Dodging the COVID

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

I had only been one place in the last week, so it was pretty damned obvious where I had picked up whatever medical malady that was kicking my butt.

It had all started with the visit to a speciality physician where the staff was running around calling me "buddy" and everyone acted like they were starring in a remake of "Animal House" where someone had forgotten to order the kegs.  It was there that one brave germ had sought to flee the insanity and had chosen me as his escape vehicle.

A day or so later I was already feeling the beginnings of the subtle body ache which I suspected would eventually manifest itself as the flu.  Saturday night I woke in the middle of the night feeling generally uncomfortable and could not get back to sleep.  That's not unusual for me, and I knew that I would probably sleep well on Sunday night because this stuff usually never happened to me two nights in a row.

And I might have slept well on Sunday night if I hadn't been awakened thirty minutes before midnight by that sinister diabetes monitor telling me that my blood sugar level had sunk below seventy.  I crawled out of bed, ate a couple of Fig Newtons, took care of another personal issue, went back to bed, and spent the rest of the night dealing with hacking cough that sounded like it was straight out of a hospital enphysema ward in the 1950's.

The coughing slowed yesterday morning when I got out of bed and tended to the morning chores of feeding breakfast to the neighbor's cat and opening the chicken coop where the guinea sleeps each night in blissful solitude.  But when I went back to the house and crawled back into bed hoping for at least a few minutes of real sleep, the coughing kicked back in.  Lay down, cough - stand up, no cough.  I have worked with people who could sleep standing up, but unfortunately I am not one of them.

So I got back out of bed, cancelled some appointments, and began getting my affairs in order.

Here in the Ozarks we usually start the recovery process by talking to our friends and neighbors and getting their medical opinions before bothering (or paying) doctors.  Fortunately, I don't have many friends or relatives, so I was done with that phase of the recovery by the early afternoon.  Almost to a person they told me that I had "the COVID."  A few also shared their "whiskey" cures:  whiskey and lemon, whiskey and tea, whiskey and prune juice - it'll kick the crap right out of the danged old COVID!"

And here it is always "the" COVID.  Don't ask me why.  It's a hillbilly thing.

Armed with all of that medical shit knowledge, I next turned to the other professionals for their opinions.  I called the clinic where my doctor works and left a message for his nurse to call me.  When she called back I gave her my symptoms and gave her my self-diagnosis of "Flu."    "No," she told me, "We haven't had any cases of the flu yet.  Would you like to come in and be tested for COVID."

"It's always been a dream of mine," I said.  She gave me instructions on where to park and how to access the person who would perform the test at my car.  Fifteen minutes later I was parked under a big awning at the rear of the clinic along with several others, and fifteen minutes after that I was very uncomfortable as a nurse's aide jammed a Q-tip up my left nostril.   As she was leaving the aide told me that a nurse practitioner would be back out in fifteen minutes with my results. It was more like and hour-and-a half, but I am on the extreme right edge of the productivity bell curve, so I can wait - and I always do so with a smile on my face.

When the nurse practitioner came out she walked straight up to me and said, "How are you doing, my friend?"  To which I replied, "I was hoping you would tell me."

"Well, my friend" she said, "I'm pleased to tell you that you are COVID free." 

I could handle "my friend" a little better than "buddy," but not much.  "It's the flu, isn't it?" I said.

"No, my friend, we don't have any flu here yet."  Then the whipped out her stethoscope and began listening to my lungs - and soon announced that the right one was was full of crap.  People who know me well would undoubtedly argue that she came up short on that diagnosis because they regard me as being completely full of crap!

The nurse practitioner provided me with some prescriptions, told me to drink plenty of water, and sent me home.  The prescriptions included a kick-ass cough syrup which is what I really wanted in the first place.   It was twenty dollars and neither of my insurance companies would cover it, (which means it must be good), so there went two days north of meals.

But I have quit coughing, gotten some sleep, and feel w whole lot better now.

And I am thinking of starting a screenplay, tentative title, "May Left Nostril."

And I am still completely full of crap - thank you very much!