On my first rehab attempt I wrote almost nothing and afterwards
wound up taking a two-hour nap.
I may want to be
ready to start ramping up, but I’m not certain I am. (Apparently, there is
more exertion required than pressing down the keys.)
I automatically hearken back to ten years ago when I
contracted mononucleosis. There’s a small demographic cohort for
you – a sixty year-old man getting mono.
Echoing the unusualness of my current
situation – getting Legionnaire’s Disease alone.
Everybody gets sick.
But getting mono at sixty and Legionnaire’s Disease alone – it just
seems…
Weird.
Another similarity with both afflictions involves the
recovery process. I am reminded of Mel
Brooks’ “Two Thousand Year Old Man” answering the question about ancient
times: “What happened when you got sick
back then?”, to which Brooks, as the character, replied,
“You just lay there till you got better.”
That’s what I did ten years ago. And that’s what I’m doing again. The only available treatment is time.
Another
similarity, if you can handle it? When
they told me I had mono and more recently that I had Legionnaire’s Disease, my
reaction on both occasions was identical:
“I have what?”
I remember ten years ago spending six hours lying in some
cubicle with a curtain around it at Santa Monica’s Saint John’s Hospital (whose
name I could not identify during a diagnostic examination even though I knew
it, indicating something was suspiciously haywire with my brain.)
They put a hydrating “drip” in my arm, they did numerous blood
tests, they did a CAT Scan. And six
hours later, at about two in the morning, an E.R. doctor steps into my cubicle
and says, “Mr. Pomerantz, you have mononucleosis.” To which, as previously mentioned, I replied:
“I have what?”
“ Our tests reveal you have mononucleosis.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“You know that I’m
sixty.”
“It is definitely mononucleosis.”
“So what do I do for it?’
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“There is no treatment other than rest.”
“For how long?”
“It varies.”
I have a tendency to chuckle when I ought to be angry. “You went to medical school to learn ‘It
varies’?”
“So you’re not admitting me to the hospital.”
“No.”
“Is there a specialist I can see?”
“No.”
“Any medicine to help speed up the process?”
“No. You just need to
go home and rest.”
It felt like an anti-climax to me. You’re in the hospital, you expect them do something. I was relieved,
of course – to not have anything worse.
But – and maybe it’s because I’m a comedy person – the diagnosis, to me,
seemed…
Silly.
And now, here we are again.
“I have what?”
Oh well. What are you
gonna do?
I know.
Rest.
3 comments:
I associate Legionnaire's Disease with contaminated water. It really isn't about being with other people; it's just that the contaminated water is usually in systems serving a load of people (on a ship, in a hotel).
So the one thing to worry about, I guess, is that the contaminated water system is following you around.
Rest well.
wg
According to Wikipedia, individual cases of Legionaires is more common than group outbreaks. Surprise surprise, you're not a trend setter.
I'm just glad you're back, and doing well. Still enjoying the posts, too, just don't push too much if what you need is rest. If you wear yourself out, you'll just have to rest that much longer.
Which doesn't sound awful, but I know how frustrating it is for fatigue to keep you from doing the things you want to do.
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