Diary of a Network Geek

Guess who has pneumonia?

I think the doctor was a little surprised to see me walking around, to be honest. He never actually used the word “pneumonia”, but just talked symptoms. I described how things had progressed over the last three months, or so, and how two weeks ago, things had seemed to be getting better. I admited I should have come to see him sooner, but, well, I was a bit thick-headed and from sturdy stock, so I figured I could out last it, whatever it was. I believe his only comment at hearing that I’d fought this for three months was to agree that I was, indeed, a little stubborn. Then, he gave me the inhaler and the first of an eleven-day course of antibiotics, just to help finish “it” off. But, after listening to my lungs, he decided I needed a chest x-ray. Apparently, my right lung wasn’t filling with air very well and he wanted a picture of that. So, he had his staff get me into the imaging center right away. Oh, and he thought I looked a little pale and my blood pressure was a little high. So, they’re doing some blood work on me and, after all the over-the-counter drugs are out of my system, we’ll be checking on that blood pressure.
At the handy, local medical imaging center, they had me fill out a form that included a description of what brought me to their facility. Naturally, I put down “a cough”, because, as far as I was concerned, that’s all it was. The nice lady entering me into their system laughed and said,”Oh, no, honey, your doctor said it was pneumonia, not just a cough.” Naturally, I laughed that off as nothing much to worry about for hardy, Midwestern stock like me. Then she asked me how many days of work I’d missed.
“Well, except for one day travelling for family business, none.”
I mean, c’mon, it takes more than a little pneumonia to keep me from getting the job done. That’s why I get the “big bucks”, right? Yeah, that’s the ticket.
So, in any case, I’ve started my antibiotics and I have my Official Network Geek Inhaler and I’ll hear back about the results of the blood work and x-ray later this week.

Now, on the mental health front…
I had an interesting conversation with C. from work yesterday morning.  Apparently, as a  condition of her full-time employment, she was told she couldn’t date anyone from the company.  According to the grapevine, she put the question to the guy she was seeing, who’s actually “Pappy” from the whole Wild West incident.  Unfortunately, his answer was that his job was more imortant than she was.  Well, there were some other, um, “words” used to, ah, “express” the sentiment that were, to be honest, less articulate and a bit more crude, but that was the gist of it.  In any case, she calls and starts talking about work, but then asks me if anyone is around me.  When I told her no, she starts explaining how important her job is and that “it’s not going to happen”.  I can only assume she meant her going out with me.  Which, frankly, after all the crazy signals and her getting all involved with this other guy, who is a real clown and, well, not much of anything as far as I can see…  Well, let’s just say it left me scratching my head.  Honestly, I think I’d be better off dating the reluctant groom’s former fiance.  And, no, that ‘aint gonna’ happen.

So, now, it’s time to set up the coffee for tomorrow and get some well deserved sleep.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
A real hero is someone who's afraid, but does the right thing anyway.