Somebody put their disease in me

Well I'm officially sick, and it sucks. It's this post-nasal drip with a sore-when-I-swallow throat thing and the occasional joint pain; just irritating enough that I can't ignore it. I guess it's a cold or sinus infection or both, whatever, it's making my head all cloudy.

I'm not too worried, though; I'm going to be taking off work tomorrow and clearing my head with the green goddess that is NyQuil. I know some people don't like it, but honestly it's the champagne of cold remedies. Mostly because, like champagne, it's filled with alcohol and makes you all woozy.

I don't think I've ever read a set of ingredients like those on a NyQuil bottle. It looks to have enough sedatives to allow you to undergo minor surgery. I don't know personally, but 10,000 mg seems like a lot for a drug with the root word "morpho".

I do like how the DayQuil version is the exact same as the nighttime version except the quantities are simply halved. That's got to be the laziest pharmacological math ever.

"Well we got this shit that'll knock out a horse for eight days, but we need something so you can still function at work and while driving on the highway."

"I don't know man, just put in, like, half."

I'm no doctor, but taking half a handful of heavy sedatives doesn't make you alert. It's kinda worse because it puts you in a zombie state where you think you're okay, but only because you're looking at yourself from outside your body and everything just seems cool. Not good for driving.

"Man, turns out I'm a real snappy dresser! Nice hair, too. Oh hey I like this song, turn up the ra-DUDE HIT THE BRAKES!" And then you're paralyzed. True story.

So anyways, that'll be my day tomorrow. Not the paralyzed part, hopefully, unless some shit goes way wrong, but the general snooziness of it all. And then Friday I'll be ready to get back to work and party hard come the night! Treatin' this body right!

No, no symptoms doctor

I had my appointment with the gastroenterologist today, so that was exciting. Even more exciting was the fact that my symptoms have been gone for the past five days, without taking medication. I mainly went so the doctor wouldn't feel bad.

I mean, what the hell? Three weeks ago I feel like I'm about to die, so I take medication and feel better. Medication runs out and I feel like crap again. Take OTC meds and feel better. Stop OTC meds...and feel better. The human body is a magical thing.

So basically today's visit was me talking to the doctor about my job and where I went to school. He seemed really interested in that. I felt like he wanted me to ask about where he went to school. I think should have too, if I'd been more on top of things.

As it was I'd been sitting in the exam room for about twenty minutes half-asleep so the exam was more of a formality. I remember now that when I read his bio online that he went to some kind of military medical school in India, then finished up his studies at Georgetown. That's pretty cool.

I bet he had some great stories about going to a military medical school. Sounds kinda intense. Man, we should totally hang out. Hold on, I'm going to call him up and see if he wants to go grab a beer.

Every little thing the reflux does is an answer with a question mark

So now I've got the chest pains back. Pretty sure it's acid reflux, which is pretty sweet considering a couple of weeks ago I thought I was about to stroke out. But it's also uncomfortable enough to prevent me from making an oh-so witty "stroke out" joke.

I just finished up my two week course of Protonix, and almost immediately the whole deal came back. Honestly they should just put Prontonix in the water, it would solve so many problems. Except I don't drink tap water. Well then maybe they could put it in pill form for people who don't drink tap water. Wait a second...those forward-thinking bastards cut me off at the pass!

When I say immediately, I mean 9am today. About an hour after I would have normally taken the pill. Now, granted, I drank a big hot cup of strong coffee right before it really started up, and that was probably a mistake. I think the only worse mistake I could have made would have been to chase the coffee with an ice cold habanero milkshake.

I took some Prilosec around lunchtime and let me tell you, that stuff is pretty weak. It's like the Webster to Protonix's Diff'rent Strokes. Hey, strokes! It's all coming full circle.

Fucking Boddington's. Sorry, I was opening a beer and it foamed up all out of the can. Only with Boddington's, though. Their little widget whatever thing must be Soviet engineering. It works, but you don't exactly trust it.

I made an appointment to see a Gastroenterologist next week, so that should be pretty fun. My mom works in a gastroenterologist's office so I asked her what to expect. I got two vital pieces of information:

1. They won't do anything the first visit except talk to you
2. You have a right to refuse the rectal exam

I'm no logician (well okay I am) but I can spot a slight error between propositions 1 and 2. I won't write out the whole proof here, but I will say it concludes with the line "rectal exams != won't do anything".

At least I have the right of refusal. I'd hate to think that by walking into the doctor's office I've given explicit consent to a rectal exam. Maybe that's how they used to do things back in the Old Country (by that I mean Busch Gardens), but that won't fly in my world.

No sir, up top problems get up top treatment. That's my uninformed wishful thinking, and I'm sticking to it.

I'm a medicine-taker

This past Monday, around 11am or so, I started having chest pains. That kinda freaked me out, you know, a pain in that area isn't something to mess around with. So, being a dude, I waited until around 9 Tuesday night to head out and go to the PatientFirst. If you're not familiar with what that is, it's one of those minor injury mini-hospital type places. A clinic, but not the free kind with all those poor people.

At 9 on a Tuesday you actually get pretty good service. I wasn't waiting around for more than five minutes at any one time; in and out in an hour. Also, I (very luckily) have insurance so the whole thing, which included an EKG, only cost me $25.

In the end it turns out the pain was just heartburn/reflux and not a real big deal. Unless it's an ulcer which, I found out, is treated pretty much exactly the same as reflux. So either way I'm in the clear!

But, and this is what sucks, they gave me medication. Nothing crazy, just some Protonix, but it has completely blown my set of standard medical answers. I'm in a whole new phase of life.

Before
Doctor: Any allergies?
Me: Nope.
Doctor: Any existing conditions?
Me: No siree.
Doctor: On any medications?
Me: Thank god no.

Now
Doctor: On any medications?
Me: ...
Doctor: Any, uh, medications?
Me: Yes.

You see?! Now I'm the "on medications" guy! You don't go back from that. You just go from medication to medication until one day you wake up and instead of making some tea and checking your email you're flipping open the little plastic "Tu" tab because it's Tuesday and you have to take that horse pill for your gout. Jesus.

Now I know lots of people are on medication, why not, people have medical problems, no big deal. But now it affects me. I have to take this shit every morning or else I feel like I'm on 24-hour heart attack watch. Believe me, people notice the constant left arm grabbing. You can't do that subtle-like.

But I'll deal with it, like I always do, with humor and understanding and sarcastic complaints. It's just like, man, there you are. Old.