I've Lost My Nerve

Well, I went to see my “doctor,” Dr. Quacky McQuackenstine, today. My left thigh has been numb and tingly* for a few months, but, you know, that $20 copay is a 30-pack of Bud Light with enough left over for a bag of peanuts, so I’ve kind of been putting the visit off.

Anyway, he came into the examination room after the AMA-required 45 minute delay had expired, and asked what’s bothering me. I told him that I’m quite disturbed that, by all accounts, President Obama is in violation of the War Powers Resolution by continuing hostilities in Libya, and furthermore, the Minnesota Twins seem to be waking up in the AL Central. “I … I mean with your leg. Jesus Christ.” he said, after a few moments of apparent confusion.

So I explained my symptoms, and … get this … he fired up the googletubez and searched online. Seriously. He diagnosed me using the same interwebs that I use to find talking dogs and pygmy goat porn. After a few pokes and prods that were presumably to give the impression that he was serving some purpose, he gave me the bad news:

Meralgia Paresthetica.

“How … how long do I have, doc?” I managed to ask through the sobbing. He rolled his eyes, muttered something that sounded like “jesus fucking christ, I could have been an accountant ...” and explained that there’s likely something pressing on the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve that innervates that area, and though it could be an issue at the L2-L3 disc, it’s more probable that it’s simply some pressure.

After about 5 minutes of weeping with ecstatic joy over learning that by god, by GOD! I WAS GOING TO LIVE!, and imagining all of the things that I was going to do, all of the places I was going to go, all of the things I was going to say to people that I should have said years ago, he started to explain the treatment:

Q McQ: Well, you should stop riding your bike for a while.

Dead Acorn: HAHAHAHAHA okay. And no more beer or watching baseball, right? HAHA thassa gooder.

Q McQ: Really. (Shows me the web page that specifically lists cycling as a potential cause.) The pedaling motion can put pressure on the area through which the nerve travels.

Dead Acorn: Well, paint me blue and throw me in the ocean!

Q McQ: WTF?

Dead Acorn: Anything else?

Q McQ: Yes – I’ll give you a prescription for Tryptamine, which is an antidepressant, but can be effective in low doses for your condition.

Dead Acorn: How is it effective for a nerve problem?

Q McQ: We're not really sure.

Dead Acorn: So to sum up - I come in here with a numb thigh, and you tell me I can’t ride a bike and put me on voodoo antidepressants?

Q McQ: That is correct.

Dead Acorn: Would you mind if I just took a quick look at your license?

I hopefully look forward to this going away without too much more than a few weeks of pill-popping. Some other possible causes, according to the never-wrong googlewebz, are pregnancy, age, diabetes, and tight clothes - I’m pretty sure I’m not pregnant, I’m pretty sure I AM old, I have no idea about my situation re: diabetes, but I’m damn sure that my “doctor” would agree that it’s permissible for me to continue riding my bicycle as long as I get some of those loose-ass gangsta jeans that will hang down around my ass, like the kids wear.

Tru dat, yo. Word. Acorn OUT, bitchez. (I’ll need to practice my hep-cat phraseology so as not to appear silly on the streets.)

* The saddest thing about this is that I carry my cellular telephone in my left front pocket, so every time I feel a tingle, my heart soars and I get all giddy over the idea that someone wants to interact with me. No one ever does. Dang.