Dr. Update

I think I got dumped by my doctor. A message on the answering machine said I should call the Dr.'s office. I never did get ahold of anyone who claimed to be the person with whom I should be speaking, but they all seemed to know that I needed to pick up some files.
Some files?
I got there this A.M. and there was my entire medical record. Why am I receiving this? No one knows. I think maybe the Dr. decided that, since I might be splitting town in a year there was no point in his holding on to my records any longer.

I put the file into my satchel and continued on toward work. I began to feel as though I'd had a spat with my girlfriend one morning then came home to find my furniture and dirty laundry on the sidewalk.
The file feels like that egg I carried in 7th grade to learn the responsibilities of child-rearing and to scare us into safe or no sex. There's this delicate and important thing living in my much-abused bag, the shoe leather of my intellectual existence in which everything else is transported.

I took a few moments at the office to look through the file. There were few surprises, some astoundingly bad handwriting, the whole lengthy story told in reverse. A few scattered notes of tests and updates with scribbles about career developments and a dearth of health insurance in the margin, then a sudden crisis starting softly, pleased at the recovery progress leading back to the surgeries themselves, like watching a feather floating up off the floor. Then the surgeries with a eerie lack of crisis, though the notes to captures some of the malaise and depression between bouts with the scalpel. Then a long, drawn out, growing hope out of the despair and certainty--the word inexorable was applied to my condition at one point. Then scattered notes on inoculations and vaccinations.

When the uber-diagnosis's term first appeared (in standard chronology) there were several articles on the condition collected by a curious doctor unschooled in its ins and outs. One examined a suggested connection between the diagnosis and schizophrenia. The article described a study that found no link between them but suggestion has its power and my moments of troubled mind seem all the more sinister.
The troubled mind denies all hope. With a troubled mind where can there be love or professional achievement?
The study found no connection, and yet...

The language of the medical file is strange: "patient denies...", which suggests to me that I'm hiding something.

--

My closest chum has reexamined his career choices. He and his wife are in different branches the same obscure field, both finishing up their dissertations while attending to a five month old. Jobs are few and the politics around them is rife, and he basically thinks his branch is awash in bullshit and doesn't want to play the game. So he's done his research, identified what he wants and needs in a job and has decided to become an actuary.
I can't fault him.

I know what I want/need to do, but I don't see how to get there from here. It requires either a PhD. or MFA. I don't want to do the politics of the PhD. and I can't see how I can acquire the prerequisite of three years' professional experience to get accepted into an MFA program.
I feel like I'm in the only job for which I'm qualified. Is this it? Is this the top of my career? Is there nowhere else to go?

Pieces are coming into place that may allow me to finally stage something. The production values are miniscule. I could do the thing on my own but would prefer to do it with others. Others may be on hand.

We shall see what comes of this.