No one is quite sure how I herniated the disc in my lower back, but nevertheless it is injured. Every few months I have to go see Dr. Boris, my Ukrainian doctor and have him shoot me up with cortisone so that I can sleep and sit in a chair like a normal person.
My trick with doctors is this: Be one of the first patients there in the morning. That way you won't wait long and you don't risk the waiting room getting backed up. My appointment was for 9:30 AM, and so at 9:27 AM I rang the bell to his office. I rang two more times and no one answered. For a second I thought that maybe I wrote down the wrong day. I called his answering service and they told me that the staff would be there soon, they were just running late.
I leaned up against the building and stared off into space. Then one of the secretaries walked around the corner with a huge box of doughnuts in her hand. Guess I know now why she was late. She scrambled and got me inside while she turned on all the lights in the office.
Pretty soon a phone rang and it was Dr. Boris, stuck in traffic. The secretary asked if that was okay, would I wait for him? Given that I was there for a shot of cortisone in my spine to aleve me of some serious pain, and given that I had no other plans for the morning, I said sure. I picked up the new issue of
Fitness magazine and ate a doughnut.
Eventually three large women came in, speaking machine-gun Russian and gossipping amongst themselves. Dr. Boris advertises the fact that he speaks Russian, and takes every insurance imaginable, so this scene is pretty typical. The ladies looked at me and I looked at them and I cursed myself for not knowing Russian, given that my mother and her family are from Belarus.
Eventually Dr. Boris came in and I went into the back room with him and an assistant for my shot. This is the third one I've had so I know the routine. Shots don't take long, but I do have to lay on my stomach while some weird X-Ray machine gives Dr. Boris a view of my spine. After that, all I know is that he sticks a bunch of needles into me, some hurt more than others, and a few minutes later I feel better.
Today though, he asked me why I have a red question mark tattooed on the small of my back. He
always asks this. Today we had a good laugh about it, like we do whenever he sees it. Then he and his assistant spoke Russian to each other throughout the procedure. Again I cursed myself for not knowing it. Hrmph.
It was barely 11:00 AM by the time I got out, so I headed down to Saks to use a gift card Le Doug's mother gave me for Christmas. I really like Saks and I knew I wanted jewlery...I love jewlery. However going into Saks a few days before Mothers Day is a bad idea. I was practically attacked by every make up counter/perfume-pusher in there. Luckily, things were a little more civilized in the jewlery gallery, where I finally settled on a sparkly, multi-tiered necklace. Of course, while they were wrapping it up I saw a gold and pearl necklace that I also liked, but decided to pass. If I still wanted it in a few days, I figured I would go back.
It was still early in the afternoon, so I took the train to Union Square, by my house, and headed to Forever 21, in search of an outfit for a confirmation that I need to go to next week. I thought I found a good one, but the dress was made for teenage girls, not women with more than their fair share of boobs, comme moi. I did find some cute tops and decided to get those. As I looked over the accessories, I saw a gold and and pearl necklace
exactly like the one I passed on at Saks. The Saks version was $65 and the Forever 21 version was $6.80. That's a savings of, like, a
bazillion percent. That came home with me as well.
I continued the hunt for dresses at Filene's basement when the phone rang when I was in the dressing room. It was work (naturally) hoping I could get some edits in on a story I'd done. That meant I needed to come in earlier than planned. I bought some sushi at Whole Foods, and pouted all the way home.
Long story short: The edits got done, everyone's happy and I just learned come June I will be working LOTS of overtime. Ka-ching!
And my back feels great. Thanks, Dr. Boris!
