HOW MUCH METAL DO YOU HAVE IN YOU?

Legitimate question, right? Wait’ll you see what I actually mean by that…

Many of you (or at least several, I hope) may already be aware of my unfortunate recent accident, and here comes a brief update, but first I feel obligated to share a few words:

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I fully recognize that this website is hardly intended to be a “blog” in any traditional (!) sense of the word, and so therefore I am making a pledge here and now that I am only going to write about personal experiences as to how they pertain to metal, or how “metal” a real-life experience may have been. I promise I will be selective but I do think you’ll find that the following is rather appropriate.

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The last few daze of my life have been completely preoccupied with a couple simple questions: how metal am I, and moreover, how much metal do I need inside me?

(!)

Here’s why:

After my frightfully ghetto hospital experience in the middle of Brooklyn last week, of course I was planning on having a legitimate follow-up with a legitimate doctor as soon as possible, but an alarmist family friend (who is a doctor herself) talked me into seeking a second opinion immediately, and go this past weekend back into the emergency room at a top-notch hospital that didn’t resemble a war zone infirmary (even though they all sorta do in some way or another if you really think about it).

So I went to an extremely reputable hospital on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, had additional x-rays AND a catscan done (metal), and subsequently had the bloody fear of God smacked into me.

The leading orthopedic specialist at this amazing hospital seemed to have no doubt that in order for me to regain full mobility in my left shoulder, I would require serious surgery–a full incision in my arm, so as to be able to get inside and stabilize my goddamn bones with a goddamn metal plate that I would have to live with for the rest of my life.

Not cool in the least.

So naturally I was fucking freaked, and sought out some herbal medication IMMEDIATELY. I hooked up with little difficulty (thankfully)–amazing stuff, mind you–but the prospects of self-medication paled in comparison to my impending surgical nightmare.

As one who tends to search for the meaning in all experiences, I was thrown for a loop–why the hell was I being afflicted with this accident, and furthermore, this ridiculous surgical remedy, NOW, when most areas of my life seem to be working themselves out (for the most part)? The timing seemed like a cruel joke, and I needed to assign it some sort of meaning in order to understand.

Was I being punished for something foul that I had recently done, some kind of karmic retribution from above (or below)? As one who makes it a point to remain as aware as possible about the cosmic ramifications of unvirtuous acts, I deduced that that was likely not the reason why.

So what, then?

After some careful consideration, I soon realized that the moment that clicked the possibilities into place the most for me was the one when the orthopedic resident explained the surgical procedure to me, and of course the word that stuck out in my head was metal. I was to have a plate of metal permanently fixed to me, inside of my body. I hated to admit it, but the prospect somehow sounded kind of awesome to me, in a Robocop/6 Million Dollar Man kind of way.

And it got me thinking….did this whole experience happen to me simply because I’ve been deluding myself these last few years, and I’m actually not metal enough?

Crazy talk, or a valid cosmic reason as to why I needed this wild surgery? Would a metal plate inside my body give me that extra grizzly boost, and make me wholly un-fuckwithable?

Ultimately, my second, third, and fourth medical opinions all agreed that surgery was an extreme and unecessary course in my case (phew!), but for a second there, I started to make sense of this whole debacle of a crippling experience by considering the metallic component.

Is that a) awesome, b) deluded, c) retarded, or d) a downright reach in justifying a simply unfortunate accident?

Well….let’s hope that I heal properly and I won’t have to answer that question for real.

BUT, in le meantime, I pose the question to you, my crippled bretheren (and sisthreren) —

…….how much metal do you have in you?