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This Is Us
Your Chin Is on Backwards
A psalm of sleep apnea, shit in the shower, and life
“And besides,” he said, “your chin is on backward.”
The burly man with the accent-from-somewhere turned, almost looking dismissively at me — which, I guess, I’m used to — and smile-frowned. At least, I think he did; he was wearing a mask. And a spit shield. We used to put them on the faces of patients at the psych hospital — now people are just… walking around with them like it’s a pair of Oakleys. Of course, as a poor, nonprofit psychiatric hospital, we frequently ran out of spit shields (spitting is always tres en vogue at those kinds of facilities, even when there isn’t a pandemic). When we did, we would use pillowcases. On their faces.
Because we were the animals, not the patients.
Anyway. So.
I learned, maybe two months ago, via a pulmonologist with an accent-from-somewhere that my “chin is on backward.” That’s funny, I thought. I have the sense of humor of a six-year-old, so I had the impulse to make a comment about that statement coming from a urologist but was able to resist the urge. This is why I don’t drink alcohol.
I was seeing this pulmonologist on suspicion of sleep apnea.
