o chius!

My knee is hurting more and more. The other night it was so bad that I considered going to the Emergency Room, but I decided to tough it out and take it to Urgent Care in the morning. The ER is where you go if you're on the verge of death, missing members, or bleeding profusely, particularly from someplace that oughtn't bleed like the eyes or genitals. I think it's probably a medical faux pas to go into the Emergency Room with a problem that you can just bite the bullet and deal with until Urgent Care opens up. "Well la-dee-da," the doctors would say amongst themselves, out of view of the patients. "Looks like someone hurt his knee and came into the Emergency Room. Boo hoo." Then when he came in to see me, the doctor would call me either a sissy or a faggot.

But not the doctor at Urgent Care. No sir, because that's the appropriate place to go with problems like a badly hurting knee.

Doc was young. About my age, I think. I felt like I was being treated by the guy from SCRUBS. He did a good job though, and moved my leg around and x-rayed it and gave me one of those nifty knee sleeves to wear, which gets very sweaty and consequently very itchy. He couldn't find any physical abnormalities in my knee, and figures I somehow sprained the living crap out of it. He told me to take some analgesics if the pain gets bad, and do my best not to smack it around and injure it further. I've got the second bit covered, but I'm not really into the first bit; I hate taking drugs of any kind, for any reason. Unless the pain is absolutely blinding, I'd much rather bite my lip and take it like a man than resort to chemically altering the balance of my neurotransmitters and all that stuff up there inside my brain. Testosteronal machismo, or my pseudo-straightedge mentality rearing it's sober, decaffeinated face? Perhaps a little of both.

I would have received little sympathy in the ER, among the two GSW's and the guy with the harpoon in his throat.