A Completely Reasonable Explanation of the Situation

(As told by someone who has seen too much but now technically only sees half as much)

      So here’s the deal.

• Yes, this confirms eye cancer — the sneaky, aristocratic kind called choroidal (uveal) melanoma.  AKA rat bastard charlie.
• The entire right eye was removed, like a condemned building, and examined inch by inch by people with microscopes and no illusions.
• The cancer itself was mean, ambitious, and biologically rude — but it was fully removed.
• It did not crawl into the optic nerve, did not escape the eye, and was cut out clean at the edges.
• Unfortunately, it has the personality profile of something that might try again someday, so now we watch. Closely. Forever-ish.

And now  the answers to the questions you might want to ask

AUTOPSY RESULTS  OF A TRAITOROUS ORGAN

1. It was choroidal melanoma — a malignant tumor that starts in the pigmented layer inside the eye. Not skin cancer. Not visible. Not polite. It behaves like melanoma does everywhere else: quiet growth, long memory, potential for distant revenge.

2. What kind of cells were running the show? Well Over 90% were epithelioid cells. These are the worst-behaved cells. The kind that don’t believe in compromise. The biological equivalent of a room full of lawyers with knives. There were a few spindle cells — calmer, less dangerous — but they were outnumbered and ignored. And you ask Why this matters? Well Epithelioid-heavy tumors are much more likely to spread, given time and opportunity. Which time always provides.

3. And how aggressive was it? Oh, it was busy. Cells actively dividing — not resting, not reflecting, not repenting. About 25% of the tumor was actively growing at any given moment. Hell, parts of the tumor outgrew their own blood supply and died, which is both horrifying and impressive and strangely somewhat satisfying to know. Unfortunately the majority of the cells were PRAME-positive. Which in cancer language means: “Don’t trust this thing.”

4. Did it invade nearby structures? Yes, but not enough to win. It barely invaded the sclera (the white outer wall of the eye). It did not escape the eye. It did not touch the optic nerve. It crept toward the front of the eye, then stopped — like it heard sirens.

5. Were cancer cells found in blood vessels? Yes. Because of course they were. Some tumor cells were found inside a blood vessel within the eye — basically standing near the highway with a suitcase. And this matters because it means the tumor had access to the bloodstream — not that it used it, not that it succeeded, but that it knew where the exits were.

6. Were the surgical margins clean? Shockingly: yes. I’ll take this as a win for me. No cancer at the edges. No cells left behind. No microscopic squatters hiding in the walls. The surgeons got all of it. Which is rare enough to be worth repeating: They got all of it.

7. Tumor size (because size always matters). This thing was large. About .75 inches across. Up to .6 inches  thick under the microscope. In eye cancer terms, this qualifies as “significant”, which is doctor code for “we’re not pretending this was small.” On the bright side – Still  gone.

8. The Genetic Verdict (The Line Everyone Pauses On) The tumor is Class 2.This is the part where the room gets quiet. Class 2 tumors have a higher risk of metastasis.The liver is the usual destination. While this does not mean it has spread. The damn thing likely had ambition. Think of it as a bad Yelp review written in DNA.

WHAT THIS REPORT DID NOT SAY (IMPORTANT FOR THE ANXIOUS)

It did not say that The cancer has spread. It did not say that the optic nerve is involved. It did not say that there was anything was left behind. It did not say that this is untreatable. And It did not say that I’m on a clock (even if it feels like you are).

 

THE BOTTOM LINE (NO POETRY, JUST FACTS)

I had a serious, aggressive eye melanoma. The eye was removed. The cancer was fully removed with it. There is no evidence it has spread. But the tumor had enough red flags that medicine will now keep one eye open — metaphorically, of course.

 

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT (THE SEQUEL NOBODY ASKED FOR)

From here on out, life will  include regular liver scans, blood tests, oncology visits, and Doctors who say things like “out of an abundance of caution”. Nothing dramatic, nothing cinematic, just persistent vigilance in a universe that does not care.

Welcome to surveillance mode. It appears that the enemy is gone. But there might be a few stragglers out there looking to set up shop. The battlefield remains, and the future is untrustworthy.

I’ll be meeting new people, which is to say: I’ll be sitting in quiet rooms with an oncologist, calmly discussing “the plan” — a document that will exist because entropy never sleeps and medicine refuses to look away.

Meanwhile, I’m already working with a proctologist, because nothing says “dignity” like checking whether the rat bastard might be hiding out in my prostate (not “prostrate,” though at this point either feels accurate). I do have a special MRI scheduled for February 5th, dedicated entirely to answering the question:

“Is there another problem, or are we done being surprised for now?” This is all precautionary.
This is all responsible. This is all deeply, cosmically funny in the way only mortality can be.

 

 

 

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler

 

Eleven Days in Bureaucratic Purgatory: A Hero’s Tale of Oysters, Honey, and Medical Chaos

It was November 25th, the Day of the rat bastard charlie eviction—a date that should be printed on parade banners and warning labels. The day when the Grand Poobah decided to boot his sorry rat bastard carcass out the door like a rabid raccoon overstaying its welcome in the pantry of fate.

There was no grace, no ceremony—just OUT, with the same bureaucratic enthusiasm one uses to swat flies or discipline a malfunctioning toaster. Like the baby and the bath water, the rat bastard charlie and the eye, OUT.

And then, like the slow grind of some monstrous administrative glacier, we arrive at December 6th. Eleven full days. Eleven long, simmering, Kafkaesque days in the limbo of government healthcare purgatory. On this blessed morning, the VA finally sends me a notice—a relic delivered by mail, presumably tied to the leg of a half-blind pigeon—announcing they had referred my treatment to Austin Retinal. The letter suggested, in the same fluffy tone one might use to tell a child not to poke a hornet’s nest, that I wait 2–3 days for Austin Retinal to “reach out.” Reach out. Yes. Because medical urgency is best handled with the same speed and initiative as a stoned roommate deciding whether or not to do the dishes. Wouldn’t want to rush the system. Wouldn’t want to show signs of efficiency.

Glad my condition isn’t serious. If it were, I assume the next letter would read, “Oops. Our bad. Hope reincarnation works out for you.”

But I’ve crawled, staggered, and cursed my way back to something resembling 100% functionality—though if we’re being honest, that number is more symbolic than factual. A kind of bureaucratic “100%,” meaning “we’re calling it good enough so we can file the paperwork.” Still, I managed to make it to Nate’s in Dallas for half-priced oysters on Thursday, stumbling like a drunk prophet toward the promise of molluscan salvation.

