I’m getting my back operated on Wednesday at Montefiore Hospital in Pittsburgh. I have many concerns, foremost being it could be a really elaborate hoax. If everyone is in on the joke, how will I know they even operated?
I’m 62 years old and have never once laid eyes on the part of the body — my own goddamned body — where they said they’ll be making the incision.
There’s a reason the office hooligans always tape the “KICK ME!” signs right about where they say they’re going to start cutting me up.
I guess my fears say more about my deceitful nature than they do about medical reality. Studies show it’s very rare for a doctor and his or her entire team to pretend they operated when, in fact, they did not. Even when it's all for the sake of a joke.
It’s just one of the ways MDs differ from BSJs (me). The BS, I’m told, stands for Bachelor of Science Journalism but it doesn’t take a wild imagination to think of a clever substitute for BS, does it?
The procedure, they say, will reduce the pain that is without surgical intervention on a trajectory that will leave me wheelchair bound within a year.
Many good friends have rallied to my side. They say they support me, say they have my back. I tell them they wouldn’t want my back. It’s a mess. My front is no prize either.
I’d say pick a side. Sides are cool. I dream of the day when you could walk into any deli or diner in America and hear someone say, “And I’d like a side of Rodell with that."
Order up!
It saddens me that I’ve succumbed to baseless conspiracy /theories, hinting that I’ve become one of those quacks I once disdained. A friend even offered to provide photographic evidence. I told him I wasn’t falling for his little charade.
“Either you’ll show me a picture of real MDs doing real work on a back I’ve never even seen with my own eyes or else it’ll be a picture of something phony, prepared or manipulated
“You know, something … doctored!”
I sent a text to close family members explaining the situation, telling each how much I loved them. I asked them, if worst came to worse, to honor what will be my last wish: Please do not bicker over my Earthly estate.
“We promise we won’t,” said my brother
Both family and friends have endeavored to put the challenge in the best possible light. They cite progress in the procedure, advances in technology and the growing experience of our top professionals.
They tell me I’ll be in good hands.
Wrong.
Good hands will be in me!
The operation is expected to last six hours.
I’ll be sure to let you know if the halftime show was as confusing to old white folk like me as Lamar’s was.
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