Bloggerpalooza Hangover

Our second annual blogger fest in Lewes, DE is over for another year. The goal of the event was to spend a long weekend reconnecting with old blogger pals. Naturally, these reconnections are accompanied by happenings we wouldn’t normally do, such as carousing complete with episodes of eating to excess and drinking more than we’re used to drinking.

I went into the weekend with the expectation to do all of this and relax. I entered the weekend in a state of stressful exhaustion. Now, on the other side when all has been said, done, and drunk, I am in a state of relaxed exhaustion.

MEANWHILE, TWO DAYS LATER…

What I believed to be relaxed exhaustion on Monday when I wrote those first two paragraphs was diagnosed as bronchitis on Tuesday. So now I am on the slow road to recovery, and I am actually contemplating returning to work today. What the hell am I thinking, but work ethic (gasp)…too strong (wheeze)…cannot resist…

MEANWHILE, FOUR DAYS LATER…

Anyway, it ended up that it was a valiant struggle, but my physical conditions won out over my work ethic. Final score: 4-0. I didn’t make it to work at all last week. I will have used up most of my paid time off allowance for the year and it is not even April yet!

In retrospect, I am grateful that I did not go to work on Friday. As it turned out, something happened that day that could have been a life changing event for me.

The event reminded me of a scene from the Jack Nicholson film About Schmidt, when retired life insurance actuary Nicholson steps out to mail a letter while his wife is vacuuming the floor. Nicholson lingers on his errand and stops for an ice cream cone before returning home. Once home, the vacuum cleaner is still running, but Nicholson’s wife has stopped living; she has suffered a fatal blood clot on the brain.

I’m reviewing all this because, funny story, this same scenario nearly played out in my life. And I don’t mean funny necessarily as hilarious funny, but rather funny as in very strange funny.

I need to back track a bit. On Tuesday of last week (as noted above), I went to the Patient First clinic, was given a diagnosis of maybe pneumonia (but more likely bronchitis) along with some medication, a few different inhalers, and instructions to return if my condition did not improve in four days. In the meantime, Anne Marie caught my cold, which quickly worsened. She made it to her job for 1.5 days before her boss sent her home. Anne Marie also visited Patient First, where she was given a diagnosis of a deep cough (?), and (much to my chagrin) better drugs than I got the day before!

For the next few days we called out to our respective jobs, rested as much as we could, and hacked up our lungs at each other. Oh, I also had a fight with a book shelf, a fight which I lost in my weakened condition. Anyway, fast forward to Friday morning where we are both very sick, I’m sporting a black eye, and my condition is not improving. I head back to Patient First for the follow-up. There I am given another course of antibiotics. 

Now I have my About Schmidt moment. I don’t go straight home after my appointment. I linger not for ice cream, but to gas up my car and go through the car wash. The car wash beckoned because it was not crowded and the weather was decent.

Once home, I found Anne Marie hacking over the kitchen sink. This is not unusual for us, since my wife has long suffered from asthma. She was in the process of eating Thomas’ English Muffins when this attack started: a stick of butter was on the kitchen table waiting for the toaster to complete its cycle of crisping the last of Anne Marie’s breakfast. What was unusual was her request for an inhaler and cough syrup, followed by the explanation in a frog croak voice, “I can’t breathe.”

I fetch the inhaler and cough syrups. I don’t even know if she got around to taking a hit on the inhaler or getting a dose of cough syrup because within a minute I hear her croak to me: “I can’t breathe. Call 9-1-1!”

WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Thank you for reading. TO BE CONTINUED…)