And oh yes—I overindulged. Two dozen of the ocean’s finest bivalves, each one a slippery affirmation that life, despite its many crimes against me, still occasionally hands out pleasures. A couple beers, too. Enough amber lubricant to convince my beleaguered brain that life is good, or at least acceptably tolerable in a doomed, apocalyptic, laughing-so-you-don’t-scream sort of way.

Locally, my depth perception has devolved into a deranged carnival sideshow. Trying to run the leaf blowers or yank the wait-a-minute vines feels like a low-budget documentary about a man locked in mortal combat with his own visual cortex. I am a pioneer of slapstick tragedy, performing acts of precision in a world that wobbles like a carnival funhouse. Losing half my field of vision turns everyday tasks into treacherous pilgrimages. This morning I attempted the simple act—the profoundly human act—of squeezing honey into my coffee mug. Instead, the honey, that golden traitor, launched itself all over the cup handle as though fleeing in terror from the mug.

So close, so far away, so cosmically rigged against me.

At this point, every grab, every reach, every motor skill engagement requires at least two full attempts, sometimes more, depending on the malevolent whims of the universe. Some mornings I’m convinced there’s a team of gremlins inside my optic nerve rewiring things just to enjoy the spectacle.

Maybe things will improve once they unseal the eyelid. Maybe the great cosmic puppeteer will grant me depth perception again. But for now, the eyelid remains literally sewn shut, a detail that sounds like a metaphor but is horrifyingly real. Being sewn shut is distracting as hell. Distracting in the same way being tied to a meteor is distracting.

The follow-up eye doc appointment is on the 11th, when some overworked clinician will peer into my haunted ocular alley and declare: “Well, it’s healing, or mutating—hard to say. Could be worse.” Until then, I wander half-blind through the American healthcare maze—honey-stained, oyster-heavy, embalmed in bureaucracy, clinging to the blind faith that maybe, just maybe, the VA will send another letter before the sun burns out.

The eye doc sees me on the 11th. Maybe they’ll free the eyelid. Or maybe they’ll consult a manual written in hieroglyphs and shrug. Hard to tell with these folks. The VA works in mysterious ways—mostly slowly.

And just when I thought the comedy routine was complete…

The VA decides to pull a final trick from its bureaucratic sleeve:

The urology referral has reached Baylor Scott & White.

Not in 60 days.

Not in 30 days.

Not in the biblical timeline used for optical referrals.

No—this one made the journey in under 12 days. A record. A blistering sprint by VA standards. An administrative lightning bolt. Of course, they don’t schedule appointments on Sundays—because even the medical-industrial complex needs its Sabbath—so I get to call them in less than 24 hours, bright and early, like a contestant on some deranged healthcare game show.

One referral takes two months, the other arrives before the ink is dry on the diagnosis. No rhyme, no reason. No logic, no mercy. Just the VA, rolling dice in a dim, smoky room, deciding which part of me they’ll attend to based on the whims of a drunken bureaucratic deity. Welcome to the American healthcare circus.

I am merely one of its funnier clowns.

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler

 

The Brown Laptop Chronicles: A Gonzo Descent Into the Third Circle

It began on a Tuesday—one of those deceptively normal days when the universe is secretly sharpening its knives. I could still see out of both eyes, including the one harboring the resident rat-bastard charlie. But charlie’s tenancy was up, and the landlord (me) was about to evict him with extreme prejudice. Like I always say, the rat bastard must die.

TUESDAY — ADMISSION TO THE UNDERWORLD

I arrive at Day Surgery around 2 p.m., where they require only the removal of my shirt. Not the shoes, though—apparently, they draw the line at full dignity extraction. An IV is started, and the nurse helpfully forgets to turn off the line, donating several ounces of my finest blood cells to the stainless-steel railing. A preview of coming attractions: leaks everywhere. Then the gurney ride. Why is it always like being smuggled through a warzone in a wobbly shopping cart? Doors open in opposing directions, hallways stretch like sterile cathedrals to the gods of bad decisions, and then a sudden pivot—now I’m being delivered headfirst to my fate. Inside the OR: lights, gadgets, chirps, beeps, enough machinery to reboot Frankenstein. A pillow gets shoved under my legs. Someone lies to me about “just oxygen,” the anesthesia mask comes down, and the Sleep Lady hits me with the good stuff.

**Exit: Consciousness.

Enter: Hell.**

POST-OP — THE FOUR-STOP TOUR OF REALITY

I awaken to that classic medical question: “How do you feel?” Like I just got punched through a dimension, thanks. They want the shirt back on—meaning the bed must be needed for the next poor soul. Soon I’m in a wheelchair, rolled toward the portable cattle chute, and loaded into the getaway car with Super Spouse at the wheel. The next forty miles of consciousness happen in four snapshots: a loop near Lowe’s, Green’s Sausage House, Highway 77, and finally the driveway of the Forest Compound. For the record, the procedure was to remove the eye and replace it with a prosthetic later. Eventually, I’ll even get a big-ass contact lens to accessorize the void. Very cyberpunk. Very “post-apocalyptic pirate.”

TUESDAY NIGHT — HELLO, FIREHOSE

I stumble inside feeling bizarrely okay. Crack open a Coke. Mouth is dustier than a desert corpse. I decide to “get ahead of the pain” with Tylenol 3 + codeine. Ten minutes later: Heat wave. Sweating like a sinner at a baptism. Then the apocalypse erupts. Projectile vomiting—full firehose mode—six or seven rounds, possibly more. Hard to count when your internal organs are trying to exit through your mouth. After the initial purge, the body kept trying anyway, just out of spite. Water only provokes more revolt. Super Spouse performs a heroic midnight drive back to Temple to acquire “don’t-hurl-your-soul-out” medication while I simmer in a fog of confusion and misery.

WEDNESDAY — UP, DOWN, NAUSEA, REPEAT

The day becomes a loop: sit up, sip water, slowly collapse horizontal, nausea explodes, jolt upright. Repeat until madness. At some point, acid starts leaking into my throat. Heartburn? Reflux? A message from the demons? Two Tums later—sweet relief. So begins the Tums Regimen: two tablets every hour because sanity is relative and I’m clearly willing to chew chalk like a goat if it keeps the retching at bay. By evening, I’m managing actual horizontal sleep—1 to 2 hours at a time. Progress! Except minor issue: I’m now exceeding the daily Tums limit like a man training for the Calcium Olympics. Super Spouse rescues me again with Pepcid AC. Game. Changer. Tums gave me 60 minutes. Pepcid gave me 12 hours. I swear the heavens opened.

