Today has been a long, long day, and I’m over it.

This morning I saw the immunologist I’ve been waiting to see for three months. Uh, I guess it went well. The staff was superior, and after listening to me recount my somewhat long list of health problems, the doctor’s nurse said, “You’ve come to the right place.” Then I talked to the doctor. Again, I guess it went well. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the whole conversation, but he essentially said that “on paper” I’m healthy. “Your bloodwork is pristine,” he said. I’m pretty sure that was the word he used–pristine. Of course, I don’t actually live “on paper,” and I haven’t felt pristine for a while now. In fact, I’ve felt perfectly un-pristine, and–some days–quite shitty, thank you very much.

This is where things get “interesting.”

The doctor said that some people have what’s called (I think) a functional immunodeficiency, that things look good on paper but don’t quite cut the mustard in the real world that you and I live in. “It’s possible that your immune system is quirky,” he said. Quirky–that was the word he used, that was the explanation he gave me, the closest thing I got to a diagnosis. Quirky. I thought, Okay, I’ve been going through hell these last six months, and you’re telling me that my body is just weird? Exactly how is this supposed to make me feel better?

Clearly, I’m disappointed. Granted, I’m glad I don’t have a fatal disease, that I was just “born this way.” And there is this–the doctor ordered more bloodwork. “Let’s test your lymphocytes,” he said. “We’ll also test more of your antibodies in order to get a baseline for where they are. Then I want you to get two vaccines (tetanus and pneumonia). Four weeks after that, we’ll re-test your antibodies to see how they’re responding to the viruses.” Looking back, I can see that the doctor was really thinking (he’s obviously highly intelligent), actually making a plan to figure things out. But here’s what I heard at the time–more waiting.

“If we do find something wrong, you could get injections every month, but you probably wouldn’t want to do that,” he said. (At this point, I probably would. I’d try anything that would possibly help.) “Either way, the knowledge would be good to have–it could change how aggressively you treat future infections.”

My shoulders slumped. “So just ‘hang in there’ for now?” I said.

“It’s all you can do,” he said, then walked out of the room.

After leaving the doctor’s office, I spent the rest of the morning and a good portion of the afternoon trying to comply with his instructions. First, I went to a local lab and had my blood drawn. Then I went to a pharmacy to get the vaccines, but they didn’t have one of them. (Apparently there are two different pneumonia vaccines, and some places are picky about which one they’ll administer.) So I went back to my doctor’s office, and they found another pharmacy that had what the doctor ordered. But because of a kerfuffle with my insurance, the pharmacy said I’d have to pay out-of-pocket, a total of two-hundred dollars. (My insurance was up at the end of March. I was “technically” re-enrolled the next day, but not “actually” re-enrolled.)

Again, on paper, things are fine.

Well, thank God and all the saints, I have a friend who reads the blog and has been helping me with this insurance situation over the last week. So I called her, and she said, “Let me see what I can do.” Y’all, she spoke with someone who was able to escalate my re-enrollment, and it was done in three hours. That being said, the pharmacy won’t have my updated information until tomorrow. Plus, even when they get it, my insurance won’t cover the pneumonia vaccine because I’m not a senior citizen. This just means more hoops to jump through, asking my doctor to fill out a request for prior authorization and (of course) waiting up to five business days for the insurance company to reply.

I think I’ll add this to my resume–Marcus Coker, Professional Hoop Jumper.

As if all this weren’t enough for one day, I spoke with the insurance company of the guy who knocked the shit out of me and my Honda Civic eight months ago. Naturally, they’re offering me peanuts for all my time and trouble, acting like they’re doing me a favor by throwing a few dollars in my direction, adding that I just had some soft tissue damage and was practically back to my old self in no time. “I’ll be the judge of that,” I said. “This was a major disruption in my life, and if you want to settle this, you’re going to have to do better. We can talk later. For now, let’s go back to our corners.”

Y’all, I’m proud of myself for speaking up, but I absolutely hate shit like this–confrontations, arguing about money. Talk about being slammed twice. First there’s the trauma of the accident, then there’s the trauma of dealing with the insurance company. No wonder no one wants to be an adult.

By the time I got home today I was worn out, so I took a took a nap. Honestly, I don’t think it helped much. Waking up, I still felt overwhelmed. So I meditated and fell apart. Crying, I remembered being being in a car accident when I was a kid. My dad, my sister, and I were broadsided. It was our fault, but the next thing I knew, the world was upside down. Our Honda Accord had rolled two-and-a-half times. I remember trying to unbuckle my seatbelt thinking we were going to blow up, that we were all going to die, but we didn’t. Instead, we went to the hospital, my sister and I riding in the back of the ambulance next to the guy who hit us. He was on a stretcher with his neck braced. It was a long night, but the three of us went home without anything broken, just a few stitches among us. I don’t know about the guy. Personally, I was so bruised the next day that I couldn’t walk to the bathroom.

Also tonight I remembered the day my dad left for prison. I was fifteen. He self-surrendered in El Paso, and my grandpa and a family friend drove him down. After they left our house, I went in the backyard and cried. What else are you supposed to do in a moment like that? I remember the sun shining. I also remember feeling deeply alone. Later that day another family friend stopped by to see Dad, and I said he was already gone. The guy–whom I’m going to call Sam Jackson–said, “Well–if you need anything, just call Sam Jackson.” The last part–just call Sam Jackson–he stretched out like a song, like a jingle for a television commercial. I’ll never forget it. Then he walked away too. I never heard from him again, nor did I ever call him. What would I have said, “Uh, hi, Sam. This is Marcus. I need a father.”?

Now it’s one in the morning, I’m completely exhausted, and there are still tears running down my face. Joseph Campbell says when you follow your bliss, doors will open for you where there were only walls. I need a door to open. For the last few hours I’ve been trying to tell myself that everything is going to be okay, that it’s good news that nothing with my immune system is glaringly wrong and it’s also good news that I’ve finally found a highly intelligent doctor who’s willing to help me figure things out. Likewise, I keep telling myself that I’m lucky to have friends who are attorneys and insurance adjusters who are willing to help me navigate this car accident claim. (I talked to two of them today.) I keep telling myself I’m not alone. But still there is this feeling, this very old feeling, and I’m not sure how to shake it.

So much of me–so very much of me–is tired of being slammed around by life, tired of waiting, and oh-so tired of being strong. I imagine a lot of people feel this way, fed up with hanging in there. We think of hope as something pristine, something that never waivers. But I’m coming to believe that hope is haggard like we are, giving up one day, refusing to give up the next. For me, hope looks an awful lot like a bruised child who learns to walk again, a teenager who somehow survives the worst day of his life, or a grown man who looks back upon that worst day and remembers both his tears and the shining sun that dried them.