A Spine-chilling Visit to Dr. Frankengali

by Sandy Sand

It was the beginning of an eerie misadventure that began on one quiet, normal day several years ago.

I was sitting in my editor's chair at the Tolucan weekly newspaper on the fringe of Beautiful Downtown Burbank, minding my own business of deadlines when the phone rang.

It was Dr. Harry "Machiaborgia" Zelig, a family practice physician with an unusual practice even for those days, who sounded like a man who was truly dedicated to healing the entire person while making his practice a family affair.

It sounded intriguing, and his office, in a converted one-story apartment building, was too conveniently located about six block west of my office.

Naturally, his call was to tout his “oh so friendly” family practice, and since the Tolucan was a local weekly and he was a local doc, he though I be interested in his story.

Oh, was he right! He sent me a press release and after answering several of my questions, I printed his story detailing the facts that his wife, a registered nurse, worked with him, and their infant daughter also helped out in the office sitting on her mommy's lap and randomly punching computer keys when she wasn't in her crib crying.

In my life, I never met an unhappier, crabbier, more cantankerous baby girl. That should have been the first hint that all was not right with the Zelig family enterprise.

Zelig was affable enough and seemed to know what he was doing...doctoring wise, so he became my doctor, being that I suffered from brain-splitting migraines and a stubbornly painful back.
Dr. "Machiborgia" Zelig, said he could help with the migraines. He lied. He couldn't, nor did he cure my aching back.

For my breaking back he sent me next door to his best buddy Dr. I. M. Frankengali. [I really have forgotten his real name, which is probably just a well, or I'd be tempted to unwisely use it.]
If you ever walk into a chiropractor's office and he has a skeleton in his waiting room. Run! Run like hell for the nearest exit.

A skeleton in a back office is one thing. But a skeleton in the waiting room?

Just to be clear, I love skeletons. Always wanted one of my own to study and as a conversation piece. The closest I ever got was buying a glow-in-the-dark plastic version for Hallowe'en and a skeleton key chain.

But not in a doctor's waiting room! And not in a doctor’s waiting room that’s only ambient light comes from tiny windows, adding to the freaky haunted house feeling.

That freaked me out...just a little. Yeah I know, what better place for a skeleton than a chiropractor's office, but still...

Having never been to a chiropractor, I didn't know what to expect in the way of an exam. When asked to strip down to my bikini and bra and put on a gown, I thought that was S.O.P. for a chiropractic exam. Not!

Okay, that done...in walks Dr. Frankengali. A normal-looking person was not the man who introduced himself to me; he was a caricature of Svengali complete with jet black hair slicked back to show his widow's peak, and face masked with a matching mustache and Van Dyke that not even the dim light in the room could hide. Dim lighting, just like that of the waiting room, was another clue to the mysterious workings of this weird man.

He sat down on a stool facing me with his knees so close they almost touched mine. The questionnaire I filled out didn't seem to be enough for him and he began asking me a new series of questions.

Sven's questions began innocently enough, and slowly advanced into the more personal...to the down right none of your business...to deeply personal questions about my sex life.
I instantly began to wonder what the hell my sex life had to do with my back pain. Did he think I was having sex while swinging upside down from a chandelier?

Years later I found out that just as I suspected, my back pain had nothing to do with sex, but was the beginning of arthritis, aggravated by tension, depending on which part of my back is screeching like a banshee at any given time.

Here come the fun part and the final creep show revelation in this misadventure.
At last he popped the request.

"Please take off your underwear while I leave the room, and I'll be back in a minute when you're ready for your pelvic exam," Dr. Sven said just as coolly and off-handedly as could be.
It all came together. The creepy office. The creepier doctor. The creepiest request.
I snapped.

"Who the fuck do you think you are? The spread 'em doctor? What the hell do my most private female parts have to do with a backache? What the hell part of your body were you planning on using for the exam? How many gullible, vulernable women have you conned into this bullshit?

"Get the hell out of my sight! Get out of this room! I'm going to put on my jeans and shirt and I'm OUT OF HERE WITH MY CHECKBOOK IN TACT and if you try to stop me I'll SCREAM the walls down."

He actually seemed surprised.

"Well if you're not happy," he said, and he left the room.

"Not happy? you miserable schmuck," I mumbled under my breath as I dressed and left the office kicking up more smoke and dust than the Road Runner.

Laugh. Go ahead. I laugh about it myself...now.

Stupidly, after bitching to Zelig about the horrifying visit to his friend, I continued seeking medical care from Dr. Harry "Machiaborgia" Zelig.

Over the course of the next eighteen months I noticed Zelig's personality was changing, and not to the good.

On my last visit to him he accused me of snorting coke because my sinuses were so inflamed from allergies and...he wanted to do a pelvic exam. I threw him out of the room and never looked back.

Never looked back that was, until...I read in the paper in eerie headlines: Local doctor off’ed his wife on the steps of the downtown courthouse in front of their eldest daughter.

Yeah, that same miserable, cranky babe was now a teen and witness to dad gunning down mom. That poor child must be really miserable now and in need of a lifetime of psycho therapy.
Not a happy ending, indeed, for the family of Harry Zelig, M.D.

I have no idea what happened to Dr. Frankengali, but I hope he's rotting in the same prison after being convicted of malpractice where Dr. Machiaborgia is residing for the rest of his miserable life.

This wasn't my only bad experience with doctors, it's just the next-to- the-worst of my horror stories. It's no wonder why I avoid doctors like the plague!
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Special thanks to Prof. Pete Bagnolo for his opednews.com post, "Ron Paul or Mandatory Drug Inoculations to Control and Eradicate Americans" on 1/2/08, and Chris Bidwell for his comment to Pete's article, both of which brought this spine-tingling experience to mind.
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Sandy Sand is a free lance writer residing on the Left Coast in West Hills, California.