THURSDAY — THANKSGIVING IN THE NETHER REALM

Sleep, pee, sleep, pee—my kidneys running like industrial pumps. This is when the hallucinations hit full stride. A thick brown laptop materializes in my mind. A beautiful, ornate machine running Windows 10 upgraded to 11. When I open it, it displays a pop-up motif of unknown origin. And the best part? I can enter text with pure thought. My inner blogger ascends to god-tier productivity levels. I’m banging out witty, snarky, brilliant entries—dark humor flowing like wine. I’m explaining the hallucinations, the furry animals I keep seeing, the madness of it all. I’m a genius. I’m unstoppable. I’m also not actually typing anything anywhere at all. Meanwhile, Super Spouse is cooking Thanksgiving dinner, and the smell makes me want to revisit the firehose era. But around noon: A fart. A glorious, earth-shattering fart. Proof my guts are rebooting. I sleep away most of Thursday. Praise Pepcid. Also: congratulations me—now officially allergic to Tylenol with codeine. And apparently a long-time sufferer of acid reflux without knowing it. The pieces begin to click.

FRIDAY — PATCHES, STITCHES, AND NIGHTMARES

Time to clean the eye area. I peel off the patch, expecting the metal shield my hallucinations promised—complete with cooling vents at the cardinal points. Reality offers… plastic. Just a plastic disk. Even worse, I vividly remember the doctor sewing my eyelids shut top-to-bottom in a giant plus-sign pattern. Nope. Just standard sutures. But they felt real. Still foggy, still confused, but inching toward sanity. I prep to resume my ritual Saturday financials—five years of tradition demands it.

SATURDAY — THE GREAT WEIGHT DROP

Up at 7 a.m. Weight: 162.2, down from 182.2 on Tuesday. Congratulations: I have lost an entire Thanksgiving turkey in body mass. Breakfast: cranberry bread and honeyed coffee. I will soon be my svelte, debonair self again—whether I want to or not. Financials take me all day because I keep running out of steam. But by evening, I stay awake most of the day, with only two rest stops. A major win. Big Saturday night for Pirate Pedro: in bed by 8.

SUNDAY — THE RECKONING

I wake early—pain minimal, but the sewn-shut eyelid drives me insane. In that foggy, pre-waking limbo, I start adding to the “blog” again. And then the truth hits me like a frying pan: I don’t own a brown laptop. There is no brown laptop. None of this was ever written down. Houston, we have a problem. The entire Magnum Opus of Dark Humor and Hallucinated Wisdom has evaporated into the ether. Sunday otherwise proceeds uneventfully. Four to five hours upright, three hours down. Repeat. Weight creeping back up: 165.8. Apparently, I can nap after just finishing a nap.

MONDAY — STAMINA: PARTIALLY RESTORED

Up at 6, deleting spam emails like a man possessed. Same vertical/horizontal cycle. Watched a movie start to finish—an achievement worthy of fireworks. By 10 a.m., steam gone. Back to horizontal. Later I start the attempt to reconstruct the blog from the void. Honestly, what I created mentally at the time seemed much better. But then again I was in semi la-la land. Catch Greg Gutfeld’s monologue before face-planting.

TUESDAY — BACK ON PEDRO TIME

Up at 5. Feel almost normal—by my standards. It has taken two plus days to reconstruct the story because hallucinations and faulty memories keep overlapping like cursed Venn diagrams. But through it all: Super Spouse and Sister-Friend Pam treat me like the recovering Grand Poohbah of the Forest Compound. Actual heroes. Soon enough the next wave of craziness will arrive, and I’ll be ready—with a real notebook this time.

________________________________________

Final Words From the Cynical Narrator

You’re not crazy if you’re laughing.

You’re not lost if you know the way back eventually.

You’re not alone—hell veterans always return with stories.

And with my new found love of Pepcid , buy stock

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler

 

Chronicles of Round Two with the Rat Bastard

The chronicles of Round Two with the Rat Bastard took a hard, screeching left turn today—one of those tire-peeling NASCAR maneuvers that sends spectators diving for the barricades.

Just last Friday, the retinal doc herself called me, personally delivering her preliminary findings from the needle biopsy—always a phrase that makes you want to drink something brown, barrel-aged, and preferably flammable. She announced she’d be passing me along to the next specialist in the conveyor belt of ocular doom.

Fine. Good. Pass the baton, keep the relay of horror moving. Then suddenly—boom—I’m booked with the new guy, who turns out to be the same sainted professional who uninstalled my cataracts years ago. A reunion tour nobody asked for, but at least the man’s got steady hands and the appropriate level of gallows humor.

So I stagger into today’s appointment. He glances at my eye, the records, the PET scan, and probably the shrinking aura of my will to live. Then he drops the after-visit summary—medicine’s version of a bureaucratic haiku:

“Malignant neoplasm of right choroid (HCC).”

As far as I’m concerned, HCC stands for Holy Crap, Cancer —the kind oif thing that makes you start mentally drafting your will and wondering whether ghosts qualify for tax exemptions.

There’s no time for gentle chatter or soft-lit monologues—this isn’t Grey’s Anatomy. The man basically staples an eviction notice right to my forehead. Tomorrow, he says. Let’s not dawdle.

Finally—some damn urgency. Took long enough for the medical-industrial complex to lace up its running shoes.

Am I thrilled about losing the eye? No. Am I thrilled the rat bastard squatter named Charlie is getting ripped out with it? Hell yes.

So here we go again: another 30-hour fast. Clear liquids only, but this time they actually want me to take my meds, presumably so I don’t die before they can bill me. Blood pressure’s bound to be elevated—anticipation does that when you’re preparing to have a golf ball installed in your skull—but it still has to beat today’s numbers, which hovered somewhere between “mildly alarmed” and “volcano preparing human sacrifice.”

In case you’ve ever wondered what the polite, Latin-flavored medical jargon is for gouging out an eyeball, allow me to enlighten you: “Enucleation with 20 mm Medpor orbital implant, right eye.”

Quite a mouthful for: We’re about to make you a pirate.

At first I thought they planned to use the 20 mm Medpor implant to perform the enucleation—which conjured images of some surgical golf tee and mallet situation—but no. It’s simply the medically approved space holder. A bit of Googling reveals Medpor is high-density porous polyethylene. In other words: a medical-grade golf ball. Trust me, I stayed at a Marriott over the weekend; I’m basically a doctor now.

So tomorrow marks the official start of my Pirate-In-Training Phase of retirement. Afterward, I’ll have to learn to shoot left-eyed, like some backwoods sniper in a post-apocalyptic Walmart. And— ( next chapter goes here.)

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler

 

Monday morning blues

Somehow—through alcohol, caffeine, spite, and whatever cosmic clerical error keeps me alive—we’ve stumbled into another Monday.

Last Friday, as I was packing for my west Texas pilgrimage (a family reunion disguised as a sanctioned psychological experiment), my eye doctor—the surgeon herself, high priestess of scalpels and doom—calls me directly. And let’s be clear: when the doctor calls instead of some chirpy nurse, you should already be sitting down, or at least leaning against something sturdy and not hallucinating.

