Worthless Goddamned Cripple

Ambulance service is like medical care insofar as you get what you pay for. A resident in a private nursing home that needs transportation via ambulance to a hospital can expect intelligent, polite, well-trained attendants. The same dumbasses who initially conjectured that recreational drugs and a botched suicide attempt caused my stroke abandoned me in a public warehouse. Like nearly everybody on a state-run medical facility staff, low-rent ambulance attendants delude themselves that they’re “health care professionals” though they’re amazingly stupid, lack even the most rudimentary social skills, and are less conscientious of their work than poorly trained chimpanzees. The ambulance attendants with whom I interacted presented themselves without exception as bumbling dolts. more »

I’ve previously written that a pain-in-the-ass is not worthy of respect only because they happen to live with a handicap. My one-time roommate Gerry proved himself a textbook example of my well-founded conviction.

Gerry bragged that he had once auditioned to fill the vacant position in the Doors left by Jim Morrison’s alleged death. Amazingly the three surviving members held the audition in the mid-eighties. Gerry claimed to have performed very well but “the bastards” rejected him “because [he’s] handicapped.” more »

An orderly working at the rehabilitation hospital welcomed me by suggestively rubbing my anus with her finger while she gave me a shower. She so much as admitted that her diddlng had nothing to do with hosing me down. more »

When I came out of the coma I lie strapped to a treatment table in the intensive care unit of an urban hospital, unable to move or speak. I possessed a vague instinctual understanding of my condition and surroundings, but my perceptions were filtered through a haze of dream-like subjectivity. Any grounded impressions flickered in and out like the light from a bulb being screwed into a live socket.

I also felt like I’d been clobbered at length by a sizeable army of frenzied baseball bat-wielding yahoos. more »

I’m annoyed but mildly amused when slow-witted asshats assume I’m retarded and speak freely in my presence. They delude themselves into believing that I can’t fathom their piddly conversations.

While I was stuck in the warehouse I scheduled a dentist appointment for myself. The staff could only be bothered with the needs of near-death patients and then only to head off criticism from the chronically bitchy head nurse. The nurse on my floor heavily sighed at the inconvenience of doing her job, then scheduled a ride to my dentist with a Medivan. Medivans are designed similarly to the vans intended to augment handicap accessible public transit but are dispatched exclusively for transportation to and from medical appointments. Use of medivans for any other purpose is officially prohibited. more »

Once I ventured to a Best Buy to purchase batteries for my Walkman (actually an Aiwa personal stereo). Regardless of what the powers-that-be want you to believe, a considerable number of wheelchair-accessible beveled curbs in the city of Chicago are, it’s been my admittedly limited experience, good for two things: shit and nothing. This prohibits the use of most public transportation. There are three private transportation companies contracted by the city; each commands a fleet of vans equipped to accommodate wheelchairs. I always schedule rides with the company that operates twenty-four hours. They are relatively punctual, and when I travel with them I usually get to ride in the front like a human being, not in the back strapped down like cargo. Because I’m more often than not the only passenger, I don’t have to deal with unsophisticated disheveled young men who nonchalantly, and at regular intervals, break the foulest wind imaginable. more »