS got it over the phone. So I'll do the best I can here.

So, how are you doing, BH?

Better. My physical therapy finally ended.

Physical therapy? What did you do?

Wrenched my neck.

Wrenched your neck???? How'd that happen?

I fell off a doctor's exam table.

(There's usually a pause here until they quit laughing.)

What were you doing on a doctor's exam table?

Prostate biopsy.

(Another pause. Apparently a doctor ramming a devise up my ass and spearing my prostate with it is fraught with humor. An aside: Prostate biopsies are now at the top of my least fun things to do list. I'm sure I'll find something less fun, but right now, they're it.)

How'd you fall off the table?

The doctor does the exam in his office. We've concluded that the combination of painkillers dropped my blood pressure enough that I blacked out for a moment and fell off. The doctor and his nurse helped me up, loaded me in a wheel chair and rushed me to the emergency room (down a couple of halls) while I'm insisting that I'm fine. Despite the cut on my head that's bleeding like a stuck pig.

In ER, they first give me an EKG. I seem to have a heart. And it's normal. I then had three neck x-rays and I didn't break it. Finally they took a CT scan of my head and found nothing. (Everyone, and I mean everyone, that knows me has responded verbatim, "We could have told them that.")

I walked (yes, walked, they weren't wheeling me out of there - when was the last time you've heard that allowed) out of ER after 3 hours and I was more than ready for lunch. (I was ready before being admitted to ER.) And I drove home.

When I started physical therapy, my neck muscles were referred to as "concrete." I was told that it was as if I hit a windshield at 40 mph.

So I had a pain in the neck to go with my pain in the ass. Hell of a thing to go through to find out you don't have cancer. (By the way, only two people remembered through the whole recounting enough to ask how the biopsy came out. And no one has ever offered sympathy. Thank God.)

Considering that I frequently kick the gods' balls, I figure I'm owed a shot every so often. Doesn't matter, I'm still way ahead.

So how was your summer vacation?

 

[Guest]

Oh, it's still pretty damn funny delivered in a thread, BK!



(Glad to hear you're improving!)

 

[BlackShanglan]

Brilliant. Thanks for sharing, and my sincere sympathies are mingled in the laughter.

 

[BlackShanglan]

It's not a patch on that story in the pain and suffering department, but I do have one that made me wince. I went in for ... well, frankly, a colonoscopy, and you'll see why that's a key point in a moment. I was speaking with the doctor as they wheeled me into the exam room and prepared to sedate me, explaining the various rather personal symptoms that led to the decision to perform the colonoscopy. Meanwhile, the anaesthesia technician puttered around getting her things ready. Finally they were about ready to put me under and shove a flexible camera into an unmentionable location. Then the anaesthesia tech turned around and I heard the absolute last words anyone would ever want to hear at that point:

"Hi, M. Shanglan!"

A part-time employee of my company. Under my direct supervision. With whom I would be interacting several times per week. Guess what her full-time job was?

The good news:

(1) One cannot physically die of embarassment. I can vouch for the absolute truth of this.

(2) She had always been and continued to be a very decent person and never breathed of word of it, God bless her.

(3) She was kind enough to let me know, as I was being instructed to roll onto my side so as to face her, that she would be remaining on that side of me throughout the procedure.

She's a good-hearted person and was extremely discreet and kind about it, but that still ranks as probably the most humiliating moment of my life.

 

[Guest]

She was probably impressed by the shape of your posterior, dear Shang.

 

[blackhaus7]

It's not a patch on that story in the pain and suffering department, but I do have one that made me wince. I went in for ... well, frankly, a colonoscopy, and you'll see why that's a key point in a moment. I was speaking with the doctor as they wheeled me into the exam room and prepared to sedate me, explaining the various rather personal symptoms that led to the decision to perform the colonoscopy. Meanwhile, the anaesthesia technician puttered around getting her things ready. Finally they were about ready to put me under and shove a flexible camera into an unmentionable location. Then the anaesthesia tech turned around and I heard the absolute last words anyone would ever want to hear at that point:

"Hi, M. Shanglan!"

A part-time employee of my company. Under my direct supervision. With whom I would be interacting several times per week. Guess what her full-time job was?

The good news:

(1) One cannot physically die of embarassment. I can vouch for the absolute truth of this.

(2) She had always been and continued to be a very decent person and never breathed of word of it, God bless her.

(3) She was kind enough to let me know, as I was being instructed to roll onto my side so as to face her, that she would be remaining on that side of me throughout the procedure.

She's a good-hearted person and was extremely discreet and kind about it, but that still ranks as probably the most humiliating moment of my life.

Well, I conducted a conversation with the nurse throughout. It was my contention that, considering what women go through with OB/GYNs, this could be payback. She said that she enjoyed watching guys squirm. I was determined not to squirm. NO MATTER WHAT. The second time I had a stress ball to play with. (The first time they took FIFTEEN samples and one was inconclusive, hence the second and most recent biopsy.) My wife accompanied me the first time and the nurse told her I provided a most unique experience. My wife replied that "unique experience" was an apt description of me.

 

[Guest]

. . . My wife replied that "unique experience" was an apt description of me.

I would agree with LJ's description.