She tells me she pulled a favor, a beautiful little back-alley medical favor, and got the pathologist to take a secret peek at my biopsy. The official results are still somewhere in the bureaucratic digestive tract, but the fat lady didn’t just sing—she delivered a full Broadway finale, dropped the mic, and walked offstage. In other words: an eviction notice for that rat bastard charlie, the squatter in my eye, is about ready to be slapped on the front door.

And naturally, because the universe enjoys seasoning the stew of misery, turns out I don’t qualify for the drug study. Something about parameters, criteria, planetary alignment—who the hell knows. The study itself is still 45 days away, and according to my doctor, waiting that long would be “inadvisable,” which is medical code for Why tempt fate when fate is already circling overhead with a bottle of bourbon and a hunting knife? She’s the expert. I’m just the host body in this parasitic buddy comedy. I don’t argue.

She says she can hand me off to a more local eye mechanic—some regional technician of the ocular dark arts—to take it from here. Green light. Smash the pedal. Off we go.

Then, in a burst of unsettling efficiency, the BSW eye clinic calls and schedules me for Monday. Same-day service, practically. I didn’t know whether to be impressed or terrified. So I had the whole weekend to marinate, to sit in my dimly lit corner thinking about the upcoming “consultation,” which, as I write this, is now roughly two hours away—looming like a hungover coyote sniffing around my campsite.

Not that there’s much to consult about. I already know what’s coming. This is just the prelude where they politely explain how soon they can haul me into the surgical abattoir and carve out the traitorous chunk of organic real estate that’s harboring Charlie. Time will tell, of course. It always does. Usually with a smirk.

And here’s the cruel punchline: as much as I despise that rat bastard, I’m weirdly fond of the eye he’s colonized. My shooting eye. My good window into the madness of the world. But this isn’t a negotiation. It’s an execution.

The evil eye must go. Rat bastard charlie must die. And with any luck, the rest of me will limp away to fight another Monday.

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler

 

Act II: Rat-Bastard charlie Strikes Again

As narrated by a man who has seen too much, expected too little, and still somehow feels personally victimized by his own skeletal system

Not my first rodeo. Hell, at this point I could run the rodeo, judge the rodeo, and file a complaint about the rodeo’s parking situation. Been there, done that, and the first time around, all I got were dentures—and now it looks like this round could cost me my shooting eye. I hate when the universe goes for the classics.

Previously on “My Body Hates Me”:

This saga began one fine June morning when my back woke up before I did and filed for divorce. Yep—another round of “Guess Which Vertebrae Betrayed You Today.” I toughed it out until the pain reached “scream-into-a-pillow” levels, then crawled to the VA for mercy. They thoughtfully scheduled an MRI for November, because why rush? I could be dead by then, but at least I’d die knowing the appointment was on the books. So I slapped down my own cash at Baylor Scott & White and had the MRI in under a week.

Diagnosis? “Degenerative.” Or as the doctor said—very helpfully—“Well… you’re old.” Fantastic. I paid hundreds of dollars for the medical equivalent of “No kidding, Grandpa.”

But then came the plot twist: vision changes that didn’t go away even when I kicked the pain pills. So off to the eye doctor I went, blissfully unaware that I was about to enter the emotional escape room known as adult ophthalmology.

The Day Surgery Chronicles

When we last exited our hero (me), I had just returned from day surgery—the kind where they pump you full of chemicals strong enough to make you confess to crimes you didn’t commit—and I forgot to mention what happened during the endless pre-admission paperwork. My phone rang.

BSW Nuclear Medicine was calling, bright and chipper, like they weren’t the same department ignoring a fax for twice the time legally allowed for a cheese expiration date. They asked if I’d like to schedule a PET scan for December 4th. I sweetly inquired, “And who the hell ordered this?” “Dr. Day,” they said. Ah. So the fax did exist. My reply may have involved “pithy” language. No appointment was scheduled. They may still be crying.

Somewhere in the fog afterward, while I was doped to the gills, someone—which forensic evidence strongly suggests was me—took a picture of my freshly bandaged eye and made it my Facebook profile pic. I learned this when my phone lit up with messages from people who assumed I’d been attacked by a raccoon, a bar fight, or possibly my own karma. My hunting buddy, an expert in Photoshop and bad decisions, stepped up and converted my photo into a full-on pirate portrait. Thus my new identity was born. I invited people to submit pirate names. I stand by this decision.

Bandage Removal, or: Holy Crap I Can See Again

The day after, I went to the follow-up. They checked my vision: up from 20% to almost 100%. Apparently, Rat-Bastard charlie—my ocular tumor—flinched during the needle and scooted its nasty little self out of the way. Bless his cowardly heart. Better yet: for the first time, the doc didn’t say “We’ll probably have to take the eye.” Progress! A new clinical trial is starting up—an oral treatment that might shrink eye tumors. If charlie loses 50% of his body mass (same thing my doctor tells me every year at physicals), then radiation becomes possible and the eye might stay. Sign me up. Let’s starve the little bastard.

Meanwhile, in the ‘Waiting’ Montage…

Now I get to learn to function with no depth perception and reduced vision, which is basically like living in a video game with bad graphics and no patch incoming. New challenges everywhere.

Driving? Life on the edge.

Pouring coffee? Side quest with risk of burns.

Catching anything thrown? Absolutely not.

Current objectives:

• Wait for the VA to schedule an eye consult. (Estimated ETA: 2057.)

• Try to get Tricare for Life to reimburse me for at least some medical expenses. (Ha.)

• Wait for my primary care doc to eyeball the PET scan and weigh in on the “suspicious” prostate. (Nothing like your organs keeping secrets from you.)

Meantime I think I’ll focus on the burn piles around the forest compound. That and day drinking, sounds like a plan.

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler

 

Mud in Your Eye: A Love Story Between Me and Modern Medicine (A Cynical Field Report From the Ocular Trenches)

Once upon a time, humanity delighted in tossing around adorable little expressions like “Here’s looking at you!”, “Here’s mud in your eye!”, and the always–charming oath, “Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.” Wholesome. Folksy. Quaint.

Allow me to provide a reality check from someone who recently had a needle in their actual eye: It is not cute. It is not charming. It is not folksy. It is, however, a fantastic way to reevaluate every life choice you’ve ever made.

The Cleansing Ritual (Because Clearly I Live in Filth)

Monday was Needle Biopsy Day — a Hallmark occasion if Hallmark specialized in medical anxiety and bodily intrusion. My doctor, apparently convinced I spend my evenings rolling in coal dust or wrestling feral raccoons for sport, insisted I take two antiseptic showers within eight hours. With Dial soap.

