Bonus!!

So I asked my doctor. “Doctor,” I said. “Look. The Tylenol thing isn’t working and I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired and there has just got to be something else I can do…I mean! {more self-absorbed sniveling}…”

Do you know what that nice man said?

He said, and I quote, “Why don’t we try a body wrap and therapeutic massage?”

Every day of my life, I learn something new. I learned yesterday, for example, that the sound of one jaw dropping is exactly like the sound of one hand clapping.

So he listed a few recommended places where he sends his other chronically whiny uncomfortable patients for regular (!) treatments (!!). He explained carefully that I wasn’t getting a spa treatment, I was getting…something that sounds exactly like a spa treatment, only it’s therapeutic. He said it won’t be like regular spa treatments where they do the whole-body thing; see, instead you get a ‘targeted’ massage where they work on the parts that are sore. By use of gentle pressure and aromatic botanicals, they release muscle tension; which may not cure what actually ails me, but can help with ‘collateral’ pain. And then the body wrap is supposed to be like a cross between Tiger Balm and regular old spa mud; and a paraffin dip for my gosh-awful hands.

Hmm. OK, OK, I’m letting him say it ain’t a spa treatment per se. But if it waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck…and ain’t covered by insurance like a duck (although I can use my HSA funds for it if I want)…I’m just sayin’…

I’m sayin’, SPA TRIP, BABY!!!!!!

Oh, I’m sorry. I mean, I’m going for the serious, nothing-fun-about-it medical treatment for pain reduction. At the spa. Says so right on my prescription form: “For pain reduction.” And then there’s a bunch of squiggly lines which I’m sure the masseuse will be able to read. I think they may be actual Greek. They probably say, “Sorry about inflicting this patient on you, but I had to get her to stop with the whining somehow…I do have a life, you know, and other patients waiting to whine at me about their issues…”

I feel like I won the lottery. I think the only time I’ve been more childishly thrilled was the time my OB prescribed pedicures while I was pregnant with Eldest. Weekly pedicures. To help with the swelling (and probably my attitude, which may have been a little less than pleasant – but shoot, when your feet are swollen up by two shoe sizes, it can make one a little…pissy…).

I may just have to forgive him one of those seven vials of blood he ordered drawn last week. Of course, he ordered two more drawn this morning, so he still owes me…maybe a two week paid-via-HSA vacation in Maui? For serious not-a-spa-trip therapeutic treatments? I hear that warm ocean waters are very, very good for sore joints, after all…