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I have the flu, and it won’t shake.
I have the usual symptoms – congested head and lungs, hacking cough, malaise/aches and guilt. Mercifully there are no GI symptoms. I loathe throwing up.
Like a fool, I continue to go to work – when you are a doctor, calling in sick means the receptionist has to call over 2 dozen people to inform them their appointment is canceled – some of them have been waiting over a month to come in. And they would be told there is no appointment until 8 weeks from now. She’ll get the grunt of their wrath.
So doctors stupidly don’t follow their own recommendations to stay home/get sleep don’t work etc.
Patients tend to be not so needy when their doctor looks visibly ill.
At home I am getting in touch with my inner-Tina. In the movie “Diary of a Mad Housewife” Tina is going bats as she has a household of problems but the worse is her sick spouse. He is needy and continually calls (in a whiny voice) “Tina! Teena ! Teeeeeeeena!” for her to nurse him.
Allegedly the stronger sex, men make horrible patients.
I don’t think antibiotics are indicated; I am taking some cough medication and NSAIDs. They seem to help – temporarily.
I have no desire to eat or drink so I suspect I will loose some weight in this, as is my wont.
Gatorade is the official drink for sick Spos.
So far this week hasn’t been any good. I came back from my holiday to develop flu or pneumonia; I am tired of hacking and my chest hurts.
Last night I kept waking up ‘drowning’ in fluids in the lungs. How bizarre is this – last night Mama Cass’ “Dream a little dream of me” kept going through my mind. Putting these two together = she is haunting me and wants me to join her……
I also have a bad heat rash on my chest, and a lip with cold sores. I feel leprous.
Work is ticklish – not only is the clinic trying to deal with one less doctor, some of the billing and receptionist staff simply stopped coming in. So a skeleton crew is trying to deal with the deluge of telephone calls and Rx requests etc.
There are other matters at work too, but for safety’s sake I won’t talk about them here. They are upsetting though; they effect my sleep.
Listening to NPR I hear about a fungus that will probably kill off over 90% of the New England bat population. I found this really depressing. They join the frogs and the bees in massive die offs. Apparently I made some major errors in my 2007 taxes; so I am going from a tax return to OWING taxes. So much for my savings.
Meanwhile, stocks and my savings drop and drop……
No fun in this.
When my grandmother was a girl she took a cruise with her sisters. On the return cruise they gained enough weight to no longer fit in their dresses. The ship’s seamstress had to let out their gowns.
I recalled this story last week on my recent cruise; there is too much food at sea.
There is nearly 24 hours access to food on a cruise. When the dining room is closed, there is some open buffet where you can get nearly anything. And there is always room service. At dinner, there are four courses (appetizer, soup, dinner and dessert) – and you can have two of each thing of you like. People often got did this. I would love someone to explain to me the excitement over ‘midnight buffet’. This extravagant phenomenon happens ~ 2-4 hours after a full dinner. What puzzles me is people come early to photograph the food – there is a long line just to take pictures! Small wonder people gain weight on a cruise.
Along with no limits on food, no one seems to have much willpower to stop eating. Perhaps there is an unspoken thought that the price of a cruise includes the food – so get your money’s worth.
And the average cruise-goer doesn’t have ‘room to grow’. I have never seen so many overweight people as on a cruise. The men seem worse but that may be simply because I was checking them out more closely. Everybody looks short of a heart attack. No ‘eye candy’ on a cruise but there is inspiration to stay with the personal trainer!
I took the opposite approach – I ate ‘better’, not worse, as fresh fruit and vegetables were so available. I like oatmeal; on board I had it every morning. At night I mostly ate the vegetarian alternative dinner. Mercifully, alcohol is ‘extra’ so you have to pay for any booze. And I was too cheap to imbibe too much.
Between active days and prudent eating I lost a few pounds. How many others could say that?
My first attempt at writing a fairy tale was deemed a success. Here is another one.
Lord-Great-Jaguar-Paw ruled a kingdom so old and ancient the homes and palaces were heated with rocks still cooling down. Lord-Great-Jaguar-Paw was king as his name was voted “Most butch”.
Lord-Great-Jaguar-Paw (known to his mother as Kitten) lorded over a very large province and a large family. His children were a source of great joy – and a puzzlement – for surely, he had ED. Yet every year Queen-Sheila-Badger-Breath put out another child.
“Goodness knows where she gets them!” he would cry out.
