Pathetic Excuse - Pneumonia

I didn't play any games Saturday, unless 'blowing my nose into a hand towel for twelve hours' is a game. And if it is, I don't know if I won or lost.

It started Friday afternoon, when I started to get a little tickle in the back of my throat. It sort of feels like when you get a piece of popcorn stuck halfway down, and you spend the whole afternoon trying to clear your throat. Only it's not really popcorn, it's actually a teensy weensy infected spot that's about to leave you bedridden all weekend.

I woke up Saturday morning feeling like I snorted a belt sander. My throat was raw from my nostrils down to my belly button. I couldn't consume anything except hot tea and chicken soup, and I could only have those when I was awake long enough to warm them up. This tends to put a crimp in game-playing plans, because aside from being potentially communicable, it's tough to play a game when your brains are continually attempting to escape your head via your nasal cavity.

By Sunday, the throat problem was gone. But I was not out of the woods - the throat was better because all the pain hooligans had packed up their camping gear and headed south. They set up camp in my lungs, and tried their best to make me cough up soft tissue. Breathing was difficult, and I once again found myself unable to keep my eyes propped open without the use of toothpicks or very small alligator clamps. And since I'm not going to put either of those things in my eyes, I spent most of Sunday in bed, too.

Waking up Monday morning, I decided that I must have slept with my mouth open, and during the night, a band of overweight porcupines had crawled in and set up shop deep in my chest. It reminded me of being a smoker, because every time I tried to breath, my lungs wanted to implode and shards of glass would stab into my soft inner parts. I decided it was high time that I visited a doctor.

The doctor began by listening to my symptoms, and then asked me if I had been exposed to tuberculosis. I don't think he actually thought I had that. He only asked about tuberculosis so that when he told me what I really had, I would say, 'Oh thank God!' rather than the 'son of a bitch!' that should normally accompany an unpleasant diagnosis. He was one tricky bastard.

So they took the x-ray, and then the doctor came in and said, 'you have pneumonia. This is a thing where your lungs have an infection or something, and they fill up with blood.' And then I said, 'Oh thank God!', because I was just happy I didn't have tuberculosis.

The absolute worst part of the whole ordeal was that the doctor ordered two shots. One was a steroid shot, and the other was antibiotics. And both had to be delivered into the softest, fleshiest part of my body - my ass. I would argue that my belly is quickly growing to be a contender, but I think they just play it safe. Also, I think medical professionals get a kick of making a grown-ass man drop his pants halfway down his ass-cheek and then sticking a needle in his rump.

It would have been a lot better with a different nurse. I was hoping the nurse would be middle-aged, maybe with crow's feet and a wart on her nose. I don't care if some ugly old battleaxe nurse looks at the top half of my full moon. But the girl who came in with the needles was like 26, and cute as a bug's ear. It's bad enough having a stranger put her hands on my flabby glutes. When that stranger could be a calendar girl, the end result is me feeling like balder, fatter, grayer and older than I already do. And that's saying something.

Anyway, after all those shots and the prescription pills I'm taking besides, I'm feeling much better. I'm still choking up a Grayhound bus every time I cough, but I'm not coughing near as much, and I may have managed to evict the porcupines. However, since I did not play any games this weekend, it seems that you'll have to settle for this moderately entertaining story of respiratory infection, instead of a review. Hopefully I can bribe my family into a game tonight, and then I'll have something interesting for Wednesday.