Prickly feeling

It's been a long few days. It took me until late yesterday evening to fill out that damn questionnaire. In the old days, BS (before surgery) I probably could have answered the number of questions asked in an hour or two depending on my attention span. Now, AS (after surgery)it takes me longer because I can't focus on the pages too long, and my writing has never returned to what it was BS.

Anyway, in between all that lovely stuff, I've had appointments. In particular, I had an independent medical exam. Usually these doctors, and I give these people the title very reluctantly, are hired by insurance companies to prove you're not as disabled as you claim. Again, it's about the bottom line.

For three hours I answered this guy's questions. For three hours we played the, "no matter how many times you rephrase the question, my answer is not going to change" game. Seriously. If I tell you I can only see forward, I mean only straight in front of me. No, not a circle, no, not a rectangle. Straight. No top, no bottoms, no sides. Front and center. He must have asked me three or four times, "...you mean like a circle?" Or if he didn't say circle, he would make a circle with his hands around his eyes and say, "so your vision is like this?", hoping I would say yes and he could then claim my vision was more than I had previously stated. ARGH!! I just wanted to tell him to f*ck off!! But I didn't because I'm really working on not being a bitch. Even if it's justifiable bitchiness. Dammit.

After he subjected me to over two hours of torture - the real fun stuff started. By the way, not to make light of the whole water torture thing but maybe we should hire some of these doctors for our interrogation process of war prisoners. This guy was that good, as much as I hate to give him any kudos. I was getting to the point of saying whatever he wanted me to say just to make him stop asking me question after question - 20 pages at my last count!!

Okay, so the fun stuff. Physical exam. Hah!! What a joke. When he opened up his briefcase he started pulling out items I recognized: stethoscope, reflex thingy, blood pressure cuff and then he took out a tin cigarette case. He opened it up and out popped some safety pins. I asked him what he thought he was going to do with those pins. It wasn't a question, really. It was more of a belligerent statement. I told him if he thought he was going to poke me with those suckers (yea, I know, but I used those words) he was highly mistaken. Anyway, he put them away and proceeded to humiliate me in other ways. My mother said that because the conference room where we were having the exam did not have blinds on the glass door, anyone passing by was able to see me, my lifted shirt, bra, belly...you name it. Maybe I should have let the guy prick me with his pins instead.