Paul B
NJRC Member
Yesterday I went swimming like I do a few times a week for exercise and a few hours later I get this sharp pain in the my hip joint. So I figure I am old and you are supposed to get pains. If you don't have a variety of pains, you didn't work hard enough all your life. So last night it woke me up and it got worse. Today I can hardly walk and I need a cane. Not a problem as my wife has one so I borrow hers. It is getting worse and tomorrow is Easter so I want to play with my Grand Kids and I decide to go to one of those walk in clinics. Here on Long Island NY I am surrounded by some of the best hospitals in the country but if you go there and you don't have an arrow sticking out of your head or they don't have to pry you out of a 1957 Oldsmobile using the Jaws of Life, you will be waiting there longer than the time it takes for garlic and cleaner shrimp to cure ich. So this walk in clinic just opened less than a mile from my house. There are actually 4 of them with in walking distance, if I could walk. I go there and the nurse takes my insurance and all that. The sign outside reads "STAT Medical care", No Waiting. So after an hour, they call my name and this girl brings me into the small room. You know the room that they put you in because they know you were waiting a long time so they figure if you are in a different room, it won't feel like you waited for so long. So 45 minutes later I find out that it was worth it because a Supermodel comes in to take my vitals. The degree of Supermodelness determines, to me anyway, how long you should wait. So I determined that the wait was OK. Yes, I am very shallow. So she asks me the questions, do I smoke, drink, hang glide, bungee jump, etc. stuff like that. Then she leaves and I wait. After a while the Doctor comes in and to my surprise, "she" is also a Supermodel. This visit is turning out pretty good. So she examines me and determines that I probably broke my hip. OK, thats a manly afliction that I can live with. But she wants to take an X Ray. The X Ray technition was not a Supermodel but he was very nice. The X Ray shows that I didn't break my hip. I just got a bunch of arthritis. Another Manly thing, not quite as Manly as a broken hip but it is what it is so I am feeling pretty good. The Supermodel Doctor takes this long, Manly looking dagger and says she is going to give me an injection into the joint. This is not making me happy but being I am a Man, I say, go ahead, I need to wake up a little anyway. So as she gives me the shot, I try to hide the tears rolling down my face and I didn't scream until I was all the way outside, in my car and down the block. But before I left, I had to go back to the waiting room to wait for the X Ray to give to my doctor. A big guy sits down next to me and I could tell he was a plumber by the shirt he had on, that said, Plumber. He looks at me and says, He got stung. I am figuring he is in this big deal clinic and he will wait an hour before he sees a Doctor so he must have gotten stung by a scorpion, lionfish or box jelly that kills in minutes. I asked, what did you get stung by? He says. A Bee. A said, A Bee. One Bee? He says, yes one bee, but it really hurts. A bee. Now that is not Manly and borders on Sissyness.
