Did you hear the one about the guy who
walked into the doctor's office. He already has a pretty rare form of
cancer called multiple myeloma, an even rarer genetic defect caused
by a broken chromosome, two spleens and a stomach ailment that seems
to be baffling modern medicine.
He says to the doctor, “Doctor, my
throat hurts.”
The doctor asks, “Does it hurt when
you cough?”
“It does.”
“Then don't cough.”
Ha! Who says vaudeville is dead?
But, as so often is the case, it seems,
I'm making fun of a semi-serious situation. I did end up going to the
doctor this week because my throat was really sore, I sounded like
I'd been chewing glass, and was having a really hard time getting out
of bed in the morning and staying awake during the day.
This was the doctor who diagnosed my
multiple myeloma in the first place, so I have a lot of confidence in
him. He had me spit on a stick, or swab my cheek, or something, and
then we waited to see it was going to be a boy or a girl. Well, not
that, but it did have to cook for a while before he could tell me
what it was.
“Laryngotracheobronchitis.”
Of all the ailments I've had in the
last 16 months, that's certainly the one that's used by far the most
letters, I thought, even as I wondered what the heck it was that he
had just said.
'I don't suppose it has another name.
One that I could pronounce, maybe?”
“The croup.”
“Oh. That's okay if it's... Wait.
What? Say that again.”
“You have an adult version of the
croup.”
“I thought only little kids got the
croup.”
“Well, you would seem to be living,
breathing, albeit with some difficulty, proof to the contrary.”
T
he croup. It sounded positively
medieval to me; like the cure would involve reptile body bits, some
sort of locally grown fungus, and a drop of something from a bottle
with a skull and crossbones on it.
“The cure is to let it just run its
course. Take in fluids and get plenty of rest, preferably in a humid
environment. And exposure to cold, if you can.”
I thought humid air might be a problem,
but, Sheri, of course had the answer: a vaporizer. It's been spewing
out cool, moist air for a while now and it seems to help. Of course,
Sheri also told me to stick my head out the window and suck in some
cold air. I think that was right after I'd whiningly asked her to get
me one more thing than she was capable of managing while maintaining
her own cool demeanor.
As I was pondering how the heck I managed to get the croup, Sheri reminded me about one of the aspects of my stem cell transplant that hadn't yet come into play.
“Your entire- that's entire- immune
system was destroyed, remember? Including all the things you were
vaccinated against as a child. You have to have all those baby shots
again.”
Oh... right. And on the same schedule: 9 months, twelve months and so on. The first to be redone is DPT, which I am due to have done in February.
Interestingly enough, as I was reading
about croup online, I read that the severe decline in the number of
adult cases was thought to be linked to the increase in immunizations
against diphtheria, as that disease was at one time a dominant cause
of croup.
The reading I did also said it is
virtually unheard of in anyone over the age of 15, probably because
virtually everyone has been vaccinated by that age. I am determined
not to think about all the other childhood stuff I've already had or
am now susceptible to once again: chickenpox, measles, TB, rubella...
Well, maybe “not think” is too ambitious a goal. Maybe, I am
determined “not to obsess” about those things. Yeah. That even
feels better. No obsessing here. Though, chickenpox...
There are a variety of versions of
the story that gives this blog its name. The pony is the constant in
all of them. A man is on his way to a party when he comes across a
young boy shoveling ass over tea kettle at an enormous mountain of
manure. The man asks the child if he wouldn't rather go with him to
the party than shovel all that poop. The kid says, “No way man.
With all that poop... there must be a pony in there somewhere.”
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