Some of his children were a worry. His oldest was a charming boy who liked nothing better than to make paper airplanes and race cars out of pinewood. Since neither of these means of transport would be invented for 3000 years, no one understood what the hell they were for.
The next son was a merry lad who liked nothing more than to arrange flowers and design next year’s robes for the high priests. He also choreographed the slaves who danced at state banquets.
”He will make some woman a good husband’ LGJP would say to with satisfaction.
The third son had the unfortunate name of Evelyn. Apparently no one looked too closely when he was born, and by the time of his baptism, it was too late.
In a month that had two Mondays in the same week, Evelyn fell sick. He was speaking in tongues nonstop. At first it was assumed he was having blessings from the gods; people came from afar to hear his words. But soon it became apparent Evelyn was as crazy as a shi-t house rat.
LGJP called for Fabulous-Spo-Hugger-of-Bears, M.D. to practice his craft. FSHB realized if he was discovered for the great physician he was, he would never be released from service. Besides, he had theatre tickets that evening. He denied who he was. But with threats to cut off his tea supply, he changed his mind.
He performed his shaman dancing and sang prayers. He injected Thorazine. Lo! Evelyn was better and FSHB’s worse fears were realized: he was appointed court shrink to LGJP.
He became famous for his healing. A little blue diamond shaped pill from the far off kingdom of Pfizer cured LGJP of his personal problem, much to the chagrin of his wife.
He cured the queen of depression. He chose not to use the old Sumerian recipe of smashed pearls, cobra venom and mare’s blood (a remedy that killed as swift as any knife to the side). Rather, he administered a little green and white pill. Her relief was great but she was no longer interested in sex, let alone with Jaguar.
So LGJP took a new wife and soon there were another troop of kiddies banging into the palace furniture.
To everyone’s surprise, Sheila did not hate the new queen.
The moral of this legend? People are incalculable.
I am back from my holiday in the Caribbean. It was a lovely time.
I missed blogging. I hope to ‘stop by’ this evening and get up to date on everyone’s lives.I am rather tired; there is unpacking to do…..
So here are the highlights of my trip –
We had a malfunction of our camera so we have absolutely no pictures! We relied on DougT of Gossamer Tapestry so please visit his blog for some photos. In between the bugs and the birds you may see photos of us. Later, when he sends me some via email, I can post a few.
First of all I want to clarify there were no bright blue tarantulas Rodger, so go suck your lemons.
Second, nobody pushed anybody into a volcano or off a cliff etc.
It was a very active trip – what with hiking on Dominica, kayaking in Grenada, and walking everywhere else.
For the first time ever I swung on a trapeze! This was off the starboard bow of a 1924 sailboat into the waters off of Aruba. I could not pass it up the invitation: the instructor was such as nice young man. He had double pierced nipples, so there was talk.
We went to St. Martin, Dominica, Grenada, Bonaire, and Aruba. St. Martin has a nude beach. Cell phones and cameras are not allowed but considering the average age of a nudist is ~ 75 years old and they are quite out of shape doesn’t inspire photography. The best part of the trip was snorkeling off of Aruba. The water there is very clear and blue. The worse part of the trip; we missed our boat to go on a pirate ride. Nothing disappoints so much as dashed hopes of being at the mercy of pirates.
Being at sea always soothes me; on the day we were entirely at sea I slept nearly 18 hours.
We met some fine fellows; a man from L.A and a couple from Salt Lake City were very good company. We hope to stay in touch.
Before dinner our tour group met for cocktails – I had something called a ‘dirty martini’. It was rather delicious and I hope to have another some day – but not for many months. I had quite enough booze for a while.
Due to the tropical sun, I am as dark as a native. Someone is quite pink.
Tomorrow it is back to the salt mines . . . . . . . . .
We are in Orlando, Florida (Land of The Mouse). Our flight to Puerto Rico is not for a few hours. They have internet connections here in Florida (who knew?); I am catching up with blogs after 3-4 days.
We took the ‘red eye’ last night from Phoenix. I don’t recommend these things. I don’t sleep in hot closed areas, in turbulence and sitting up. I have been more or less awake since 5AM Friday morning.
I had a cup of coffee from the Evil Empire viz. Starbucks - my first cup in 6 months – I have palpitations and feel buzzed yet I am falling asleep. What a combination. Someone proposes we have a cocktail on board – that will be the death knell !
So that is about all the news.
