THE ULTRASOUND OF RELIEF

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I guess sometimes it’s OK when the medical community laughs at you.

You see, I recently had several members of the medical community laugh at me, and sadly, I wasn’t trying to be funny.

It all started when I pinched a nerve in my back. Apparently, through some really major design flaw, the human head’s rotation ability is controlled by a single, strategically placed nerve in the back.

When I pinched this nerve, I could not move my neck. I had to keep my head craned forward and slightly cocked to the left. I suppose I could have tried to move it to other positions, but this was the only one that did not create a feeling of a thousand white-hot needles driving into my body.

So I went to the doctor to get some help. This has happened before, and my doctor used an ultrasound wand to miraculously fix me. The previous times, it had usually happened playing sports or lifting something heavy. I would go to the doctor, and he would use the miracle technique to heal me. I think that the reason women complain so much about pregnancy is that they are afraid men will discover how awesome ultrasound is and try and get in on the game. Men, the secret is out – ultrasound, whatever it is and whatever it does, is a miracle.

One reason that I decided to go the doctor, obviously, was the intense pain. Another reason, however, was that the way my head was being forced to stay, I looked like I was leaning in, listening intently to whatever people had to say. This just invites trouble. I’m not a big fan of knowing people’s intimate issues, so being forced to walk around like I’m begging for you to lean in and whisper me a secret is bad news.

Before getting to the whole healing process, the doctor sent the nurse in. I think one of the big functions of nurses is to hear any ridiculous stories and write them on the chart so that the doctor can get all of his laughs out before entering the room, thereby maintaining professional dignity. The nurse was asking me what was hurting, and then asked me how it happened.

My initial thought was to say, “Sports.” That’s a nice and easy catch-all for injury cause in the adult male. But there is something about a doctor’s office that compels me to tell the truth, namely the fear that if they find out I was lying, they can order lots of painful tests that involve needles or rubber gloves.

So, I went with honesty. “I was standing on my head.”

The nurse did a double take. “You were what?”

“Standing on my head,” I said, trying to sound matter of fact about it, as if the majority of the population was on its head at any given moment, and I couldn’t believe that the nurse hadn’t followed suit. “I was playing with my daughter and I was standing on my head. She stomped on my hand and pulled my arm out from under me, and the next thing I knew it looked like I cared what everyone said.”

Despite years of training, the nurse could not refrain. She did keep it down to a polite chuckle, but she was laughing nonetheless. “Are you going to put that on the chart?” I asked.

“Uh, yeah,” she said, probably really happy that she was going to have the winning entry at the weekly nurses’ Patients Are Idiots luncheon.

A few minutes after the nurse left, the doctor came in. As usual, he was composed and dignified, because he had plenty of time to laugh over my condition outside of the room. He even asked a few other questions, I guess to ensure that I had not actually done something severe. No, the only severe injury that day was to my pride.

After about 30 minutes of delicious, life-giving ultrasound therapy, I regained most of the mobility in my neck, and was back to my usual look, which conveys the message of indifference and inattentiveness quite clearly. I suppose I somewhat deserved to be laughed at. After all, not many people my age get injured standing on their heads. Actually, probably quite a few do, but they just say it happened playing sports.