Midnight

Pain, made to order Pt.1

I have not updated in a long time. Of this fact, I am
well aware. However, there has not been much time, and
there have been far too many upsets of late to write much
of anything.
The infection in my feet had gotten so bad that my
mother finally stopped begging father to do something and
called the doctors herself, which she is legally not
supposed to do. She was on the phone for 4 hours over all
trying to reach a podiatrist that would take the HMO father
switched me to. He thought that he would save money with
this one, but it turns out that no one would take it
because the plan apparently would not pay the bills that it
should. When first I went to a "regular doctor," that is,
not a specialist, she was surprized at how bad it had been
allowed to get before someone took me in. She told me to
see a podiatrist ASAP. Apparently it was serious. I also
had a "vacation" of sorts coming up. Mother spent 3 of
those 4 hours on the phone after my initial visit
struggling with afforementioned HMO red tape before it
became 5pm and everyone basically closed for the day.
Mother had begged father for quite a long time to take
me to a doctor, but he would not. In the 4 months or so
that I had this infection, he ignored my problem, changed
insurance plans, and generally avoided the subject. He
kept telling my mother that he would get around to it, and
finally when she begged him enough, he told her that he
would get her a list of practitioners covered by my
insurance (which, it turns out, was not the plan we thought
it was), but he never did.
We spent another hour the morning after we reached my
grandmother's home, where my vacation was planned, trying
to find a podiatrist even in this city that would take my
so-called HMO but no one would, so we chose to pay out of
pocket. This wasn't a big deal anymore. It needed to be
done quite desperately. There was even talk of sending me
to a hospital since it was so urgent.
The actual treatment was more like minor surgery. It
was painless except for the needles they drove repeatedly
into both great toes. The needles weren't so bad but the
numbing agent was extremely painful. I had gotten little
sleep and started sobbing loudly, mostly because of the
horrible emotions mixed with the insomnia and the over
anxiety I was feeling. My father called halfway through
the numbing, but my mother let it ring. I think he should
have heard me weeping.