We fly this evening on the ‘red-eye’ to Orlando Florida, prior to a flight to San Juan. This is from whence the cruise ship departs. Between the week’s activity and the lack of sleep/time zone change, I suspect our first night on board will be a very long sleep.
I sleep very well on a boat.
I am bringing along my laptop as I want to keep in touch. I will try to post.
Someone has a camera; I am not good at posting pictures, but I will try to post some shots. Please visit Gossamer Tapestry as DougT is very clever at photographs. Between the shots of the bugs and butterflies, you may see snapshots of our party.
Just don’t believe everything DougT writes about me. If Dominica doesn’t have internet access then I will see you all in a week or so! :-(
I will send you warm thoughts from the Caribbean.
I love to make lists. I call them “My Peripheral Brain”.
Lists make order out of the hummingbird-like thoughts in my head.In preparation of a major holiday, lists are all over the place – lists of things to do, lists of things to pack, lists lists lists.
Here are some of things on my list of ‘things to pack” for our upcoming holiday.
The dimensions of our tables. Someone likes tablecloths and runners; if we happen to find something it is good to know if it would fit our furniture.
A charger for the ipods.
Several books – “The Pickwick Papers’, “the Essential Dali Lama”, “The Golden Compass”.
A backpack for our hiking outings. Better add a some binoculars too.
The address book. This is for the postcards for the people who would be miffed not to get a post card.
A deck of UNO cards.
“Hamburger Helper” for the boudoir (No, I won’t elaborate; my family reads this blog for Pete’s sake).
The recent issues of GAMES Magazine to do on the flights.
Talcum powder – I am returning to lands with humidity. Yucko.
And
“Proper” tea. The stuff on cruise ships is dreadful.
How real is blogging?
I am aware of some friction going on in blog-land about identity. Apparently some bloggers get accused from time to time of not being real people. These blogs are ‘false fronts’ i.e. the writer of the blog and what they report is made up. I’ve heard this enough to sense if may be true. Last year when Scott-O-Rama announced he was a ‘she’ hiding behind the made up persona of “Scott” I believed it for a short while – until I realized the he wrote it on April Fool’s Day.
Building a bogus blog isn’t as intriguing to me as how much truth really goes into anyone’s blog.
Some of the blogs I read are authored by people uncomfortable disclosing too much, as they are in the closet to some degree.Some bloggers have been very hurt by revealing too much about themselves – especially about work related matters. So they limit their blogs limited to certain topics.
It makes me reflect upon what I do and do not put into my own blog. There are a few things about me I won’t discuss here. I suspect others do the same.
So if we hold back certain topics, how well do we know about each other?
I know some of you very well – maybe more than my ‘real life’ friends. I suspect I know some only as carefully chosen Personas.
And maybe a few are ‘made up’?
It is curious.
When I am feeling despondent, I take the Julie Andrews approach, and think about my favorite things. (There is no singing involved)
Here are the 8 things I do when “down in the dumps”.
1) I will leave this one blank. My family reads my blog.
2) Watch a Marx Brothers movie. I learned this fantastic intervention from one of my analysis professors. He thought whenever a person was taking things or their lives too seriously, watching the Marx Brothers was a good tonic to put things back into perspective. My favorite is “Duck Soup”.
3) Make and eat a lot of macaroni and cheese.This hot and wholesome dish is the best comfort food I know. I use plenty of pepper.
4) Reread a favorite book (or a favorite passage of one).“The Phantom Tollbooth” is good for depressed moods. So are the recipe books by Ruby Ann Boxcar. The updates on her neighbors always produce a smile and a cheer-up. My favorites are the updates of trailer park neighbor Opal and her (now ex) spouse Dick Inman.
5) Put on a “Firesign Theatre” CD. “The Adventures of Nick Danger” series is fantastic. If you can get a hold on “Everything you know is wrong” – well, this one is a guarantee for cheering-up.
6) Call the Best Friend. Just hearing his voice gets me to smile and giggle, knowing what is coming.
7) Read the Forgiveness Prayer. I posted this as my 4/2/07 entry. If you haven’t read it yet, do so; it never fails to make me laugh.
Make some Tea.The ritual of preparing a pot of tea puts me into a soft serene state of being. The inhalation of the aroma/the sensation of the hot liquid about to be consumed make me smile every time.
If these 8 interventions should ever fail, then there is always medication: Skittles or Gummi-Bears – taken three times a day on an empty stomach.
