I’ve been on ice since June with no medical insurance. I swim, a lot and that helps until it doesnt. The meds are running out and so I went to my doctor for an MRI. I told him about tingling all over, radiating from the back through the arms and legs. He told me about calcium vitamins and glucosomine. 

I insisted we take a look and he agreed to x-rays but not to an MRI, because they’re expensive. 

There is a gel made from cock’s comb, that they can inject into the joints, that might actually be fairly cheap - and I don’t need an MRI to tell me I have a herniated disk. All signs say so. So I’d just as soon they oil my bearings, chains and sprockets with that stuff, each and every vertebra, the hips, knees, ankles and toes.

But for some reason it is not that easy. First I have to take the MRI. I have to do lot’s of other things promising to be too damn expensive for me to do, so instead I get ice and a calcium pill.

In Korea, right now, all of this bullshit would cost me about six dollars maximum. I’d be back working within the week.

If worse comes to worst I’ll fly over to Korea for a medical holiday because the round trip plane ticket would cost me a lot less than an MRI or surgery here in Battle Creek, and plus I’d get to visit Korea, maybe even teach some classes, working for cash money on the barrel head.

I miss that too, the feel of having money in my pocket. Of paying my way and paying for others, sharing the wealth. 

And respect, not just because of the money but also because in that region of the world they venerate teachers, they pray to teachers just as they do the Buddha!

Here, as a substitute teacher, I’d get more respect shoveling shit.

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