Not antibacterial soap. Not a hospital-grade decontamination ritual. Dial. You know, the stuff they use in commercials starring people who have clearly never sweated in their entire lives.

Either she owns stock in the company or she truly believes cleanliness is a spiritual calling. Cleanliness, godliness — both spelled oddly, both policed by spellcheck, both suddenly my personal burden.

Release the Goats

Up before dawn — a time usually reserved for bakers, insomniacs, and people fleeing a crime scene — we fed the goats, fed the dogs, and started the pilgrimage to Austin.

Every hospital I’ve ever been to is under construction. I suspect hospitals are actually perpetual construction projects with occasional medicine practiced in the scaffolding gaps. The directions didn’t mention this crucial detail: you can’t actually get to the building if you follow them.

We ended up in a parking garage approximately four zip codes away. Fortunately, a scrubs-wearing angel appeared, looked at me with pity, and said, “I’m going to guide you. You’ll never find it on your own.” Reader, she was right.

The $612 Sit-and-Wait Extravaganza

We arrived, filled out enough paperwork to qualify for citizenship in a small nation, and were rewarded with a modest little co-pay: $612. A bargain, truly, for the privilege of sitting in a chair for two hours in a state of scenic medical anxiety.

Ah, medicine — that glamorous industry where punctuality is treated as a ceremonial gesture before segueing directly into indefinite stagnation. I’m getting good at waiting. I may add it to my résumé: Professional Sitter, Level 3.

But wait — things get better.

The moment the card reader beeped its approval, confirming my financial sacrifice had been accepted by the gods of healthcare, I was marched off to a holding cell. Fine, technically it was a prep room, but the vibe was very “minimum-security correctional facility.”

I was instructed to get naked and scrub all exposed body parts with special antiseptic wipes, in a specific order, as though I were participating in some sacred cleansing ritual. Then came the open-backed gown — a garment designed by people who believe dignity is an optional accessory.

Freshly sterilized and mooning the world, I waited.

Eventually, the surgeon swept in, all brisk confidence, and informed me she was running late and my procedure had been pushed back another 90 minutes.

So I did what I do best. I waited. And waited.

It’s a miracle no one offered me a loyalty card or punch-pass for the Waiting Experience™. At this point, I’d have earned a free coffee or at least a sticker.

Showtime: The Needle Approaches

Eventually, the staff wheeled me through the hospital maze — a labyrinth so complex that I’m convinced the Minotaur would get lost and die of dehydration before finding an exit.

They parked me center-stage. Hands came at me from every angle, adjusting pillows, tucking sheets, arranging tubes. A mask went over my face, and someone told me to “breathe normally.” Sure. Let me just breathe normally while preparing to have my eyeball frozen, pierced, and harvested like a microscopic smoothie ingredient.

The man in green leaned in and said, “I’m starting the anesthesia. You should…” —and that was the end of that sentence.

Reanimation and the Holy Water

I regained consciousness with all the grace of a disgruntled corpse and was immediately asked, “How do you feel?”

“I could use some water,” I croaked.

Sweet, sweet water. Nectar of the gods. Ambrosia of the desperate. After 12 hours of forbidden hydration — on top of my naturally arid mouth — it was bliss.

The Escape and the Barf Bag That Wasn't

Once dressed, I was chauffeured back to the forest compound. Note to future self: any post-hospital car ride requires a barf bag. I spent the entire trip contemplating whether the sacred water I’d just consumed was planning a dramatic reappearance.

I survived. Barely. Collapsed into a nap like a tragic Victorian heroine. And now, 18 hours after first opening my eyes, I offer this report — vision obscured, face bandaged, dignity questionable.

Final Thoughts

Needle in your eye? Just say no. In fact: HELL NO.

Based on the current throbbing sensation, I suspect the “procedure” was carried out using a combination of axes, shovels, and pure enthusiasm. Tomorrow, when the bandage comes off, I’ll know the truth.

Tune in for the before-and-after pictures. Assuming, of course, I still have an “after.”

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler

 

Hangry: A Tragedy in Clear Liquids

You know those commercials where some poor bastard is losing his mind because he’s “hangry” and all he needs is a Snickers? Well, I’ve surpassed that. I am no longer hangry—I am spiritually hollow, morally compromised, and one grapefruit juice away from committing mild crimes.

Most days, I forget to eat until after dark anyway, which is its own lifestyle choice, but today? Today the medical-industrial complex has forbidden me from consuming anything that could be described as “food-like.” No solids. No substance. Only “clear liquids,” which apparently includes broth but only if it’s as empty and meaningless as my will to live. Nothing floating in it. Nothing interesting. Nothing that would make you think, “Ah yes, nourishment.”

By 9 a.m., the fridge had become a shrine to everything I’m not allowed to have. The cookies in the jar whispered to me like seductive carb sirens. From the freezer, the frozen burritos call out like long-lost lovers. And the pecan pie—oh God, the pecan pie—basically tried to throw itself into my arms.

Instead, I’ve had two cups of beef broth and three coffees, which means I now resemble a malnourished Victorian chimney sweep with anxiety. I broke down and made Jell-O, that wiggly symbol of defeat, but it hasn’t set yet. So I made more, in another flavor, because apparently I’ve become the kind of person who stress-manufactures gelatin desserts. Remember when I used to want a big, juicy ribeye? Yeah. Not anymore. All I want is Jell-O. Jell-O. How far the mighty have fallen.

And I have to do this until after the eye-stabbing on Monday.

But after Monday? Oh, we’re stopping somewhere—anywhere—that sells edible matter. Burger King, Wendy’s, a gas station with questionable egg salad. Hell, I’ll eat a hot dog spinning under a heat lamp since 2014. We might even need emergency donuts just to keep me alive long enough to locate a drive-thru. Sure, there’s a great little Mexican place in Temple, but that’s an hour from the hospital, and frankly, I do not expect to survive the journey.

Right now, I’m twelve hours into a thirty-hour fast. Time has slowed to the pace of a dying sloth. Every minute stretches out like an eternity of culinary suffering.

Lucky for me, vodka is clear.

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler

 

Calm Before the Storm: Fear and Loathing in the Ophthalmology Ward

The whole thing started on a Friday morning, the kind of morning that feels like the universe is slowly cranking up a chainsaw. I was barely awake when BSW blasted a notification into my skull: PET scan results available. Jesus. Someone over there must have sobered up long enough to actually look at Monday’s radioactive glamour shots of my internal machinery.

I opened the report with the trembling hands of a man who knows he’s about to witness a crime scene. And there it was— “2.0 cm mass… marked hypermetabolic activity suspicious for malignancy.”

