My neurologist told me I’m a nervous person. She says this to many of her patients, but it’s too easy. Of course we are nervous people—we have nerve problems. If she laughed after she said such a thing I might respect her. I would know she didn’t take herself seriously and that she was happy to explore other ways to buy my trust.
I know all about her years in medical school and the long hours, and I feel compassion because I went out with a doctor. This doctor girlfriend constantly reminded me how many hours a week she worked and how many years she had to go before finishing her residency. I know how many years you have to go, I told her, I live with you. Then I would laugh but that was the wrong thing to do, and now I think my neurologist shouldn’t laugh after she tells a patient he is a nervous person because that person might get as upset as the doctor girlfriend I lived with.
I would feel closer to my neurologist if she took me in her arms, rubbed my hair, kissed my eyes, where my nerve damage is, and refrained from speaking. Then I’d know she was something more than what I’ve come to expect. And I would feel right in the head, not guilty for being a nervous person.
Most of my life my eyes have been good. They were really really good years ago, when my mother told me I had to take care of them. What the fuck is she talking about? I said to myself. My eyes were fine. I wore glasses, but I didn’t have any other eye problems. And a lot of people wear glasses. A lot of people wished they had glasses and some wear them even though they don’t need them, thinking they look better having them on. My neurologist wears glasses and when I ask her if she really needs them, she hands me the card of a psychologist friend of hers.
I disobeyed my mother’s eye advice and it turned out my mother was right, but I’m pretty sure she didn’t expect to be right, so her victory stands as unearned and accidental, though every Christmas I get reminded of her triumph.
When I first had the eye trouble I wanted my doctor girlfriend to help me. She was a family medicine doctor and she examined my eye and said she didn’t see anything wrong. I stared at her the rest of the night, primarily with my bad eye, thinking she might add something to the diagnosis, but she just yelled that I forgot to buy ketchup and how could she buy ketchup when she worked so many hours a week.
A few days ago I called up my doctor ex-girlfriend and told her what the neurologist said, about me being a nervous person. I wondered if that could be true, and if true, was it a bad thing?
She said it was ungodly true and as to whether it was a bad thing, it depended on how and on whom I was using my stores of nervousness. She also surmised my neurologist was probably an unhappy person since she knew many unhappy neurologists in the area, and also all doctors say weird, authoritative crap, which I should know because I lived with one. I agreed with her and she immediately became incensed. Why did you agree? she yelled. What is the matter with you? I told her my nerve problems were acting up and she told me I should probably go to another neurologist because this one clearly didn’t like me and what else did I want from her, free samples?
My mother was never crazy about my doctor girlfriend and she probably wouldn’t like my neurologist either. She has been right about too many things in my life, as if God showed her what I would turn into when I was born. I really wanted my mother to like my doctor girlfriend, though more than anything I wanted my doctor girlfriend to like my mother, because by then I was living every day with my doctor girlfriend. I wanted her to like my mother so much I took them to a fancy Serbian restaurant. I even tried to order a second very expensive bottle of wine to make everything easier but my mother acted out. She said I didn’t make enough money to be so extravagant. Then she looked briefly at my doctor girlfriend. After I dropped my mother off at her hotel I asked my doctor girlfriend what she thought, and she said my mother was okay, but she needed a few more glasses of wine and hadn’t I ever told my mother she made only $40,000 a year as a resident.
Now I’m down to just my neurologist and we aren’t likely to be intimate anytime soon. I could jump to a male neurologist. I figure he wouldn’t use the nervous line because men are often less personable and more afraid of conversation, even male doctors, but this might increase my nervousness because I’d think he was keeping something from me. I look at my neurologist’s bill and I see six zeros where there are only three. It’s all right. I’m paying to make her happy.