Personally, I think it's wrong that in order to afford even minimal health care in this country, most of us have to play drooling lackey to the corporate ogre. More even than that, we have to be among the lucky lackeys -- on the ogre's good side, at least enough to be invited to join the ogre's health club. The health benefits club. Membership has its privileges.
Of course, the fact that I find our "system" a shameful and disheartening mess in no way stops me from finally going to see what that horrible pain in my neck has been about all these years, now that the ogre has embraced me to his sweaty bosom for a time.
So, with health club membership card in hand, I went on over to West Side Chiropractic on 43rd st. (right near my apartment) and the good doctor Mark checked me out, asked me a bunch of questions, etc. etc. Then he sent me across town to get a set of spinal X-rays.
X-rays kind of creep me out. Radiation in general. Ever since I saw that old (1957) B-movie, "The Incredible Shrinking Man" on TV when I was a kid. The guy gradually and embarrassingly shrinks down to the size of an insect, is attacked by a spider that's much bigger than him, and has to stab it in the thorax with a sewing needle. And then he just keeps right on shrinking! The movie ends with some vaguely overblown claptrap about him inhabiting the sub-atomic realm. (Thanks to Michaelson for rekindling my enjoyment of the word 'claptrap' by the way.)
But I got the X-rays taken, and brought the prints home with me. I don't feel any worse for wear, and am seriously looking forward to bringing the spinal snapshots to the Chiro-dude and having him snap and twist and crunch me back into proper alignment, which I probably haven't been in for over 10 years -- ever since I foolishly tried to do a headstand while riding the Cyclone. That first drop man...
I wonder what it'll be like, to wake up in the morning without pain... will I see rainbows and fairies and unicorns shooting out of that eye on top of the pyramid? I bet I will.
To look at me, you probably wouldn't know that I've been in more-or-less constant pain for years. I'm one of those guys who just sort of ignores pain. Until it kills me dead. Then I say, "Oh... should I maybe have DONE something about that horrible pain I was in all those years? Huh..."
I'm just so used to feeling a constant dull ache and sharp stabbing pains in my neck/shoulder/back area whenever I try to do anything crazy, like turn my head to either side, or look up, or, you know, down, etc., that I sort of just forgot that I wasn't supposed to be in pain. Apparently, normal people don't feel this way, and don't tolerate such a thing for years on end if they can help it. Of course, I was never on the Ogre's good side long enough to make it into the club before. So, there's that.
Supposedly, being out of alignment, with bits of your central nervous system all constricted, hampers all sorts of routine, um, stuff. I mean, for all I know, I'm supposed to be a dynamic motivated individual, instead of a lazy sack o' crap. Maybe, when the electrical impulses traveling along my spinal cord get going properly again, I'll be able to finally, finally, begin realizing my lifelong dream of becoming a fashionably tormented vigilante superhero, and really start kicking some ass! Or begin realizing my other lifelong dream of sitting around in no pain (ass kicking optional).
Whatever.
I'll let you know how it goes.
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