IRREVERENT Magazine - Features

I thought that I should begin this column with an apology. After all not only did I not have a column in last month's issue of this Thing That We Do^TM but I also didn't have an amusing little adventure story like my trip to Ukraine to justify my absence. Then I discovered, thanks to some improperly set firewall switches that allowed me to actually view this benighted slice of the web that makes Teen People look like a Pulitzer Prize winner, that El Scott couldn't pull himself away from the Jergens long enough to publish for February. I guess all that hot Valentine's Day erotica we were planning on publishing just kept getting him too excited. Hopefully he'll wipe off his lotion, ink, and otherwise stained fingers and find a spot for this month's column in which I tell a tale of corruption, fear, and utter disregard for humanity so great that it makes BTK look like a well adjusted Boy Scout leader.

Our story begins innocently enough, a weak nagging cough that started in January and that would simply not go away. Combine this with the stress caused by trying to decide how to best take advantage of the coming Social Insecurity regime while simultaneously lobbying against the coming Social Insecurity regime and suddenly your faithful correspondent found himself in the waiting room of his local sawbones. Now Suntory, my legal samurai, sitting in the corner steaming slightly underneath his peculiar miso fueled stench, reminds me of the danger of comparing my primary medical care service provisioner (that's doctor for those of you insistent on efficient writing, and PMCSP for those of you who want jargon and efficiency) to a crazed psychopathic serial killer. He's not so worried about the legal issues this time as nothing I'm going to say here is false, but he is worried about the fact that I might find myself physically in danger from someone who can legally wield enormous control over my time of death. Ol' Suntory knows when he's got a good thing going and would hate to see the Ty Mercer Gravy Train Express© come to a premature end. My view is that the PMCSP is trying to kill me anyway so what do I have left to lose? Additionally, this little tale of mine may help you save your own life and so the humble sacrifice of my own existence is the least I could do. I would hope you will be appropriately grateful and plump for a couple of IRREVERENT t-shirts, after all I may not have that much longer to live.

I heard such tales of widespread horror and neglect that I'm beginning to think that Sadism 101 is a required pre-med course.Now let's do a little backstory. There are certain times when, despite Suntory's best efforts, keeping R.A. Enterprises operating just this side of litigation has caused significant amounts of stress for me. As the ravages of time work their malicious ways on my aging body, I have felt twinges of the sort that, if one pays attention to the fear-mongering, would make any reasonable person wary of operating any significant distance from a defibrillator. So one day a couple of years ago, I go to my PMCSP and tell him, in my medically ignorant way that all of the symptoms seem to point to heart trouble, but if so it's the world's slowest heart attack since the symptoms have lasted for days. I should have noted the particularly evil glint in his eye, and maybe I did and simply misinterpreted it as, "Oh boy daddy gets a new Porsche Cayenne." Having come into contact with more people motivated by greed and avarice than by malicious intent I hold myself blameless. It was only when he ordered blood tests rather than immediately putting me on the very expensive machine that goes "ping!" that I realized that I was in the hand of a hard core Sadist.

After the blood tests came back showing no reasonable indicator of heart disease, except the effects of a fondness for eggs Benedict, my PMCSP, sick in his own psychosis, decided that I was suffering from anxiety and so it would be wonderfully exciting to prescribe a popular anti-anxiety pill called Xanax. Let's review the possible side effects of this little beauty. One of the most alarming: "Do not stop taking this medication abruptly or decrease the dose without consulting your physician, since discontinuation symptoms may occur." Thank god I wasn't having actual panic attacks. Those poor bastards get nuked with this stuff and look what happens when they try to break away from the pusher man:

At doses greater than 4 mg per day, Xanax has the potential to cause severe emotional and physical dependence in some patients and these individuals may find it exceedingly difficult to terminate treatment. It is important that your physician help you discontinue this medication in a careful and safe manner to avoid overly extended use of Xanax. In addition, the extended use of Xanax at doses greater than 4 mg per day appears to increase the incidence and severity of withdrawal reactions when the drug is discontinued. These are generally minor but seizure can occur, especially if you reduce the dose too rapidly or discontinue the medication abruptly. Seizure can be life-threatening.

(emphasis mine, from the patient information at Pfizer's website)

Very effective little pill when it comes to stopping anxiety and panic. At least until you read the side effects. It's important to note at this point that the prescription was for .25 mg every six hours as needed. That's a time that should have been an indicator of the type of mind I was dealing with. Come forward to this January and I find myself in the PMCSP's office complaining of a weak cough and that I didn't know what it was but it seemed very similar to the problems I was having earlier except that I'd been exposed to someone with a sinus infection and he actually says, "Have you been taking the Xanax?" as if it has some kind of miracle properties against respiratory infections. Admittedly that was just me being naive, I mean I was the one that had to change a tire in the middle of a freezing rainstorm, I thought it was just walking pneumonia. After I patiently explained the circumstances and the symptoms finally the dude gets ready to write a prescription. At this point he asks me whether I'm allergic to any antibiotics and I tell him none that I'm aware of. This proves to be a mistake because it gives the PMCSP an opportunity to prescribe a bug killer that I've never taken before. It's as if his thinking is "Well let's see whether we can't find something that you are allergic to then." To top it off, the particular medication is to be taken every six hours. You know, not only am I sick and need as much rest as I can get, and I have to interrupt my sleep to take the damn medicine. If I didn't know better I'd say the freak managed to plant a camera in my house just to watch the fun.

I know what you're thinking, you're thinking "Well hell Mercer you just need to get the hell out of there. Go find yourself another doctor. You've got portable health insurance it's not like you have to stay in network to save money." I'm here to tell you that it's not that easy. You see as I recuperated, and commiserated with others who recently suffered encounters with the medical system, I heard such tales of widespread horror and neglect that I'm beginning to think that Sadism 101 is a required pre-med course. You probably read the story about the unfortunate run-in a dude had with his local paramedics. Seems these brain surgeons declared the dude dead in the meat wagon, and the actual brain surgeons at the hospital weren't much help. It was only when the county coroner, who apparently is a little sharper than the dim scalpels in the emergency room, noticed that the guy was breathing that they finally got an expensive machine that goes "ping" on him thus ruining all of the docs' fun for the evening. Or consider the case of a person of my acquaintance who, after undergoing some fairly major surgery on his back was prescribed Advil for the pain. Imagine the poor doctor: so many ways to torture the patient, so little time. Bonesy could order a serious, effective painkiller and get his patient addicted; a plan with lots of fun for everyone, plus bonus fees when said John Doe crashes the car or needs help drying out. On the other hand our fun loving Herr Doktor could prescribe an over the counter pain med that comes with the bonus potential for liver damage if the patient happens to like a wee dram on occasion. Forget Abu Ghraib: head on out to the local St. Anthony's for some real torture sessions.