Q&A

I was wrong: it’s TWO years since I last went to the doctor’s, according to my new doctor at the Tulane Family Health Something or Other. My old doctor couldn’t see me until January 23rd, and if I’m still sick by then I should be hospitalized, probably. It’s so long since I’ve been, I’ve managed to lose my insurance card.

My old doctor was nice, but she was a little too into the bedside manner. She was always asking me things like “what kind of novels do you write?” when all I wanted her to do was give me medication with “may be habit-forming” printed on the label.

The new doctor confirmed the following: usually only children get ear infections like mine; Nyquil is the best thing ever; the antibiotics Dr. Sean gave me in Marksville are doing their job; and Tulane has a crummy health savings account. Something he told me without being asked: I have good teeth. Something I did not ask him, though I wanted to: do I have West Nile Virus? (I’m still getting bitten by mosquitoes, even now in what’s supposed to the depth of winter – twice this week in the night, and every time I go out onto the porch to play with Skittles.)

According to T. Middy, all the vials of blood drawn from my lethargic form today will not confirm or deny this self-diagnosis, because the new doctor is only checking my thyroid and liver.

Yesterday I went to the chiropractor because my neck is killing me; I can’t turn my head without pain. He asked me the following questions: have you been sleeping on your stomach? Lying on the sofa while you watch TV? Hunching over the computer?

Of course, I have been doing all three, some of them simultaneously, though I was non-committal when confronted. I spent most of yesterday afternoon and today with a bag of frozen peas (wrapped in a tea towel) clamped to my neck, as instructed. The chiropractor didn’t specify peas, just the frozen part. I had to go to Langenstein’s to buy a new bag of peas, because I’d been using an open bag and T. Middy was selfishly complaining about frozen peas in the bed. I expect Robert Browning was more supportive.

A friend e-mailed me yesterday to say he’d read my blog for the first time. He said he expected it to be my “musings on the great issues of our time or something,” and pretended to be delighted that it’s nothing of the sort.

Despite my near-death status, I’ve given this matter some thought today, in between reading short stories, watching “Everyday Italian” on the Food Network, and ordering re-fills online from The Republic of Tea. We are concerned with many of the great issues of the day here in the MM household, and perhaps I’m not sharing enough of them.

For example, we have followed my sister’s example and have renounced plastic bags at the supermarket: we take our own cloth/hessian bags on shopping expeditions. Last week,after watching an Oprah re-run (Oprah Goes Green, featuring Matt Damon, etc), I ordered some organic cotton eco-bags for fruit and vegetables. Today I got an e-mail telling me my order will be delayed because of a “large increase in demand” following the Oprah broadcast. This led to the following conversation with T. Middy.

TM: I can’t believe any wife I may have, now or in the future, would buy something because she saw it on Oprah.
PJKM: What do you mean, ‘now or in the future’?
TM: I have to keep my options open.

(Later he added: “That’s the kind of language they use in legal contracts.”)

During the nightly news, we had the following profound and intellectual exchanges.

Watching the television news (I):
(A report on Mitt Romney and the New Hampshire primary)
PJKM: What is Mitt short for?
TM: Mitten?

Watching the television news (II):
PJKM: Whenever I hear the words “blue chip,” I think about that place we went to in Santa Fe, where we sat at the bar and wrote postcards and we had those blue tortilla chips.
TM: You do realize that when they’re talking about “blue chip stocks,” they don’t mean tortilla chips?

One other question I’d like to ask today, before I retreat into the mists of Nyquil: why do my students not realize that just as they can visit my blog and read everything I write here, I can visit the Facebook page they’ve created in my (dis)honor? At least they used a cute picture, I guess.

Comments

[Brando]

TM certainly understands a) the power of the Oprah brand and b) the psychological profile of his (current) spouse.

[Grendel]

I've taken time off from reading or writing on blogs, but posts like this remind me all over again why I love the Internets. I sprained my ankle the other day and I, too, have sought out the antiswelling properties of frozen vegetables. Mine happens to be mixed veggies and a separate, but attached, pouch full of frozen curry sauce. We were planning to eat it once I got well, but now that we watch it thaw on my foot every night...

[pjkm]

I've never considered frozen curry sauce: that is a top tip.

Grendel: I've been slack about updating this blog, or commenting on Earthgoat, because when I have so many deadlines I feel guilty about Internet time. I've recovered from all my illnesses, just about, but the new semester's begun. This means campus is swarming with virus-carrying or bacteria-laden youth. Yesterday one of my students told me that on Tuesday alone, the Health Center diagnosed 90 sorority girls with the flu. Illness is decimating rush week! Carnival, too. (I'll post pictures from the first parade later today, deadlines and guilt notwithstanding.

[Grendel]

Perhaps you should become the Kiwi in the Bubble - protect yourself from those student viruses.