I forgot to write a post last night. Or, I was too tired and fell asleep with the boy while watching an animated movie. Or, both. I slept terribly, so it is difficult to remember. The timeline of the evening most closely resembles a headache.
I went to the doctor, finally, and got a cortisone shot. The sciatic pain in my leg had become unbearable, chronic, and acute. It had been going on for months. I don't even remember when it began. Had I known that a simple trip to my general physician would have caused some cessation then I would not have waited. I won't wait again. Though, I've read that it is no cure and that too many cortisone shots can cause other problems, but fuck it. Pain is not something I am willing to tolerate.
Every time I say or think something like that last sentence I hear Beckett's haunting: That's what you think.
My doctor is a pleasant old guy and I hope he never retires. We have good chats. He is from the old guard of family medicine. He offered me pain killers for the sciatica as he was refilling my Xanax prescription. I told him that he can keep them, that the ones he would give me aren't much good for anything. No, he recognized the reality of my pain, he assured me. I told him that the sciatica pain comes and goes and that pain killers make me feel dopey and sluggish the whole time, so he let it go. And it's true. I've never cared very much for most pain killers. Though some drugs that I have loved madly for decades have some palliative qualities. I want to keep my resistance to such things low. Who knows what the winters may bring.
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