What if... This is my Life Now??

I opened my eyes this morning with a swirly queasy sensation, like waking completely sober after a night of mixing drugs and alcohol. I felt odd, but for an instant could not recall why. The only thing I mixed was Tylenol Nighttime Flu and something called azithromycin.

I have been sick deathly ill ever since my trip to Chicago. What started as a little postnasal drip has become an I-can’t-get-out-of-bed marathon. The two straight weekends I’ve spent in bed include the Veterans Day holiday and a sick day from work. Tons of chicken soup, vitamin C and an attempt at amoxicillin later, I still can’t buck this bug.

Friday night was the worst. I had the kind of chills that get even atheists praying. “Please just get me through this!”

Bundled in bed, enduring wave after wave of freezing shivers that would not give up, I did manage to rise from bed to gather the phone and unbolt the front door for the paramedics, whom I might have to call. I don’t think paramedics beat down doors. They call the Fire Department for that, which is yet one more siren pulling up in my neighborhood at this ungodly hour. Yes, yes, far better to lumber on foot and knee to the door now than have the building owner over here studying the broken door as she rubs her chin. “Hmm, you weren’t conscious to get the door for them? Whose fault is that?”

I nearly passed out from that trip to the door and back to the bed. And though I didn’t call the paramedics, I risked the late hour and called a friend who lived about ten miles away (that’s close in LA) just so someone could know what was happening and could take down my dying words if this really was the end.

But I had no regrets in my final hours. No, it was that doctor who saw me on Friday who would regret.

She saw me with a smile, dutifully weighed me in at 195, took my blood pressure, noted my 99.3 temperature and proceeded to tell me I didn’t have pneumonia. “You’ve got a nasty sinus infection,” she said. “Take this azithromycin. These three pills are the same as ten days of antibiotics. Any questions?”

“Do I really weigh 195?” I asked. “Has that thing been calibrated?”

This can’t be just another sinus infection. What if I have some forgotten disease doctors can no longer recognize? What if I have a freaky-rare foreign infection that a smile, a pat on the head and a free sample of Flonase won’t cure? What if, after my autopsy, Dr. Anna Wilson of the Toluca Lake MPTF clinic (naming her for the record) has to be called in before some judiciary panel?

“Did you honestly think this was a sinus infection?… Why didn’t you catch this before countless lives were lost?… Did he look 195?”

So as I lay here sick (not shivering and screaming for mercy at this moment), I realize that death is not the ultimate fear. When you’re bad sick (really baddy-bad sick), you know death would be the sweet release.

Life is the real fear. What if my life is just like this now? What if the rest of my life is just trying to get to the bathroom and back without passing out? What if my dinner choices will forever be Progresso Chicken with Rice, Chicken with Barley, or Herb Seasoned Chicken with Dumplings?

And what happens when I run out of them???