His name is Joe

It's Wednesday morning, man, the morning of April 20 -- 420 -- and here I am with no weed and no place to smoke if I did. Instead I'm sitting in a fuckin' hospital bed waiting for the physical therapist to come. But it could be worse I suppose.

I'm curious, farmboy; how could it be worse?

Well...you know, sometimes I look at my apartment when I'm at home and think "Look at all this, farmboy, look at all these luxuries. You want hot water? Turn on a faucet. Too cold? Turn up the heat. Hungry? Go to the fridge. You know, you have it better than, say, 90 percent of the world."

That's a good way to look at life, farmboy. And it's very true. But you are in a situation where your world is not the way you want it. Not that I want you to complain, but I think your life is not exactly what you'd like.

Well, yeah. If I want to think about it, my life fuckin' sucks. But it could be worse. I'm supposed to get better. This fuckin' accident could have been a whole lot worse. I still have my brain and heart and I'm working on my legs. 

This is what I'm telling myself this morning, anyway.

Also, all this stuff I'm saying is kinda meant to combat self-pity, and I'm not sure this is all about self-pity. I think this is more about depression.

I agree, farmboy. I don't want you to start feeling guilty because you're feeling bad. You're on all these medications for depression. You saw a psychologist the other day because of your depression.

Fuck, man, my life has been fuckin' ruled by depression.

Excuse me, man. Somebody's at the door.

(farmboy tells the visitors to come in. Three adults come in and ask farmboy if he wants a therapy dog to visit him, which he does. The dog, a long-haired brown medium-large sized friendly animal named Joe, goes over to farmboy and immediately starts licking farmboy's hand. The two visit for a good while, Joe licking his new friend's hand and farmboy speaking to Joe while smoothing over his long fur. After a while, the adults and Joe leave to go visit other patients. farmboy resumes talking to the interviewer.)

Man, this dog just came in.

Therapy dog?

Yeah, a therapy dog. His name is Joe. What a sweetheart! Man, my life is a zillion times better when a dog is in it. He could have stayed forever.

Okay, what were we talking about?