Monday, December 27, 2004

Patient Zero

I'm alive. Fresh from waking in my own bed after four days of not. We traveled with Vash and Chiana, kitty-corner in the back seat.

Wednesday morning I spent two hours in Urgent Care. A nurse ran a thermometer across my forehead. Then she asked me to change into a backless gown and said, "The doctor will see you shortly." I sat on the examination table and read Harlan Ellison's "Strange Wine."

After listening to my chest and looking deep into my ears, the doctor prescribed cough syrup with codeine and ordered a blood test. The test came back normal. My platelets are still low, that's no surprise, but my white blood cells were fine. While I waited for the blood test results, my endocrinologist called for an update. The whole blood cell count is a formality, there's only a slim chance the amount of Tapazole I'm taking would be a problem, but I'd done the right thing.

As soon as I got home (codeine cough syrup in hand) we left for our Grand Christmas Family Extravaganza. No computers. No updates. Two bereft back seat cats and a purse full of tissue, cough drops, cough syrup, and pills of many colors. That's how the Wise Men did it, right?

Family time was good. No controversy. I spent most of it doped up on one couch or another.

Our trip was secretly sponsored by the Masons. My dad gave me Dan Brown's "Angels and Demons" to read and then with BF's family we saw most of "The Man Who Would Be King," and then "National Treasure." All feature references to the Masons. Hence my blanket statement.

And now it's raining. And BF caught my cold. A lot of people probably caught my cold this trip. I bet I sat next to you in the movie theatre sucking back cough drops. Or maybe I stood beside you in line at Pat & Oscar's. I single-handedly took whole families down, highlighting the inefficiency of flu-shot distribution. It was a political statement. Yeah, fight the fucking power.

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