I was filled with an unaccountable joy. It is probably accurate to say that joy is an unfamiliar state for me. Not that I am opposed to it. Just not well acquainted. And what made it unaccountable, aside from its unfamiliarity, was multi-layered. I’ll put it down to my SE work. Somatic Experiencing…what a horrible name…trains a person to focus on the physical sensations of emotional states. I’ve been at this three years, and having been at psychoanalysis for only a slightly longer period in my youth, I can say that this has been worth it. The right thing at the right time. The right modality for this stage of my life.

Anyway, it was time to pull myself away from the wife and the home and go in search of Messrs. Kaiser. And it is key here is to note that I wasn’t terribly intimidated by the prospect of this excursion. In my mind, the trip to the French Campus…once San Francisco’s French Hospital…is a swift, scenic ride over the hill on Muni. Yes, the #44 fairly flies up the hill, ascending and descending Twin Peaks to great effect. And it did not disappoint. Autumn tends to be the most summer-like in San Francisco. Actual sun appears. The fog becomes a distant memory. And Golden Gate Park, which this Muni line crosses, was lush with trees and blue skies. The bus is now somewhat magical, the only vehicle regularly allowed on certain park streets since the pandemic. Kennedy Drive, the main thoroughfare, is now closed to cars. It’s a vast skateboarding, pedestrian friendly walkway.

Meanwhile, however pretty, the journey was stretching on and on. What was going wrong was being forced from my consciousness. Pain. I had this pain in my lower back. I am used to having pain in lower, not to mention upper, everything. Thing is, pain not only is, you know, pain, but a source of anxiety. My spinal column isn’t what it was, let us say. And although I would say that I get more or less optimal exercise and physiotherapy in my home, the whole spinal region feels like an orthopedic disaster zone. Osteoporosis isn’t helping. Do not send to know for whom the bone tolls.

Kaiser. I rolled off the bus on Geary Boulevard, wound through Kaiser’s Covid-19 drive-in testing site, and made myself known at x-ray. Within minutes I was ushered in. The x-ray technician had a small request. Get out of the wheelchair and sit on the stool with my back to the machine. Hardly an outlandish request. And for much of my life, one that would have been easily accomplished. But not now. My body knew. Could we get some help, I asked. No. There was no one available. Why, still slightly eludes me. But although this is an urban medical center in what is not a tiny city, the x-ray department had one technician. Blame it on the pandemic. I don’t know. The technician did point out that she would have a helper available the next day. I was about to lightheartedly ask if she was proposing a sleepover, but something told me this would not be amusing or even welcome. In fact, something told me that badinage with men was off the table. Being off-the-wall would get me nowhere.

Well, she assured me, we would do what we could do. She jammed a portable x-ray plate behind me, I twisted this way, then that. And we finally had some reasonable portraits of my stressed shoulder. Outside, the bus arrived in five minutes. My back was killing me. Killing me softly, one might say. When pain is diffuse, it is easy to ignore in the short term, insidious in the long term. 

The Kaiser Radiology report popped up on my iPhone within seconds. This is one of the strange things. All Kaiser x-rays and MRIs and CAT scans appear to be read centrally, online, of course. And someone must sit there waiting for another image to pop up, and within a few minutes the verdict is in. My shoulder is commensurate with expectations, the radiologist wrote. And I have cystic something or other. I have absolutely no idea. The report recommended an MRI. Which is not going to happen to this gunshot victim, because bullet fragments get too overheated during an MRI.

I was glad to get home, achy and still reasonably ebullient underneath it all. If I hadn’t had some strange release of optimism, I would never have set out on this journey. But the deed was done. I will likely get a cortisone shot in my shoulder, for better or for worse. And let us say amen.