The Emerald Rose

     Boy, been busy all week around here. More “stuff” than anything else, but it’s like get up,go,go,go,go,eat supper go to bed.

    So what have I been up to, well went to have my MRA (really an MRI but they only do your neck area) Had fun with the tech though. When I arrived she asked if I had my test results and I went “Duh? I thought that’s why you were here, to do the test.

       She tells me it’s not the MRI test results, but the blood test results, I ask what for?

      She tells me they have to shoot me up with some heavy metal dye when they do the MRI to get better contrast in the pictures and they want to be sure my kidneys will be working correctly and get rid of the dye once the test is done. I assured her that the Four pints of Guinness I imbibed last evening passed beautifully and in a timely fashion from my body so the kidneys are banging on all cylinders fine. She chuckled and said no, we need to test them this morning before we start the MRI. I sighed and looked at her and said, “It’s only 7:30 in the morning! But if I have to I have to, I’ll  go get a four pak of Guinness pints and throw them down and we can see how good the kidneys work if that’s what we need to know medically I’m ready to do my part!

       She assured me a simple blood test would do it and dragged me to the blood lab, where Olga the Barbarian used a blunt square headed needle and poked around looking for a vein and basically nicked a few in the process so my arm looks like a druggie’s. So back to the MRI room to wait twenty minutes until she tells me your kidneys are working fine let’s go for the MRI. After all the warnings about removing anything metal and stowing it in this locker so it won;t get demagnetized and all (and what a non-feeling tech! I asked her if I could take my wife’s credit cards in with me and she said no!).

       She puts earplugs in my ears (“there is a lot of clanking and whirring and these helpsoften it” – They never do that on “House”.) She sticks my other arm for the heavy metal IV and I lay down on this skinny little table with no where for my arms, that’s how skinny it was. (I wound up hooking my thumbs in my waistband to keep my arms there.) And in I went with her assurances that I would only be in there ten minutes and it might be a “tad” tight. A “tad”? Now I know how a hot dog feels in a bun! As I disappeared into the tube I asked her if this thing would automatically turn me over when I brown on one side, and she assured me I would not be turning over.

      Clunk, clunk, clang clang, tick tick clunk, clunk, whirrrrrrr, whirrrrrr, clunk,clunk,….and so it went for about ten minutes. (Mental note for the inevitable damn survey about “How was your experience and how could we improve it?” A couple of million bucks you spend for this thing and it doesn’t even have a radio or CD player, man you guys got ripped off. Not even a damn AM station pumping rock ‘n roll!

       Then I feel the table I’m lying on start to slide out of the tube and the Florida Symphonic Orchestra stops banging and clunking and whirring. My little techie says, “All done, I’ll pull out that old IV now, you’re not dizzy or anything are you?” I assure her I’m fine and was just getting ready for a nap in there. I swing my legs over the edge of the table, sit up and then push myself off the table.  OH SHIT! Where did the floor go? Apparently when they were “loading me in the tube” the table was going up as well as in simultaneously and the table was about 18inches higher than when I sat down on it and the floor was about 12 inches lower than before, so I did an extremely graceful two and a half gainer and a very poor dismount.(Damn Russian Judge gave me a 3.2, eve the Chinese Judge gave me a 5.4 and was laughing his ass off!!

       “Are you all right” says the Techie.

       “No, I’m not I think I’ve fatally wounded my personal dignity.”

       “Do you need help?”

       “No just a paper bag to put over my head so I can leave in silence.”

     And so it went, now we are in the sit and wait period again. I haven’t a clue what they will do, and frankly Charlotte I don’t give a damn as long as I’m in by 7am and out for lunch. (I might favor a “barley sandwich” that day!)

      Amassing a lot of information, sucking up knowledge on my little stock marketing venture. The “Boy King” has been working hard, (in by 10:30, off to luch at 11:30, back at 2:30, and off to the gym at 4:00. I make that almost a 2ands a half hour workday,…..oh the burden of stress on  a business owner!)

       Going out to a new restaurant this evening with my buddy Carl (the dude with the 2007 Bentley, his treat!) and then to a little unmarked kind of club called “Sally’s Backside” to watch a singer who apparently has a hell of a show, she plays Atlanta, Key West, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New Orleans all the big spots, but she lives here and loves to come hang out at Sally’s and do free shows when she’s in town for us locals. (that way we don’t rent her house or sell it when she’s on the road,…smart girl) more on that adventure tomorrow.

        Off to do some more organizing in the pit, and I think I may just get a massage this afternoon now that I am a card carrying “old Fart” on Social Security.

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