SCIATICA
Sciatica is a condition in which the sciactic nerve, a long one from the spine down the back of the leg, gets pinched. The equal but opposite nerve down the front of the leg is called the piriformis. It’s not as known, but if either or both of these nerves is trapped, maybe inflamed, the result is misery. And paralysis — can’t walk, can’t drive.
One estimate is that a case can last 2 to 4 weeks. One morning you wake up hurting — a few mornings later, you wake up and it’s gone I’m somewhere in between. Advil is the anti-inflammation drug that works best for me, but now I begin to question the effects of all these OTC drugs. Some people have sciatica for months, a year.
I’m also becoming aware of the gap between actual medical care and a little extra help of the kind that aunties used to supply. The doc I have designated keeps office hours at a little clinic two blocks away on Mondays. Even though I’m a risky driver at the moment I can usually get that far, if it is Monday. The refrain of every medical professional in Montana is that you must go to them. I’m about thirty miles from each of three county seats with hospitals.
If you are unable to drive or your vehicle is unreliable, you are expected to take the ambulance which is formidably expensive. (“There are programs for that,” says the doc, the liberal answer to everything.) Otherwise one is expect to rely on friends and relatives. Aside from having a lot of money, these are the best chance of survival. But I have avoided friendship networks here because I am so different that I have to explain everything all the time. And they can be intrusive.
Example: mentioning suicide, my doc gives me the academic boilerplate. I lose my temper. “I was a minister for ten years. Don’t tell me about suicide.” The Doc goes to a political/feminist position. This aggravates me more. I talk about the upper middle class status of docs and how they are blind to much in the lives of others. She has a washing machine, right? A famiiar economic attack, the doc’s defenses go up. She does not know that a couple of days earlier I had a conversation with a man who had been suicidal since childhood and had crashed two cars in attempts. (“There’s a program for that.”)
I say, “you know, if this relationship goes on we’re going to have to reconcile our temperaments.” She has a another paragraph of boilerplate ready but neither of us is stupid. She lets me just run raving on about not having a washing machine but having too many cats. She says, not quite boasting, that she’ll try to find someone to take some cats.
My doc’s CEO is in on this and doing a bit of prompting. I have no idea how it will work out, but I told this doc that I hate, dislike and distrust all docs because of a lifetime of being misunderstood, swept aside and ignored by both males and females. The irony is that most of the docs have been treated the same way. It’s in our culture.
A hurricane force wind carrying some snow has just hit. No longer are authorities saying semi-trucks and RV’s should use caution. Now they just order, “Get off the road.” Next step is monitored barriers. Last storm like this — a week or so ago — rolled half a dozen trucks.
I can’t help seeing the whole thing as a big metaphor for our culture. To comfort me and unconsciously getting irritated, my doc tells me that old women who fall because of sciatica and break their hip, are statistically likely to live less than a year. I laugh. I knew that. It’s all taking too long.
