One Too Many Potatoes: June 2015

My wife came down with a bad cold & cough on Memorial Day night and I came down with the same cold & cough the following Saturday day. She started feeling better as I started feeling rottener, so it was obvious that she had mysteriously transported her germs over to me without my permission.

Even though I asked her to stay home from work and/or go to the doctor when she was sick, she refused. She is tougher than nails. Tougher than John Wayne, Clint Eastwood and Genghis Kahn rolled into one (but a LOT prettier!) I am surprised germs even dare to go near her.

Me, on the other hand, am a wimp. Without any prodding from my wife, I stayed home two days.

I emailed my boss that I wouldn’t be in on Tuesday because I hadn’t gotten done what he wanted me to do and now I am dying and could he push off my project for maybe say a week or so? And I emailed him early on Wednesday to let him know that I was still dying and did that project get done? If not then I will be dying on Thursday also. And possibly Friday. Although by the weekend I should be undead.

I told my wife that I thought I was dying and that I should go to the doctor as soon as possible.

Her reply? “It’s just a bad cold; you don’t go to the doctor for a cold.”

The local clinic opened at 8:00 on Wednesday and I was there at 7:59:59 banging on the door.

“Let me in! I am dying!”

When the student nurse came to get me after 300 seconds of waiting in agony, we did several laps around the inside of the facility as she was new and was unfamiliar with the floor plan and didn’t know if my room was on Hallway C or D. On the tenth lap the track announcer said we were in the lead by “a lot” and when the nurse’s station finally waved the checkered flag they then gave us directions to room 222.

(And has anyone ever unraveled the code behind those mysterious colored room flags? You know – the red, yellow, black, blue, etc. little plastic flags that the nurse or doctor flips out or in. I know that red and black indicate a hurricane warning, but I am not sure about the others.)

The student nurse tried to take my blood pressure but she was confused by the velcro on the BP cuff and had the thing upside down. She finally figured it out. Perhaps she struggled in Velcro 101 in Nursing School. But she was very nice.

“Your BP is fine,” she said, “It’s 100 MPH over 33 1/3 RPM.”

As she went out the door I noticed she was dropping bread crumbs so she could find her way back.

Then the doctor came in.

“Doctor,” said I, “I think I am dyeing!”

“Are you sure?” she said, “what color were you before?”

“Sorry Doc, I meant to type “I am DYING!! As in a Christian Ponder pass attempt!” She immediately knew what I meant and I could see the look of concern on her face by the depth of her furrowed brow which was brownish in color with just a hint of auburn.

“Why do you think you are dying?” she asked.

I have a raging fever, can you check my temp?”

She did…she said it was a normal 98.6.

“That must be Celsius!” I said. “Can you check that again???”

This is just a little deviation from the main story, but who determined 98.6 degrees is “normal” anyway? Maybe the rock band “Keith” paid off the AMA back in ’67 so their song “98.6” would make sense:

Hey, 98.6, it's good to have you back again
Oh, hey, 98.6, her lovin' is the medicine
That saved me, oh, I love my baby

That sounds a lot better than:

Hey, 100.0, it’s good to have you back again

Oh, hey, 100.0, her lovin’ is the medicine

That saved me, oh, I love my baby

Back to the main story and me.

The doctor was a Physician’s Assistant and not a real doctor so maybe that explains why my temp was normal. A “PA” is an abbreviation for the Latin “almostus a doctorus.” A PA can do everything a real doctor can do except what is defined by the AMA as “icky stuff.” The American Motorcycle Association defines “icky stuff” as “anything on the outside of you that should be on the inside, and anything on the inside of you that should be on the outside.

After my DIS-appointment (the doctor refused to believe that I was dying) I went to that place that’s on the corner of Healthy and Happy which is directly across the street from their nemesis CVS [Comma Value Separated] Pharmacy. I purchased 17 large bottles of Dayquil, 24 bottles of Nyquil, and a couple bottles each of MorningQuil and EveningQuil. And cough drops…lots and lots and lots of cough drops. I purchased a case of sugar free what are technically called “Cough Suppressants/Oral Anesthetics.” I put several in my mouth and duct taped a bag to each arm as I figured they would work like those nicotine patches.

I told my coworkers to stay away from my cube because “germs as big as blackbirds are flying around down here in I25.” (Is it just me or does I25 sound like a prison cell number?)

And I for one am so glad that our company has Professional Series "AngelSoft" facial tissue. At least I didn't have to deal with amateur series facial tissue during my long illness.

I am on the mend now. My temp is pretty much back to normal from my raging fever. I will check with my boss to see if my near-death experience was justification for not doing what it was I was supposed to be doing when I wasn’t doing it.

The end.

Dan Vander Ark