Hypermetabolic. Christ. That means the bastard in my eyeball lit up like a Vegas casino caught in an electrical storm. A glowing, feral tumor in the “lateral right globe,” which is just medical code for YOUR EYEBALL IS HOSTING A DEMON. A rat bastard demon called charlie.

But the doctors tried to soothe me with their icy reassurance: no signs of cancer in the chest, abdomen, or pelvis. Lovely. A clean body, except for the small nuclear reactor in my right eye socket.

And then they tossed in some casual nonsense about “focal radiotracer uptake in the prostate,” which sounded like something a bored intern added for fun. PSA was low in June, so that’s probably just the prostate waving for attention like a drunk at last call. I’ll deal with it later.

Before I could recover from the PET scan debacle, Austin Retinal Associates rang me up. A voice too cheerful for human civilization informed me they were “trying” to get me into Seton Hospital on the 17th, 24th, or maybe December 1st, depending on whether the planets aligned and the surgeon felt spiritually prepared.

We were already told the 17th last week, but I held my tongue. You don’t argue with people who control the sharp objects.

She checked the schedule and—hallelujah— I was already on it. Jesus, a victory. A rare diamond glint in the medical sludge.

Then came the commandments: Shower twice with antibacterial soap. Eat nothing after midnight like some doomed gremlin. Follow the directions. Don’t wander off. Don’t lick anything.

But the real madness came an hour later, when Seton Hospital called. Their nurse had her own list of rules—nothing to eat from Sunday onward except clear liquids, all the food of an ascetic monk or a man awaiting execution. Stop all medications. No breakfast of champions. No mercy.

Then she asked what procedure I was having.

“A needle biopsy on my right eye,” I said.

A pause. Then: “No, no, no, it’s your left eye.”

My soul left my body.

I slammed my left eye shut, stared into the yawning black void of my right, and declared:

“IT. IS. MY. RIGHT. EYE.”

The nurse, clearly rattled, said they’d need to “call ARA to confirm,” and I imagined a circle of medical staff passing a chart around like a joint.

Then came the second curveball: I needed a follow-up appointment the next day, but Dr. Day would be in Waco. “Fine,” I told them. “Waco is closer anyway.” A logistical triumph, small but glorious, like finding an unbroken cigarette in the apocalypse.

So now I wait. Sunday, they’ll starve me like some deranged vision quest participant. Coffee is allowed, thank God—black, savage, life-sustaining.

And if this ordeal ends with me in an eyepatch, so be it. Pirates ruled the seas for a reason.

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler

 

The 3 Part Comedy

Three Initial Day

It was a three-initial day — the kind that reeks of bureaucracy and quiet suffering. One of those alphabet-soup specials dreamt up by Kafka, then rewritten by a hungover insurance adjuster.

First stop: BSW, a.k.a. Baylor Scott & White — the place where optimism files a complaint and never returns. The mission: a PET scan — Positron Emission Tomography for those fluent in medical dread. Essentially a high-priced x-ray that costs more than a used Honda Civic and leaves you glowing like a budget superhero.

After my nuclear date with destiny, I made the sacred pilgrimage to HEB for essentials — Beer, Milk, Sugar. The holy trinity of modern survival. Beer to stay hydrated, chocolate milk for the pre-9 a.m. crowd, and sugar to ferment into homemade moonshine. Moonshine for the nights when sleep’s not coming and the voices in your head demand a drink.

Then it was back to the PFC, Pete’s Forest Compound, where the trees whisper gossip and the neighbors wisely pretend not to exist.

It wasn’t a great day — not a terrible one either. Just one of those days that feels like an obstacle course designed by Satan’s administrative intern.

The Bureaucratic Safari

While at BSW, I decided to make a courtesy call to the fabled land of Patient Relations. The door was locked, naturally — because nothing says “we care” like a locked door. I was halfway to freedom when a warm body appeared. Poor soul made eye contact.

She invited me in — rookie mistake. I explained, calmly but with the energy of a man who’s already seen too much, that their communications system had failed with all the grace of a burning clown car. She clicked through her computer, squinting like she was defusing a bomb, and triumphantly announced they’d found two out of three of my calls and both emails.

A 66% success rate — not bad if you’re flipping coins, but less inspiring if you’re running a hospital. And 0% in answering.

Her grand response? “We know there’s a problem, and we’re working to fix it.” Translation: We’re aware of the incompetence, please stop noticing.

The Glowing Finale

After the nuclear tracer cocktail at BSW, here’s me getting a personal PET scan — because nothing says “fun afternoon” like being microwaved in the name of science. No popcorn, no privacy, no snacks. And back at the PFC? Still no chance of a private snack there either. The universe clearly runs on irony.

All in all, it’s a solid start toward evicting that rat bastard charlie from my eye. Now comes the waiting — that exquisite stretch of time where strangers in lab coats “interpret” your results like mystics reading tea leaves. Then they’ll decide how to kill charlie without killing me. Always a fun little wager.

And so, I wait. The nights are long. The vision’s a little worse. The mind, restless — playing cards with fate and dealing from the deck of doom.

Movement to contact: finally

Scott and White have resurrected their bureaucratic corpse and, after the stately ritual of “waiting the required 12 business days to upload a request” — a timeframe that exists solely to remind you that patience is a form of punishment — they’ve decided to do the thing. Mind you, the Austin doc actually sent the PET scan order days ago; Scott and White treated it like an uninvited party guest: visible from the driveway but not allowed inside until they’d finished polishing the silverware.

I, being the helpful patient who refuses to accept being left to bureaucratic entropy, asked the referring doctor at Scott and White to formally refer me for the PET scan. He did — and they responded with the medical equivalent of “this ticket is defective.” He clarified the order later that same day. Poof. Suddenly I’m on the schedule.

Miracle cures do exist: they’re called paperwork corrections.

My PET scan is set for November 11 — appropriately, because nothing says “honor the veterans” like scheduling my medical indignities on Veterans Day. Which will probably find me slightly hungover, because Veterans Day is the hangover to the real holiday: the Marine Corps birthday. Two hundred and fifty years of leathernecks, foxholes, and stoic bad decisions — and yes, we’ll toast it. Historically, my participation in toasting has been… enthusiastic. Responsible drinking has been an aspirational concept for forty years, like utopia or a working vending machine in the barracks.

I’ve sworn to fight the rat bastard charlie with all the finesse of a Marine: take no prisoners, kill ’em all — in spirit, in metaphor, and maybe with some very pointed paperwork. (Let’s be clear: this is cinematic bravado, not a how-to. My preferred weapon is not red tape.)

