I forgot to mention I fell off a yoga wheel and broke my ass. I was so damn close to making it 48 hours of accident free yoga wheel ownership too. If you, like me, had never heard of a yoga wheel until you saw one on clearance on the bottom shelf at TJ Maxx and decided you had to have it because you’re holding out hope wellness can be achieved through technology, even though in your soul you know what you really need is a prison workout and to stop eating sweet and salty Chex mix with the caramel popcorn seasoning sprinkled on top at 3AM, well then the yoga wheel is a plastic circle about 10 inches in diameter that you do yoga things with. Beyond that, I’m not clear. The model was elegantly balancing it on her shin bones, but if I were to emulate this display it would result in a private Cirque de Soleil show for the sole benefit of my Build a Bear. So I went with the yoga wheel’s other stated use of deepening stretches to justify its purchase.

What I failed to realize was how much balance it required to stay on top of a light, 4″ wide plastic wheel a foot off the ground. What I did realize, but failed to heed, was that I had a bunch of shit on my floor and that probably wasn’t enough space to operate the yoga wheel. Thus, just like this summer, when I fell on my DVD player, I found myself hurtling (as much as one can hurtle 10 inches worth) towards my floor, with time freezing just long enough for me to process (but naturally not long enough to react to) the recognition ‘oh shit, I have no space to put my arms out and catch myself,’ before  tipping over, slamming the same fucking hip into my closet door.

However, unlike the DVD player incident of 2016, where I immediately knew I fucked up and crawled into bed to go to sleep and avoid what would be a totally unflattering reassessment of my life, this time, I was fine. I took a ten inch bump onto a shoddy, builder-grade hollow-core door and some carpet. I didn’t so much fall as I rolled, aggressively and unconsensually.

Yet somehow, I woke up to a fucking potato sized bruise on my hip, and my poor butt cheek was bruised and that didn’t even hit anything.

Thus, the only logical conclusion is I have hemophilia. I did a presentation in Russian History on hemophilia in the Romanov dynasty, and how the transmission could be used to prove Leopold was illegitimate so I’ve always felt kind of a kinship… with hemophilia. Totally normal. Also there was a b-horror movie I watched in 9th grade where the killer was driven to kill because of the isolation they felt as a hemophiliac child, and I thought it was a pretty good twist ending and was surprised no one had exploited hemophilia before for that purpose. I’m sure the hemophilia lobby (?) is relieved, because neither of those examples is a real great reflection on hemophilia, you don’t go to a public relations office and go, yes, we would like more of that, but we don’t always get to choose what associations people have.

I Googled why people bruise easily because I don’t know if you knew, but I am a fucking doctor, and my alma mater is the Mayo Clinic website. I turned up a whole lot of nothing, besides “are you old?” “did you take ibuprofen?” and “you have hemophilia.” Hemophilia confirmed.

I don’t have hemophilia. I cut my thumb open with a pocket knife my Dad got at a trade show in 4th grade, and I survived dual attacks by a framed autographed poster of Matthew Good and a DVD player. Despite my usual reservations that anyone can confirm they are in fact, alive, it seems I probably haven’t bled to death.

BUT there is hemophilia-lite, which is not a medically accurate description. I’m sure the institute for clotting disorders is like, “go fuck yourself you Russian-sympathizing, Saw knockoff watching bitch, do you know how much we are going to have to pay a PR firm to undo your ignorance” but I maintain it is in fact hemophilia-lite if you just think of hemophilia as bleeding a lot. Which I’m sure they don’t.

Apparently your blood can be slightly wonked, various parts of it refuse to clot to varying degrees, from full on Leopold-grade hemophilia, to your blood is malfunctioning but so mildly so you don’t require treatment. That still wouldn’t explain how I managed to get a billion teeth pulled and came out unscathed, unless I have hemophilia-lite-lite, like if hemophilia was a full suite of Adobe PhotoShop and I had MS Paint. But, when I had my deviated septum fixed, and this is legitimately, one of my biggest regrets, the first time I was allowed to rinse my nose, a fucking softball sized blot clot flopped out and wiggled its way down my sink like a turtle returning to the sea. I had debated filming this event, but talked myself out of it, thinking, you idiot, it’s day surgery, nothing is going to happen. Then I got goth Flubber the blood turtle and have never forgiven myself. Having been relatively healthy and having no other symptoms I didn’t think much of it, but maybe I should have asked the ENT about a giant clump of coagulated blood that turned into a friend, like the plot of a 90s kids movie.

So I’ve got to add this to my list of medical things to get checked out. I’m already getting tested for some pre-diabetes marker, because when my doctor was going over my routine blood test results, she said everything is great but your blood sugar is high, and I said, what do I do, and she said, well sometimes it just happens with medications, and I’m just sitting their like… okay… you’re the doctor… what do I do. Then she looked at my chart, and apparently my blood sugar has been high every time. Stretching back years. I was just never informed.

Despite what falling off a yoga wheel, befriending my own blood clots and eating fake caramel powder covered Chex Mix suggests, quality healthcare tends to be a sticking point with me. But I wasn’t given the opportunity to become enraged because I was too busy fielding questions about the Trump presidency. She threw me off by quizzing me point blank asking who I voted for a second time, the only silver lining being that she probably didn’t write it on my chart the last time. Why isn’t that a violation HIPAA? Can’t you just amend something about the sanctity of the secret ballot to the end? Twice now, I’ve got to run this mental gauntlet, of like, who do I think she voted for? I didn’t have my prescriptions yet. I’m weighing race and age and economic status. Does gender beat being a businessperson? Race beats likely middle to upper middle class? Like stereotype rock paper scissors? Ironically, I’m reduced to dividing my doctor up by competing… voter attributes because I’m afraid of losing health care?

We’re headed towards some sort of, more attention-deficit Orwell or more faux-Puritan Vonnegut future, man.