March 20, 2007 at 12:00 pm (It's a medical condition, That Darn Cat)
I’ve been watching a lot of House, MD lately, so I assumed that when I saw the doctor yesterday he was going to be a jerk by storming in, diagnosing my problem in a second and then insulting me three ways from Tuesday. I was prepped and okay with that, because at least I would have a diagnosis. But when my substitute doctor showed up (my primary’s on vacay for a week…) he had the demeanor of a librarian. Or Mr. Rodgers. Either way, he was really nice and concerned for my well-being. He told me I don’t have a sinus infection, because I would KNOW if I had a sinus infection. He told me that he’d give me antibiotics if I wanted, but, “you don’t seem like the kind of person who likes to take medications you don’t need.” I guess he did have me figured out.
He did diagnose one significant problem, and that is an eight pound parasite that I’ve been carrying around for about fifteen years or so. Despite myself, I’ve been feeding this malignant growth every day, and letting it shed cells that aggravate my respiratory functions. I will probably live with this malady for another five years or so unless I take drastic action, and the thought of that is too terrifying. However, as long as I stay healthy and keep my environment clean, I may be able to avoid future sinus and breathing problems. As gross as it seems, I want to share a picture I have of the thing that ails me:
I have a feline infection. I’m allergic to the cat. Additionally, I have an aversion to cleaning, so there’s lots of hair and dander and my old cottage has lots of hiding places for all that junk. If I want to stay healthy, I’ll have to get rid of the cat, or find a way to confine her to a small section of the kitchen. Neither of these things will be happening, however, because she’s old and set in her ways, and I find that her company is worth a little suffering. I’m simply going to have to clean more, and there’s no pill for that.
5 Comments
March 20, 2007 at 2:36 am (It's a medical condition)
Despite spending Friday snowed in at Birmingham’s (and coming about a foot away from my car skidding into a farmhouse on the drive over,) and watching St. Patrick’s Day pass me by as I put a seven hour shift in at the bookstore, and then going down for dinner in the city on Sunday and spending about as much time on the train as actually in the city, I can’t think of an interesting framework to make all the stuff from this past weekend blogworthy.
Also, I’m still fighting off the cold from hell. I got home from work at 5:30, turned up my heat (extravagant!) and cuddled into bed to fight off the headache from hell (loosely associated with the cold from hell.) My quick hour-long nap just ended at 10:00. I was a little disappointed to wake up and find that for the first time in a week, my throat’s not sore. Probably because I finally made a doctor’s appointment for tomorrow morning. There’s no better way to assure that you’re going to get better than to commit to a $20 copay to find out why you’re not better yet.
Upon this 10:00 awakening, I was surprised to find I wasn’t hungry for dinner, but I had a huge craving for salt. Thankfully, I have a few carrots and some celery and a package of Ramen in the kitchen, so I was good to go. After three agonizing minutes, the soup was ready to eat, and I decided to kick it up a notch by shaking in some veggie Parmesan cheese I’ve had in the fridge for a while. The only thing? The once off-white cheese product came out with some bluish-green chunks. Can fake cheese get moldy? I tried to pick out the chunks, but when one adds water soluble cheese product to soup, the “cheese” has a tendency to disappear. I picked out as much off-color cheese product as I could, but I don’t think I got it all. It may be gross, but I actually ate the soup, but here are my reasonings:
1. It might not have been mold, because the “cheese” wasn’t that old.
2. I got most of it out.
3. I boiled the soup an extra minute just in case.
4. I know that tomorrow I’ll feel fine if I go to the doctor, and I’m sure that means mold can’t touch me, either.
5. It was my last carrot, my last stalk of celery, and my last packet of Ramen. It was either soup or nothing, and out of respect to all those people who lived through the great depression, I just can’t waste food.
I can’t even call for help if I need to, because I just realized that my cell phone is still at my office, 100% charged. It’s right under the desk where lies the piece of paper with the doctor’s written address on it. And despite the fact that I have a key to the office, there’s no way I’m driving down there and walking through a spooky warehouse at night just so I can know where to drive tomorrow and then call Birmingham to bitch about being sick. He’ll just tell me to gargle some salt water and hope that the moldy cheese has penicillin-like effects.
6 Comments