On the home front, Amazon delivered my first set of eye patches yesterday. Bless their hearts. Surprisingly not as awkward as I feared. Depth perception, meanwhile, bowed out of the conversation without sending a forwarding address. Eye-hand coordination has gone from “competent” to “laughably speculative,” but I’ll adapt.

That’s the plan: prepare for the inevitable eviction of the rat bastard from his current tenancy. Not pleasant. Necessary. Like root canal anesthesia for the soul. And like the really bad punchline of a really bad joke, "I'll keep an eye for you".

As any Marine will tell you, no plan survives first contact. If everything starts looking rosy, toss a map because you’ve wandered into an ambush. So I’ll celebrate, stumble into a PET scan on a national holiday, and keep my hand on the paperwork — because in this theatre the only thing more lethal than a Marine is an irritated veteran filling out forms.

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler

 

The Gospel According to the Department of No

Ten business days — a biblical span of suffering — and at last the monolith known as Scott and White stirred. A fax had been received, they announced, like priests unveiling a sacred relic. Somewhere, an intern pressed “confirm” and went home early.

The verdict?

No full-body PET scan. Too dangerous, too decadent. The Powers That Be have declared I only qualify for the Head-to-Hip Experience™, a limited-edition medical safari where the lower body is apparently irrelevant to the mysteries of life and death. From the waist down, I am Schrödinger’s patient — possibly fine, possibly riddled with horror, but officially “out of network.”

The point of the full scan, of course, was to make sure the cancer wasn’t hiding in some far-flung organ, sipping margaritas and laughing at the ophthalmologists. But the decision makers — faceless, possibly holographic — don’t concern themselves with such trivia. They exist in a separate plane, floating above cubicles, feasting on denial forms and cold coffee.

Austin Retina, bless their weary souls, are rolling with what scraps we’re allowed. They sound exhausted, like field medics in a war no one’s sure we’re still fighting. Me? I’m sharpening my K-bar. I’ve sent missives to patient relations, a department which seems to specialize in not relating to patients. Current body count:

1. Emails: Two fired into the void.

2. Voicemails: Three left, unheard, somewhere in a purgatorial inbox.

3. Austin Retina Calls: Two made, four responses. Miracles do happen.

Soon I’ll escalate to emailing board members, those shadowy druids who meet quarterly to divine the meaning of “care.” I’ll craft my pleas in the tone of a man who’s seen the abyss and CC’d it for good measure. Maybe one of them will have a conscience. Or a bored assistant. Either will do.

This isn’t a “journey.” It’s a hostage situation with billing codes. And I’m not interested in being a polite victim. I expect my doctors to go berserk — hand-to-hand trench-knife medicine, blood-and-thunder diagnostics. I want scorched earth. I want a treatment plan that scares them.

If by some miracle we get this PET scan before the biopsy, I’ll count that as victory — not triumph, not salvation — just a brief, cigarette-stained moment of relief before the next round of bureaucratic roulette.

Because make no mistake: this isn’t my first rodeo. But the rodeo clowns?

They’ve unionized. And they’re running the asylum.

Rat bastard charlie must die

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler

 

A Study in Sloth: The Tragedy of Urgency Misplaced

From the moment the clock struck October 16, I declared war. I was ready to storm the gates. “Full speed ahead!” I cried. “That rat-bastard charlie must die!” — charlie, the unwelcome squatter currently renting space in my retina. The battle cry was clear. The troops, however, were apparently on lunch break.

First order of business: contact the Scott & White retina specialist. To his eternal credit—bless his overbooked, saintly heart—he squeezed me in. I dared to hope. Life was briefly good. The gods of medicine had smiled upon me.

He didn’t like what he saw (who would?), but he did recommend the super-doc in Austin—the medical equivalent of summoning Gandalf. Alas, even Gandalf keeps banker’s hours. The earliest appointment? Six days away. Six days! In cancer time, that’s roughly the length of the Mesozoic Era.

I persevered. The Austin appointment arrived, the doctor frowned, and decreed: “Let there be a PET scan.” First, however, a bureaucratic sacrifice to the gods of paperwork—apparently PET scans don’t schedule themselves.

Four days of radio silence later I started calling. Austin first with no update except its in the hands of Scott and White. so I call Scott and White. According to Scott and White, the mighty “fax”—that ancient relic of the 20th century—takes seven to ten days to appear “in the system.” Seven to ten days. The pyramids were built faster. I began to sense a lack of urgency.

I left a message on the patient advocate line—a magical hotline promising compassion and efficiency. The recording asked me to be respectful of their feelings. Their feelings. A delightful twist, since I’m the one with a potential ticking time bomb behind my eyeball.

Weekend passes. I show up Tuesday, fuming like a badly written Greek god. Still no PET scan. The doctor seems... unenthused by my enthusiasm. It dawns on me that the medical profession may have collectively misplaced its sense of urgency.

Then today—ah, today—Austin calls. No labs available until January. January! The scheduler sounds near tears, bless her. She suggests my primary care physician might “help.” Of course—let’s recruit yet another player for this tragic farce. Meanwhile my vision blurs, my eye aches, and my patience files for divorce.

So I take up the banner again. I message the Scott and White retina specialist, pleading for an in-house referral, and leave yet another note with the patient advocates, who by now are probably screening my calls. No reply. Silence.

Tomorrow I’ll try the VA. Maybe they have a PET scanner that isn’t being used as a coat rack. I won’t hold my breath—oxygen might be the only thing moving fast around here.

In summary: There is, indeed, a plethora of lack of urgency. Time is not my friend. And that rat-bastard charlie? He’s probably throwing a party in my eye while the healthcare system argues over who’s responsible for sending the next fax.

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler

 

Taco Tuesday’s Failure to Satisfy

Ah, Taco Tuesday. The promised land of cheap tequila and even cheaper optimism. Spoiler alert: both ran out early.

The big day finally arrived — the long-awaited eye doctor appointment, a carnival of futility made even more absurd by the fact that the actual test that might tell us something (the PET scan) remains unscheduled. Bureaucracy, thy name is “we’ll call you back.”

So once more into the inferno — the dreaded voyage down Interstate 35, that concrete artery straight to Austin’s seventh circle. Traffic moved like a wounded snail, and every brake light felt like divine punishment.

Then came the usual ritual: eye pictures, dilation, blinding lights, and that special brand of discomfort that only medical professionals can deliver while saying, “It's a bright light.” Translation: “We’re about to interrogate your retina with the sun.”

The results? More loss of peripheral vision. Roughly the top three-quarters of my field of view have packed up and left town. My depth perception has long since retired — probably sipping margaritas with my spatial awareness somewhere in the Bahamas. My hand-eye coordination now resembles that of a drunk raccoon attempting origami.

