Yakety Yak Blah Blah Blah Blah


Yakety Yak Blah Blah Blah Blah

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Traumatic Thursday (14 October 2006 - 10:16 a.m.)

Alexander thinks HE had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day? Hah! I just experienced a day fraught with enough misery to try the patience of Job. That would be this past Thursday.

1.) I went for the MRI of the soft tissue at the bast of my skull. At least, I think that�s what was scanned. When I arrived, there was some confusion over the doctor�s orders. Apparently, the technician and the doctors on staff disagreed with my ENT, and felt that the focus of the scan should be on the area of my head involving my ears.

I was advised that a call would be placed to my doctor to set things straight, and, in the meantime, I was sent to have an IV inserted for the mid-scan injection. Injection? I was not aware that this MRI required an injection. (The worst thing about that was the metallic taste in my mouth that lasted for a day and a half.) Oh well, grin and bear it.

The imaging center was backed up, and I was there for two hours. This was my 7th or 8th MRI, so there�s really not much to say that hasn�t already been said. The only thing that was different (besides the injection) was a slight departure from the discordant head-banging �music� the machine usually pounds out. This time, there was a period when the magnets created a sound that reminded me of an old-fashioned horror movie organ. It was kind of weird to be lying there thinking about Bela Lugosi�

Anyway, at one point, I was taken out of the machine, something was injected into the IV, and I was reinserted into the MRI scanner. The test was completed, and I was released. I don�t expect the results to show anything, but I will get them on the 23rd when I return to the ENT for follow-up.

2.) When I got home from the imagining center, my 95 year old grandmother called to tell me that she fell and hit her head in a supermarket parking lot. She had gone shopping with a neighbor, and they were on their way to the car with their groceries. The next thing my grandmother knew, she was flat on her back.

She doesn�t know what happened. Her poor neighbor was a wreck. She heard my grandmother�s head make contact with the pavement, and feared the worst. Another woman rushed over to offer assistance, and the two of them were able to lift my grandmother to her feet, and get her in the car. She refused to go to the hospital. She said, �If I go to the hospital, I�ll never get out.� Actually, she could be right about that.

This is weighing heavily on me. Although she was in good spirits the day of the fall, joking about her hard head, she sounded very frail when I spoke to her yesterday. Her head bled during the night, and her whole body is now screaming with pain. I�m trying to talk her into at least seeing her doctor, but my grandmother can be very stubborn. Sigh.

3.) Rebecca came home from school to have all four of her wisdom teeth removed. The anesthesia made her sick, and she�s been vomiting off and on since then. (She was also just diagnosed on Friday with Celiac Disease, but that�s another story for another time.)

4.) Rebecca�s boyfriend of over one year picked Thursday night, while she was recovering from dental surgery, to break up with her, over the phone. The way it happened was particularly odious. He did it after ONE APPOINTMENT with a psychiatrist to deal with anger management issues - something Rebecca had encouraged him to do in what was supposed to be an effort to improve their relationship.

This is the boy who is where he is today � attending college in Albany, and, in fact, who he is today � a well-liked, popular young man � largely because of Rebecca.

As a child, Mike was tormented because of his red hair. He had no friends, and was the frequent victim of bullies. He had a miserable childhood and adolescence, and his teenage years weren�t much better � until he met Rebecca. Having a smart, pretty girlfriend turned things around for Mike. As his self-confidence grew, so did the respect he received from others.

To give credit where it is due, I have to say that Mike is outgoing and friendly and funny. He�s easy to like, and more and more people are starting to like him. This has been an intoxicating experience for someone who was more used to being ostracized and bullied. Unfortunately, it�s gone to his head.

Don't get me wrong. Mike is not a bad guy. He�s a typical teenager, with emphasis on the word typical. (In other words, he�s not quite as special as he suddenly seems to think he is.) Mike might have a bit of a temper, but he is not physically violent. He�s an eighteen year old boy who is getting a taste of freedom at college, and wants to sow some wild oats. He wants to drink and smoke weed. Often. He wants to live the life of the party animal.

Because Rebecca�s father is an alcoholic, this kind of behavior does not sit well with her. I�m proud of her for refusing to settle for less than she deserves. I�m proud of her for not accepting something that she considers to be unacceptable just to keep the relationship going. To do that would be to sell herself short. But she now finds herself broken-hearted because Mike is selling their relationship short. It hurts her to think that he doesn�t value what they had enough to make some sacrifices. She�s learning that Walt Disney was full of shit. True love does NOT conquer all.

In Harper Lee�s To Kill A Mockingbird, Miss Maudie explained that, �'Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.�

For that same reason, it�s a sin to hurt Rebecca.

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