THE HOLE, Observations on the American Medical System

I hadn’t been sleeping well for a couple of weeks. I kept hearing voices in my head and there was an incessant pounding like machines working, as if there was a factory in my head. And the voices, Loud…cryptic!

Finally, one morning I noticed it. I was standing in front of the bathroom mirror, shivering a bit from the crispness of the morning air and the night’s lack of sleep. I was running the water, waiting for it to warm so I could prepare my face for my weekly shave. Staring back at me was me. At first, I thought it was dirt. But, as the crust washed from my blinking eyes it was clear that there was a hole right dead center in the middle of my forehead.

It was not a small hole. It was big…about the diameter of one of those big fat pencils we were required to use back in grade school. We were uncoordinated little oafs back then and would wrap our little hands around those big fat pencils and attempt to print letters of the alphabet in our Big Chief tablets.

I asked myself what was a hole of this size doing in the middle of my forehead? I said,     “ What the f*** is that there right in the middle of my forehead?” Had I been shot in the brain a few days before and had not realized it? I had no idea.

I decided it was time to go to the doctor. My appointment was made quickly, possibly due to the unusual nature of my malady. I showed up at the clinic promptly at 8:00am. I had not been to the doctor for years so they assigned me a staff physician who was on duty at the time.

I was lead to a small exam room where I was asked a hundred questions and required to sign a bunch of forms without being afforded the time to read them. Things hadn’t changed much in the years I’d been away from medical treatment. The most basic question asked was about what my reason was for the visit. I explained in detail the issue of the hole in my forehead, the pounding and the voices, the lack of sleep, etc. I didn’t spend too much time on the pencil though.

The nurse then asked me to strip down. She took a bunch of photos which I assumed would go viral the next day on Facebook or some other twisted form of social media. Then, she asked me to put on one of those robes that tie in the back with one’s butt sticking out. I thought all this was quite odd given that my problem was the hole that was in my forehead.

As she left the room, she stated that the doctor would be with me shortly and I should make myself comfortable. I sat on the cold, black plastic chair with my butt hanging out of the robe and the chair was every bit as cold as the room. About 30 minutes or so had gone by and the doctor had not yet made an appearance, but my butt had turned completely blue and had lost all sense of feeling. It was totally numb as was the rest of my lower torso and I started to be concerned that I would not be able to pee in a cup.

Every time I go to the doctor, they make me pee in a cup. Always! I once had a cousin who was in the Navy and when he was stationed in Puerto Rico, the Navy guys all peed in a special urinal and every so often a truck would come and collect that pee. The truck belonged to a large pharmaceutical company which would process the pee from thousands of sailors and make expensive pills from minerals extracted from the pee. They got the pee for free and the sailors got zilch! Given that I was suffering from a hole in my forehead, I was certain the whole pee deal was just a big scam and the doctors were in cahoots with the pharmaceutical industry.

After awhile, the doctor arrived. He introduced himself and commenced to go through all the routine procedures. He took my temperature, blood pressure and drew blood. He glanced at the copious notes about my medical history which had been well documented by his nurse. Then, he began to ask me all the same questions again, just as the nurse had done, as if she had never even been there. Towards the end of the exam, he had me bend over the table wherein he stuck his thumb up my blue ass and commented on the size of my prostate gland, stating it presented no problem. I found that a relief given that my primary symptom was a hole in my scalp! He finished by asking me to pee in a cup.

Right before checking into the clinic, I had made a detour to the hallway restroom where I had peed. I had consumed a large quantity of coffee throughout the morning and needed to relieve myself badly. So, when the doctor got around to asking me to pee in the cup, I had little to nothing left to give. I was sure this would be a real blow to the pharmaceutical industry but I really didn’t care.

The doctor, having at once surmised that I had an acute urinary disorder as a result of my not being able to pee, thinking perhaps a severe infection, checked me into the hospital where I remained for about a week. I was fitted with a catheter and various fluids were pumped into me via an IV. After consistently urinating for several days thereafter, I was released from the hospital and given a sample of pills, the name of which I could not pronounce but noted the name consisted of hardly any English vowels. The medicine was called something like “Xdroyctpyll”. I was told to take one pill a day, with or without food, preferably before bedtime and that if I missed a pill, do not double up on it. Just skip that day and proceed the following day as if nothing had happened.

I was also given a fact sheet on the medicine with a two page list of side effects which included among other things nausea, muscle weakness, incontinence, and death. I was presented with a bill for $78,000 of which my insurance company had an agreement with the medical industry to pay $37.53 leaving me responsible for the $25.00 co-pay. I never have been able to figure out how that deal works, but I sure don’t want the government screwing with medical care because then it would never make any sense like it does now!

Finally, I was given a note from the doctor telling me to stay rested for about a week and to call him if I had any further problems. He signed the note and that’s when I realized he was a proctologist.

A few days later I awoke a sound sleep. Yes, I had started to sleep longer and although not yet well, I was beginning to feel better. My wife was straddling my chest and her breasts were pressing firmly into my face. I thought, “Yippee”, I’m back. Then, I realized that she was holding a magnifying glass and a small but powerful LED flashlight. She was peering into the hole which remained in my forehead.  She said she had been doing this for the past three days on and off after I went to sleep. She said there were a bunch of tiny workers, digging and moving stuff inside my head, that she had come to find the whole thing very entertaining. “It’s like watching one of those documentaries about the Chinese moving their factories and railroads over the mountains in WWII to keep their infrastructure out of the hands of the Japanese”, so she said.

But, she also had noted that since returning home, the level of activity in my head had progressively diminished. It was as if the war was ending. Sure enough, after a few more days, all activity in my head ceased. I no longer felt the factory-like throbbing. I no longer heard the voices. I was getting a full night’s sleep. My wife no longer had anything to do with me and the hole in my head was nearly healed.

I called my doctor to report this miracle. I was informed that he was no longer with the clinic. He had resigned after writing a dissertation concerning the “Treatment and Cure of Obscure Urinary Tract Diseases”.  The thesis was a profile of my case, complete with various pictures of me in the nude which appeared on the cover. He had married his nurse and together they were traveling the country giving talks at various hospitals and medical organizations about my case. They appeared on TV with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, showing pictures of my torso to anyone willing to watch. Nowhere in the report was a mention of the hole in my head and the related problems which were the reason for my visit to begin with.

Following this episode, I remained healthy for quite some time. The summer of ’09 was particularly a humid one. I found myself coming down with a bad case of athlete’s foot. It became so chronic that I eventually went to the drug store and bought a tube of ointment. The label on the tube of ointment appeared to have been designed by the same outfit that designed the label for the Roach Motels on the next isle over. Instead of a picture of Mohammed Ali on the label, there was a picture of the inventor of the ointment, Dr. Marx. Dr. Marx bore a striking resemblance to the late Groucho Marx. That lent credence to the scientific support for the effectiveness of the ointment.                                                                                                                                                                     The ointment seemed to do the trick. The ointment cost $7.38. My insurance covered none of this cost.  I never did go see a doctor about the foot. I saw no need to do so. The late Charles Bukowski would likely agree.

 C. Bukowski