I just returned from the doctor’s office where Doctor Bhuvaneswari Thirunavukkarasu (yes, her real name) listened to my rattling pipes and took some X-rays. Upon looking at my cloudy lungs on her computer screen, she said, "You have pleuritis." When I asked her what this meant, she said, "It means you are not racing your bicycle tomorrow."
Last night I felt OK, at least until I went to bed. Once I was horizontal for a while, it suddenly hurt like hell to breathe, and I was only able to take in shallow breaths. It felt like I was drowning, and it freaked my out a little. I thought to myself if it gets much worse I may have to call 911. Seriously. I popped a couple of Advil hoping to take the edge off the pain, and unknowingly did exactly what was needed: The ibuprofen helped with the inflammation of my pluera, and the pain eased up within 15 minutes. I fell asleep and felt much, much better this morning.
Still, I kept my appointment today because there was just enough pain to be concerned about. I figured if I was really OK, the doc would give me a clean bill of health, and I'd be off to the races. Otherwise, I would honor her advice whatever it may be.
So after the poking, prodding and pictures, she told me what I didn’t want to hear, and I reluctantly agreed to take it easy for a few days. When I stood up to leave her office, I think she could tell I was still considering the race. Her exact words were, "You would have to be an idiot to race your bike, OK?"
"I know," I replied. "I know."
Later.
OK, two things: first, pleurisy sucks. I had it once about 20 years ago and thought I was going to die.
ReplyDeleteSecond: after reading most of the posts on your blog, I must conclude that you do in fact have excellent writing skills. It makes me wonder why you ended up in IT. I see obvious parallels to my own career path which led me from a BA in Rhetoric to working as a server admin... Kind of odd.
Keep up the posting!