U of M Hospital is an example of possibly the worst building layout and one of the most stupidly administered hospitals anywhere. It is on a hill, and the individual buildings give the impression that they evolved organically lying on top of one another rather than being built. There is a narrow drive on what amounts to be a cliff (this is Michigan, we don't even have cliffs, I have no idea how this happened). U of M charges for patient parking (once again, this is Michigan, land of free parking). The worst, in my mind, is the requirement of the "blue card". A blue card is a regular plastic card with only your name and ID number on it. You cannot do anything involving a doctor without one. I have enough cards in my life already, I do not need another one. Can't they just look someone up on their computer? Does it really need to be in card form? Can't they get my number from my medical records which have already been pulled and are sitting on the desk? The answer is no, you must have a blue card.

So anyway, back to tattoo removal. The procedure involves using a laser to burn the inked part of my skin. After the initial trauma (and it is trauma), white blood cells rush in and remove the damaged skin along with the ink. I was given a topical anesthetic to use, and rub some into the appropriate areas before I left. Unfortunately, this is not how it should be applied. Your supposed to put it on as if you are "frosting a cake" (I was given this speech by every employee there) and then cover it with plastic wrap. Of course, that's so intuitive, I don't know why I didn't do that.

So I had no anesthesia. And it hurt. A lot. And it bled. A lot. When they were working on my lower back, it hurt so much that it caused involuntary muscle spasms in my legs. Have you ever seen a movie where someone gets electric shock treatment? That's what it looked like.

I realize that it's pretty unlikely that I will get any sympathy whatsoever for tattoo removal, but I can try, right?

So they covered me with vaseline and bandaged me up afterwards. Then they charged me $900 for the privilege. The bandage on my thigh was so tight that I could not fully extend my leg to walk. This gave me a very strange limp. My mother laughed at me all the way to the car. She also laughed as we walked to dinner. Finally she said in a whisper "It's just that it makes you walk like a retard". So not only is my mother using the word "retard", she's using it to refer to me. We went to a drugstore afterwards. After checking out, she ran ahead of me into the parking lot. I limp/galloped trying to keep up. She insisted that she was trying to pull the car around for me, but I think she was trying to make it look like I wasn't with her.