albertsons ’88

 In the Fall of 1988 I worked in the video department of the Albertson’s grocery in Tallahassee, FL. I worked there for about five months before I was fired. Thank god for battery back up. My landlord is outside flipping switches on the circuit breaker. Anyhow, back to story. I was fired because I misread (probably on purpose) the schedule and didn’t come in one day for which I was scheduled. It’s one of those things — back then I wanted to work as few hours as possible. They never do that, though. They always made me work all day Saturday and all day Sunday — never had a weekend off. I needed some money but at minimum wage, an extra 8 hours doesn’t really amount to much.
I was a horrible employee. I used to steal polaroid film and take the demo camera into the meat department and photograph all the little horrors I could find back there. Then I’d tape the photos up around the store in random places. Mostly my job consisted of selling cigarettes, renting videos and processing film. One day something spectacular happened: The pharmacist was arrested by the DEA for illegally prescribing medical cocaine to his friends and then using it himself. Holy cats!  They confronted him in his office and hauled his ass off to jail. I hated that guy. Not because he was prescribing cocaine to his friends (I’ve never done coke but if I were a pharmacist I’d be addicted to something) rather he was always up my ass trying to get me to work more hours. For some reason he was not just the pharmacist but also one of the store managers.  I got fired a few weeks later — I totally deserved it. 
So here’s the latest on my situation. I went and had another MRI plus another nerve test (called an EMG — they electrocute you via needles inserted into the nerve). To make a long story short they can find nothing physically wrong with me. My herniation is actually smaller than it was two months ago.  My DR wanted me to get a CT scan "to see if there’s something wrong with the bones." Bullshit. The pain came on suddenly after I stretched. There’s no bone issue. He’s just looking for something, anything and hasn’t bothered to familiarize himself with my medical history or the real reasons why I came to him in the first place. If it can’t be seen in a test it doesn’t exist.
charset=”utf-8″ />So what’s the deal? Where is my pain coming from? Last week I started psychotherapy. Not my usual therapist, someone new. Not because I didn’t like her but I felt like it was time for a change. My new therapist suggested I read "The Mindbody Prescription" by Dr. John Sarno. He’s the guy Howard Stern raves about all the time. I read it, thought about it and after three days I had a very strange thing happen to me. I was half asleep Sunday night when I had these images of swirling fire and I was arguing with my brain telling it I knew that it was causing my pain because I was repressing anger. I told my brain that I was not going to be frightened by it’s efforts and then I woke up– I woke up because I was not in any pain at all. For the next twelve hours I was in very little pain. Then my mom called and my pain shot up. It went back down but not as much. Then a producer I’m working with called and my pain shot up again and has stayed up ever since. What’s causing my pain? My brain, not my back. So I think I’m going to keep chasing this for a little while and see if I can’t stop the pain for longer than twelve hours