dr_pretentious | Cortisone Day, cont'd

In the first hour of cortisone, Father Cortisone gave to me...a dose of novocaine that, even now, creates the feeling that nothing exists between the back crescent of my heel and the tips of my toes. It is a very strange sensation to put weight on a body part that, as far as my brain is concerned, doesn't exist.

In the second hour of cortisone, Father Cortisone gave to me...a prescription for percocet.

In the third hour of cortisone... I intend to be unconscious, actually, for the next several hours of Cortisone Day. I really don't want to be here when the novocaine wears off.

How I know I have good friend karma: Because Dan couldn't get the day off work, Breva the Axe fought rush hour traffic on Route 18 to come drive me to the appointment. Yes, the same Breva the Axe whose dissertation defense is on December 12th, and whose defense draft is due in her department's office tomorrow. In fact, this is the same Breva the Axe who had to deal with a cancer scare this month. Imagine having a cancer scare to cope with, four weeks before your dissertation defense. She keeps telling me I've earned my friend karma, because I spent yesterday copyediting her dissertation chapters. (I've been rather gratified to learn that I can still keep up with an introductory chapter full of Hegel, Kant, Derrida, and Lyotard. History of aesthetics? No sweat! Postmodernism and postcolonial literary theory? I got yer postmodernism right here. For a brief moment last night, I wondered if it really was too late, after all, to work in the field I trained for. But then it occurred to me that I'd have to go back to writing about all that stuff. Hives!)

The injection itself was not as bad as I expected. Bad, but not as bad as a week's worth of mobility impairment.

My mother, who has had cortisone injections in nearly every significant joint of her body, said, "Last time I got one, it was such a relief compared to the pain it was to treat, I felt like skipping through the parking lot on the way out of the hospital. The shot itself is incapacitating for some people, but those are people who regard any pain as a surprising thing. You and I know better." I didn't want to get my hopes up, but it turns out Mom was right.

When the injection itself was over, Father Cortisone said, "I'd say you can return to your normal activities, as you feel able."

"Normal activities?" said I. "Hey, Breva the Axe, wanna go write at Starbucks?" Because there is no more normal activity than that. And it was as good a place as any to wait for my percocet prescription to be filled.

So we wrote at Starbucks for a while, until she looked up from her laptop and this exchange made further work impossible:

BREVA: Argh!

ME: What?

BREVA: I need an article from a British journal, and the journal doesn't include the year of publication in its data. I can find a million references to the journal and the article, but none of them have the year. Why do our librarians need the year for interlibrary loan, if I've given them the issue and volume numbers? They're librarians. How hard can it be for them? I'm going to have an aneurysm right now. My blood is boiling. Are my eyes boogling out? I feel like my eyes are boogling out.

ME: Clearly, we are in the middle of a superhero origin story.

BREVA: No, Sarah, this is a supervillain origin story. The bureaucracy of this university is turning me into a supervillain!

ME: After your defense on the 12th, you'll be Dr. Furious, with powers fueled by your boundless rage.

BREVA: Dr. Furious. I like that, Dr. Pretentious. How are you liking the supervillain business?

ME: It's okay, but wearing the standard Marvel supervillain colors is problematic. Grape soda purple and kelly green are not that flattering on me.

Anyway, here's hoping the percocet's not too big an impediment during my evening writing shift. I'm not sure it can make me any loopier than I already am.