Desperate times, desperate measures. I’ve been experimenting with eye patches — a series of failed fashion statements courtesy of Amazon’s “Customers Also Cried” recommendations. Today, I’ll go classic: the full pirate. “Arrr, matey, me optic nerve’s mutinied!” Time to swab the decks and embrace my inner buccaneer.

In two weeks, the pièce de résistance: a needle biopsy. Nothing says “comforting medical experience” like hearing, “We’ll just stick a needle in your eye — it’s day surgery!” How quaint. Another step in evicting charlie, that freeloading tumor squatter who refuses to respect the lease agreement.

And then, once again, the doctor dropped the word enucleation. For the uninitiated, that’s Latin for “gouge your eye out.” Romantic, isn’t it? But honestly, if it gets rid of that rat bastard charlie, bring me the melon baller. I’ll name myself Captain One-Eye and set sail for the land of decent healthcare.

And after all that? No tacos. None. Taco Tuesday — a failure on all fronts. Vision: failing. Hope: questionable. Tacos: nonexistent. Margaritas: missing.

If irony were a menu item, I’d be stuffed.

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler

Monday: Bureaucracy Rides Again

Well, it’s another Monday — that cursed invention designed to remind us that hope has a snooze button. Still no word on the mythical PET scan, the sacred diagnostic ritual my doctor needs to decide whether I’m worth saving or just another entry in her billing software.

The office, bless their mechanized hearts, remains laser-focused on confirming that I will, in fact, show up to appointments that may or may not exist. They can’t tell me whether the test has even been ordered, but they’ll chase me down like a bounty hunter if I dare skip a scheduled guilt session. Accountability, it seems, is a one-way street — freshly paved for them, full of potholes for me.

Yesterday, my neighbor eased on over — on horseback, no less. A fine piece of horseflesh, the horse, not my neighbor. The animal gleamed and smirked, as if to say, I’m what progress used to look like. My neighbor, bless him, came by to check on me and see if there had been any “developments.” Real nice of him. The horse, to his credit, offered the only honest commentary I’ve heard so far — a steaming editorial right in front of me, straight from the north end of a south-bound critic. I took it as a sign of solidarity.

Meanwhile, my hunting buddy calls at least once a day to check in — just to make sure I’m still breathing and sufficiently bitter. If only the medical professionals showed half his dedication. He doesn’t have a degree or a fax machine, but he does have a pulse and a memory, which puts him several steps ahead of the healthcare system.

I even left a message with Scott and White’s so-called Patient Advocacy line. They promise patients can escalate grievances “all the way to the CEO.” Sounds impressive, until you realize they’ve built no actual ladder — just a trapdoor leading to nowhere. I suspect my message is now drifting in some digital purgatory, right next to lost insurance claims and abandoned ethics.

The eye doctor’s office joined the parade of uselessness too. After explaining my situation to the receptionist (who sounded young enough to still believe in justice), I was transferred to the “assistant to the doctor.” Naturally, they’re never available. I imagine them as a cloaked figure, sitting in a dark room illuminated only by the glow of unanswered voicemails.

Tomorrow’s voting day. Everyone says every vote counts. I’d like to cast mine for competence — or maybe just for someone who answers the phone. But those names never make it onto the ballot. So I’ll do my civic duty and pretend it matters — the same way the clinic pretends it faxed that PET scan request.

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler

 

Halloween: Welcome to the Paperwork Apocalypse

Halloween again.

That time of year when the amateurs play monster. They glue on plastic fangs, dribble ketchup down their shirts, and call it “scary.” Meanwhile, I’m on hold with the hospital switchboard — that’s horror. True, American, existential horror. The kind that smells faintly of disinfectant and despair.

I got ambushed by this latest “medical situation,” which is how the doctors say, “You’re screwed, but we’ll need six meetings to confirm it.” So, being a reasonable man, I wanted to start treatment — maybe get a jump on the Grim Reaper before he finishes his coffee. But after years in the oncology underworld, I know better. Once you enter their realm, time ceases to exist. You are but a number on a clipboard, a file buried beneath a mountain of paperwork and printer errors.

Super Doc — my fearless guide through this bureaucratic wasteland — orders a PET scan. “This will determine the course of treatment,” she says, with all the confidence of the person who won’t have to make the phone calls. It’s the Big Test. The Decider. The sacred relic that tells us whether I’m going to war or just rehearsal dinner for Hell.

Ordered: eight days ago. Results: Ha!

I start calling. The hospital says it takes seven to ten days to “get the fax into the system.”

The fax.

In twenty-twenty-freaking-five. They’re diagnosing cancer with technology that couldn’t survive Y2K. Somewhere in a damp sub-basement, a fax machine hums like an ancient idol, demanding toner sacrifices and human patience.

I call the eye doctor. “We sent it,” they swear.

I call the hospital again — they respond like I’ve asked for state secrets. “We can neither confirm nor deny receipt of said fax,” they murmur, as if I’m in the CIA. Then they suggest I verify the fax number. The fax number. Because, naturally, I should have memorized the secret numeric code of the oncology labyrinth. At this point, my pulse is doing jazz solos. I can feel my Marine vocabulary — twenty-four years of industrial-grade profanity — clawing its way up my throat like a caged animal. I’m ready to call down the wrath of the English language itself.

Instead, I go to the hospital’s “patient advocacy” webpage, which is less “advocacy” and more “gaslighting with HTML.” I find the complaint form. It gives me 125 characters. That’s it. I couldn’t even write a proper threat in that space, let alone a complaint. “Dear Sir, Kindly…” — and I’m out of room. So I typed what I could: “This system was designed by demons who flunked customer service in Hell.” It fit. Barely.

And here I am. Waiting. Waiting for some anonymous clerk to feed my future into the fax god and press “send.” It’s terrifying, really — not the diagnosis, not the treatment. The waiting. The crawling, mind-numbing, soul-sucking waiting while your body runs its own internal countdown.

charlie — that’s what I’m calling the tumor — is in there, lounging around like a tenant who knows eviction takes months. And I’m outside, in the rain, arguing with a fax line. So yeah, happy Halloween. Dress up if you want. But if you really want to experience fear? Try getting medical paperwork processed in America. That’s the haunted house that never ends.

“Trick or treat, smell my feet,” I croak, because apparently Halloween now requires ritualized humiliation before the medical-industrial complex will lift a finger. Give me a PET scan, that would be neat — not for candy, mind you, but to evict the freeloading tumor I’ve nicknamed charlie. I don’t want fairy lights and fake cobwebs; I want fluorescent lights, paperwork, and someone with a badge to press ‘confirm.’ Mercy, in this town, comes stamped and filed. So hand over an appointment like you hand out candy — quick, automatic, and with no small talk — or at least teach your fax machine to fear me.

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler