23:13 - 29.04.05
Star light
You know you're sick when the receptionist at the doctor's office sounds concerned and tells you to take care of yourself. About three in the am my asthma/flu/whatever became quite severe, so I called both work saying I wouldn't be in and the doctor's office requesting to be seen today. The phone rang just after 9 am. The doctor's office stating he wouldn't be available until Monday. Would I come in to see one of the other doctors. Given my allergies to drugs and the types of meds I'm already using, my decision was to try and tough it out until Monday.
Truth was I could have gone to the emergency department at the hospital last night or a doc in the box nearby this morning. Going to the doc in the boxes is a lot like playing Russian Roulette with a loaded pistol, and just about as deadly. Several stories in the local news about young adults dying after attending several appointments with different MDs over a period of a week or two, just to be told "there was nothing wrong" with them. Invariably the problem was respiratory. Some form of pneumonia that is not all that hard to diagnose, if the doctor has had any real experience working in hospitals. Most of the doc in the boxes don't. Add in the fact that a strain of drug resistant pneumonia (VRE) that has been entrenched in the hospitals here for decades is now making the rounds among homeless people and it's like double jeopardy.
Since at least one of the women I work with in the records department is already on antibiotics for pneumonia, the chances that I've caught it are high, given my lungs are so vulnerable during asthma season. I think my doctor will know best how to help me deal with it. I don't want to risk going in to see an unknown person who doesn't know my health issues, just to be told it's the flu. With my luck, the incorrect diagnosis could be compounded by finding I've picked up something - like VRE - in addition to the original problem while waiting in the germy waiting rooms. Then what? If I go to work with a doctor saying my health is fine when it isn't, what will the consequences be when I ask to go to a doctor appointment the next week for a second opinion? Garbled I know, but I think I'll just wait and see my own doctor on Monday. Emailed the agency I work through to advise them and I'm just praying that they won't hold it against me. I explained my health history a bit with respect to the last time I had pneumonia and the problems it caused both physically and from a work standpoint. That was that bout in 2002 where I had the allergic reaction, which cost me about three months worth of paid time all together. Could have been worse though - that drug was finally pulled from the market because of the number of side effects, aka deaths, it caused. I'm not willing to go through that again. I hope that the agency and the company I am assigned to will be able to see a short term loss as a long term gain. Besides, do they really want me on site maybe infecting other staff?
The segment on the Lone Gunmen series from the one X-Files episode sort of picked up on that theme last night. Bio-terrorism. It almost looked as though the writers had read Wade Davis's book, then wrote the screenplay. It caused flashbacks to the book I read called "Hot Zone" about the outbreak of the Ebola virus about a decade ago, and the recent newspapers articles about a similar virus now also emerging in Africa - the Marburg virus. It probably influenced my thinking this morning too, still all being fresh in my mind.
In the news today the shift in political fortunes both good and better. And this universal story of young people's stars and star activity sunspots. What is curious about the story about middle eastern youth's preference in music is that one of their biggest rock stars has just been arrested for indecent behaviour. Apparently he kissed some of the girls attending one of his concerts. A little casting call in the newspaper this morning for more stars - for that movie that I had mentioned about a month ago that wants to use only people from one racial group. It appears they've expanded the definition and scope a bit so as not offend so much. Personally I think I want to go see "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" for my Star Trek. At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
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