Not Enough Apples In The World
I’m in a wheelchair outside the VA and the sky is still blue but somehow less so. One size fits all, so nothing fits anyone. Dicks flop out of gowns like the pisser at a drag show. Half-hanging bandages wave in the breeze. They dance like leaves as they play peekaboo with a ghastly poorly healing wound. Runny noses. Scraped knees. Kids.
The doctor across from me is a liar. They smile at weird times when they talk. They also assume, like many college-educated twats, that the enlisted force is somehow only comprised of morons.
No, sweeties. Other way around. These condescending tools will exclaim their utter disbelief about the events of your life, their disbelief in your current state. I’m not sure why but the VA is one of the few hospitals where you say, “I don’t feel good,” and they say, “prove it.”
I once had a shrink change my diagnosis so they could prescribe me a pill they had a deal with. That later fucked up the rest of my care as doctors began relying on the false diagnosis and medicating in line with that.
Four years of my life were stolen as I still struggled with panic and anxiety but was simply too sedate to share that with anyone. They weren’t treating my symptoms. They were treating their own. They were shutting us up.
I wish this were hyperbole. Too often the human equivalent of a boneless skinless chicken breast duped into increasingly higher student debts will sit across from you and with their X years of sitting in boxes and then try to tell you the wars aren’t real.
There are a lot of providers, clearly not all, in the VA system who are unaware of how educated the enlisted force is. They also have difficulty reading numbers. They’ll often give you too high a dose of sedatives and talk to you like you’re five. Other way, Doc. I’m 40, those are 5-milligram tabs.
Bitter. The melon in the dining area is bitter. They have a cafeteria here but it’s pricey. Usually, I try to eat before my appointment so I’m not stuck spending the money. There’s some kind of fish that I refuse to eat off a steam line. I go for the burger because whatever. It’s too expensive and too dry. It has that science meat taste. It’s too beefy for something this gray.
I wish I could choose when to black out and how. Like dip out for this burger and just get it over with. Blackout and regain my senses having run a few miles and done a few pushups.
