could be worse

I am a little whiny sometimes. I get all 'ooh, my head hurts', 'oh, my legs are sore', 'oh, my tummy feels funny'. She of the stolen bike never EVER gives me any grief about these ailments or other perceived slights to my corporeal self. She always greets such exhortations of woe with an honestly sympathetic 'oh. I am so sorry'. Thus inoculated from further pain with this very sweet reminder that I am being cared for all gets better and I go bounding out the door for some new adventure.

This model did not hold true recently.

For some reason my seasonal allergies have come back this year after a decade of symptomatic summer frolicking. My head has been full of fluid, my nose had been running but I was still functioning at what appeared to be 'normal'.

Then days turned into weeks and my head had increased in weight by roughly 750 pounds and everything hurt.

I am sure you are aware that when gradual changes happen you barely notice them until one day you think to yourself 'what did it feel like to feel normal...or well even?'

That day was a Tuesday when I woke up and wished I hadn't.

I will not go on to describe the various methods of fluid removal or the relative volumes of mucus expelled, but suffice it to say that I expected to see Charlton Heston in the foreground parting a yellowish green sea as it issued from my head.

Enough was enough. She of the stolen bike suggested I try medication to cure this malady...I had not considered this option not because I fear medication, but because I hadn't thought of it. My wife was shocked when I returned from Wallgreens with a bag containing cold and flu tablets. I really don't ever take anything...ever.

That was nothing compared to the shock she suffered when the next day I called her at her office and informed her that I was going to the doctor.

I have no problems with doctors, they are all rather nice people who choose to spend most of their days looking at and prodding parts of the body I try to pretend don't exist. I don't mind shots or getting blood drawn so, why in the name of all that is holy don't I ever go to doctors? You guessed it, it is a symptom of my high capacity for self-destruction.

Anyway I was sounding like Cameron at the beginning of Ferris Beuller's Day off and was getting winded walking around the block where days before I was running ten miles at a stretch. I went to the doctor.

As soon as I made the decision to seek professional help (an impulse my friends and family wish I more often) launched in me a strange fear. What if I am not sick? What if I am just a whiny cuz? What if I get there and the doctor says 'I don't know what to say. Get over it guy'? What if that is what he said? It would prove my deepest fears and convictions that I am a wiener.

In the car on the way to the urgent care (I don't have a regular doctor) I was thinking. Damnit, I am feeling better. The doctor is going to laugh at me. Just as this thought passed through my head I had a coughing fit and like a scion from heaven a tissue full of all that a coughing fit could yield. I kept driving to the clinic.

The nurse was the kind of man I wish I could be. Scary fit talking about his marathon experiences and quoting some of his personal best times. It occurred to me that his personal best took less time than it took me to get my well fed but out of bed and into the car that morning. I coughed again desperate to be found truly sick.

The doctor came into the room. In his middle fifties he had the kindly manner one associates with places like Mayberry or Walnut Grove. He had me repeat my litany of complaints and symptoms. He nodded sagely and said 'yeah, we've been getting a lot of that'.

Crap. I am just another in a long line of 'sick' people who probably were just trying to parley a mild cold into a sick day. I am a charlatan.

He than took out his penlight and said 'well, let's take a look shall we?'. this is a strange turn of phrase, its almost as though he is inviting me to view my own nasal passages and say 'ah, yes I see'. But I digress.

He clicked that little light on, and as he was peering into my nose he uttered 'yuck' and with the light in my ears said 'sheesh' and then down my throat he actually said 'oof da'.

And with that I knew I was in. I was sick! rock on. I made a doctor say oof da!

He went on to say. 'well, it looks like you have a double ear infection a sinus infection and bronchitis. I am going to give you something for that.

I was elated. I was actually sick and not just a loser. I was so excited I went home and took a nap satisfied in the knowledge that I was a walking, talking infection. It doesn't get any better than this.