Mondays

Mondays bring physical therapy; my insurance covers a hundred percent of the cost for the home health outfit to send someone out to pretzel me up once a week and no more. PT’s been going great for me, been doing its job keeping the joints in motion, especially with the “homework” I’m assigned: stretches and exercises I can do on my own until the next session. Each week, my lady bumps up the- Is it “repetitions”? Not so well-versed in the workout lingo, me. I’m more of a sedentary kid. Anyway, I get more to do with each visit and am acclimating decently to it. Feeling it some extra, today, however – but I was hurting before we’d started, thanks to the agony and the tossing and turning along with it, each night, when a normal fucker might be finding sleep, instead. I’ll take the soreness as a seal of honor, proudly showing my limping frame to anyone willing to look at it, showing off my grimace and the achy groans of pained movement, too. This and over-the-counter pain relief are my primary go-tos with the DISH, and- There’s nothing more. “You’re doing well!” my physical therapist assured me. We were done quickly, the time passing – with its ghosts – without effort nor fanfare – and I was free to dig up lunch from the Super Bowl leftovers in the garage’s fridge.

[hours pass]

I’m at the keyboard, “working”. Writing. I’m sore. Tired. It’s been a good day, in spite of it. Just before hopping into the shower, this morning, medical transport phoned to go over the scheduling for my next two trips, the first taking place tomorrow. The lady at the other end was- Oh, hell; I can’t get my head together, today, for nothing. Let’s try this again.

The lady on the line, she was confused as to- Everything. Where I was going, when, how many trips I’d be making, this week. I tried to get her straight but she was too busy schooling me. I had to let her go so I could get ready for my physical therapy session. “It’s-”

Again, I’m blanking. I’m not even sure how- Fuck. I can’t think. I’m nodding off, too. I’m typing a word or two, then falling asleep on this stool, then springing back into something disguised as a waking state. I should lie down.

[thirty minutes pass]

I wandered out into the house and decided I could eat when I should’ve been lying down. More leftovers and I dug out a tub of ice cream for a root beer float. “I’m celebrating life,” I announced. I suppose I am. Celebrating a second wind. A third or fourth – I dunno. My head’s all over the place and I’ve chosen to run with it.

The lady from the medical transport company; that’s where I was at. Mentally, in that moment. Yeah. So, she assured me that everything had been fixed on their end, that my ride for tomorrow was scheduled to get to where it’s supposed to be going and when, and that the one for later in the week, which was the cause of her confusion, had been “located” and put down to where it belonged, too, but that I should check my insurance company’s transportation portal to make sure.

Lady, as I said on our first telephone call, I was looking at the portal then and had been for a few minutes already by then and everything there was correct, thus I was correct, and won’t you please listen to me?

This was a thought rather than half of a spoken exchange. Anyway, she repeated that her information matched mine (though she continued trying to persuade me to keep my eyes on the portal), and it became very clear to me why a recent transport driver had said that whomever was behind their scheduling was fucking up their game. I mean, ma’am; you’re in front of a terminal. Can’t you just work your magic right there and work us out? Shrug. Nobody’s responsible for anything, anymore. Certainly not for themselves.

All this lack of sleep is making me a bitter old man.

Alright. This time, I do need to lie down.