Hopeless Joe Visits Dr. Andrews

I first felt a twinge in my elbow when I was scrubbing the blood off my front door. Don’t worry– it wasn’t human blood. I didn’t think much of the pain at first. Popped a couple of Advil. Or at least I thought they were Advil. I’d lost my contacts, so I was just groping at the medicine cabinet and guessing. Turns out I took two extra-strength laxatives. I don’t even know why they were in there. An old girlfriend left them, I think. If I had a nickel for every old girlfriend who left laxatives in my medicine cabinet… well, I’d have about as many nickels as I have now. So there went the rest of the day. And, over and over again, aggravating this new elbow injury. (I just couldn’t figure out how to do what I needed to do with the other hand. Also, now I’m out of toilet paper. Started using the backs of my fantasy baseball spreadsheets. Pretty much what they deserved anyway. Comeback year from B.J. Upton? Ricky Nolasco: Cy Young contender? Josh Reddick: MVP?)

By the next morning, I was emptied, spent, and my elbow was now throbbing. This was nothing like the time I was shot in the arm by a bandit. It was worse. I tried icing it, but I fell asleep, the ice melted all over my floor, and leaked into the apartment below. My downstairs neighbor knocked on my door holding a baseball bat and began to threaten to bash my head in… but then he saw the blood — turns out Dove Moisturizing Lotion doesn’t get blood out of doors — and got scared off. Some good luck, for once. Anyway, ice didn’t do anything, heat didn’t help (TIP: don’t put your elbow in the microwave!), and my actual Advil expired in 1996, so they didn’t do much good either.

I made an appointment with Dr. Andrews to get it checked out.

Got to the office early, because I thought maybe I’d see some ballplayers in the waiting room. But it was just a bunch of elderly men and their home health aides. “Hopeless Joe?” called the receptionist. I got up and headed back to exam room #1. The nurse told me to remove my pants. “But it’s my elbow!”

After the colonoscopy (ouch!), Dr. Andrews cleared up the confusion. Wrong Dr. Andrews. Of course. And the real one doesn’t take my insurance. Obamacare, ugh.