PNEUMONIA

For 10 days I have been feeling very sick.  So sick I hadn’t eaten in about 3 days! Food had no taste, I had a constant headache, and I was shivering and falling off to sleep frequently. I couldn’t stop this terrible hacking cough that seemed like I would be productive, only to be denied.

The Little Woman (TLW) finally said the magic words: “GO TO THE DOCTOR!” That was in the back of my mind and I was inching towards that but not yet quite convinced to do so. The thought of getting dressed and going into my car on a cold day didn’t appeal to me with a headache and chills and the cough,

Finally I made an appointment and off I went to Dr. Strangeglove.

Arriving at his office, his staff went through the usual rigmarole of record keeping and in I went almost immediately, which was a shock to my system.

He checks me out and says: “Did you take your blood-pressure medicine today?”

“Yes”

“Hmmm…. Did you take any over the counter medications and what were they?”

I list them all and think maybe one of the meds was the culprit for my elevation of pressure.

“We’re going to get some x-rays now.”

I love the ‘we’, and wonder who will go first, him or me? The good doctor leads me down the hall to his high tech x-ray machine, where X-Ray Mary greets me. Void of personality, she leads me to the wall and sets up the machine. She adjusts the plate for my chin and then goes into the little room, asks my name, how to spell it and what am I shooting. WHAT AM I SHOOTING! Well how about for starters I shoot her.

She becomes totally disarrayed, confused and slightly agitated and runs out of the room, leaving me standing there with an apron hanging over my butt and wondering what I did wrong.

Suddenly the room is crowded with two doctors, a staff person and X-Ray Mary, who is now in near tears while one of the doctors decides to undo everything and re-ask the questions and shoot the X-Ray. I’m standing at the wall and he has a device in his hand that he sticks on me somehow.

“I’m measuring you before I shoot.”

“I take a 44 regular, no cuffs.”

Off I head back to Dr. Strangeglove who calls up the X-Ray and asks me to sit.

“Now here is the x-ray I took of you last August. Notice in the right lung, everything is clean, you can see veins and here is the recent x-ray from a few moments ago, where you can see no veins, two masses that indicate pneumonia and last night’s Jack Daniels. Your infection you once had has now evolved into pneumonia!"

And so I have pneumonia, and let me tell you, it is NO fun.

But I plan to live a little longer, just to feel what normal is like, once again.