I don't have time for this shit

Greetings from the Mount Sinai Hospital emergency room. I'm just waiting for a doctor to come look at my arm. Last night, I was "doored" while riding my bicycle home from work. Coming up 10th avenue, I passed by a cab that was letting two passengers out. The door on the sidewalk side of the cab opened, so I figured, "Good... they're getting out on the safe side like they're supposed to and I'm clear to keep going." But just as I was about to pass, the door on the traffic side of the cab flew open with no time for me to react and I simply smashed into it.

The idiot got out and asked if I was okay. I was a bit dazed and infuriated and suddenly too hopped up on adrenaline to realize how much my right arm hurt and just said, "Yeah I'm fine" with an accompanying withering scowl. But my right bicep had borne most of the brunt of the impact, hitting the top edge of the open taxicab door, hard. Once I got home, I noticed that it hurt like a motherfucker, and that I couldn't move it much or use it to lift anything without severe pain. So I rolled up my sleeve to examine it and saw something I've never seen before, on my body or anyone else's... The skin wasn't broken, but there was this weird-looking indentation in my bicep at the point of impact. It looks and feels like I partially tore the muscle. Which could conceivably require surgery to correct.

And now, even though I have health benefits, I'm running headlong into medical system bureaucratic red-tape and runaround nonsense.

It's later. I'm home now.

The Hospital made me get some pointless x-rays. And they were all, "Well, the x-rays look fine" and I was like, "no shit assholes! I could've told you that they'd come out looking fine, because I can tell that there's nothing wrong with my arm bones. It's the MUSCLE that's fucked up, and everyone knows that soft tissue doesn't show up on bloody x-rays!" It was maddening. But, you know me... I don't like yelling at people who are at least attempting to help me, even if totally incompetently. They were just following SOP and even though I really needed to be looked at by an Orthopedic Surgeon, they couldn't even ask one to come down unless I had first gotten x-rayed. Which also has to do with properly milking my insurance plan. I'm surprised they didn't order an MRI, a CAT scan, a PET scan and a colonoscopy.

Actually, an MRI might've been slightly useful, as it does resolve soft tissue to a certain degree.

Anyway, even after getting the x-rays taken, they couldn't convince an orthopod to come down and look at me. But they did give me a Percoset (and a prescription for same) and the phone number of an orthopedic surgeon affiliated with Mount Sinai. By then it was too late to reach anyone in his office to make an appointment, and also by then, my coworkers (God bless 'em) had come up with a list of much better specialists to go see. So I'll call tomorrow and set up an appointment to get looked at for reals and hopefully this can happen sooner than later. A good specialist in high demand -- who knows how long it'll be before he can squeeze me in? I just hope I can book the appointment before my arm heals like this permanently, leaving me with diminished use of it (not to mention slightly deformed).

Though, even if that happens, I'm still gonna ride my bike everywhere.

Bikes rule!