Serenity Took a Hike

The Enchanted Oak’s household has had a week of fun and games, yessireebob. The roles of clandestine medical investigator, procrastinating freelance journalist, pissed-off computer user, and perplexed pain sufferer all neatly dove-tailed into an MRI machine on Monday and a giant-sized pity pot the rest of the week.

This is my backbone.

I hurt all over. Couldn’t move my head from side to side, couldn’t walk without electric shocks, couldn’t even type, thanks to swollen hands that buzzed as if they had been asleep for years. I was not at all serene about any of it.

So what does a good sober person do? Don’t ask me, because I didn’t do it. Instead, I went to bed. Stopped eating, drinking, moving, attempting to make my copy deadline. Turned off the phone. Cancelled all appointments except the one appointment I didn’t want to keep, the one with my doctor to “discuss the results of the MRI”…oh, what an ominous sound! I just knew I had a fast-moving malignant spinal tumor from hell and would be dead in weeks if not days. I told you I was sick!

Ah, but I was spared. My spine is just degenerating. Things could be worse. But I went back to bed anyway because it pissed me off. Then a couple of friends came over yesterday, caught me with my bed-head hair and my p.j.s., and told me to shape up. I said thanks and kicked them out. Then I got dressed and went to an AA meeting.

This morning I woke up pain-free. How do you like them apples? I likes them just fine. So I decided to write a 55-word poem about the ordeal and the redemption of friends, just because the G-Man hosts his Flash Friday 55 today.

The doctor said my problem had no cure;
Its consequences and its pain I must endure ~
Pain pervasive, electric, downright hideous
Making harmless motions most insidious,
Thanks to a backbone suddenly perfidious:

When isolation was my intention,
My friends performed an intervention.
Their deep concern caught my attention
And sparked my outlook’s swift ascension.