So, what happens when your patient is an asshole?

and especially when the patient knows it!

Look, I understand that I'm in the catbird seat right now. A lot of my idiosyncrasies can be explained away as reactions--to pain meds, to stress, to the scandal of my present body. The snark I leave in my wake, not substantively different from that which I typically leave, is rather like the South Park Alien who manifests as a Taco crapping ice cream. Which, btw, sounds really good...soon enough I'm going to have to try to be good again--GGG---in place of the DCDWDN vibe that rises off me like swamp radio (don't care, don't want, and don't need. GGG comes from Dan Savage's "Savage Love" column--meaning "Good, Giving, and Game")

My assholism manifests in various contexts. I'm not a Stop and Smell the Roses type, I'm a Get to Next Bouquet guy. I nearly killed myself in the Louvre trying to see it all in an afternoon. By the time I made it to the Michelangelo sculptures I too was an esclave to my idiocy.

I appreciate what people do for me, but instead of enjoying it, I want to prove that I can do it myself, too. Perhaps that's the imprimatur of my upper Midwestern farm background, where weakness existed in accepting help instead of offering it. Those intense social obligational webs of favors done and help proffered and help taken and help declined with the thanks of a pie...those things I've tried 52 years to escape and find difficult, nay impossible, to completely forget.

I'm the captain of the MSS Assholism when I yell at Scott who can't hear well instead of understanding that the fact that I can't speak well is a real problem. Poor man! I hint at words occasionally, hoping he will follow my elaborate gestures and vaudeville face. This is especially tragic when he's driving and I'm the navigator. I should take a video of it, but I'd be ashamed of how hard he's trying and how frustrated I get at the smallest problem.

Sure, there is frustration--and the fact that i want this to be done already is NOT helping matters much--well, it does some. I'm procedurally a very good patient. I pay attention, do what I'm asked, ask what I want to know, read the notes, etc. I look at my bills carefully, I eat what I'm told.


At some point, in 18 hours worth of surgery, I believe I will suggest to my doctors that they implant new mental models that people like me can't help but access. They will show people using canes and not losing dignity. With surgical swelling that people point at, but they don't care. Having a bad day and needing to stay in bed as progress in self monitoring not a deflation of the project. That the people you love and who love you know you are a raging asshole and are hoping that makes a positive difference in the scheme of things.