Scenes from Amidst the Tumult

"No, I haven't had my flu shot." Image via Wikipedia:

To Kaiser we went this morning to get some blood tests and our regular flu shots.

Long line for flu shots, about half the length of the 3rd floor in the Fabiola Building. When I finally got to the sticking stage, the shooter asked me my birthdate: six-ten-forty four, I said.

And she burst into song:

In 1944/My mother went to war/She lost her girdle/And shot a turtle/And then the war was done

I laughed long and hard, though not so robustly they had to call security. The shooter said she learned the song from her mother when the shooter was a little girl. The shooter said she figured the song meant more than it said if you know what I mean?

Yeah. Like the Da Vinci Code, I said.

When E. and I left, the flu line had swollen and doubled back on itself. E. said this was a result of anxiety and confusion. Even those who do not follow the news closely and who live by word-of-mouth had picked up that there was a sort of flu thing going on. They had (metaphorically) gotten in line because there was a line. E. hoped that those who really also need the Genuine Swine Flu shot will come back and get that, too.

I'm wit' you, I said, bantering as furiously as Nick Charles to Nora.

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The Return of the King

We spent another happy four hours at Kaiser today working on my malady. Last night I was the Ella Fitzgerald of respiratory distress, one long scat of coughs and wheezes. E., who is proactive and will keep me alive longer than my cheap veneer of macho entitles, called the Kaiser advice nurse at 1 a.m.. Various actions were performed, including leaning over the stove, breathing the steam from boiling salt water and sipping -- 15 minutes; don't hurry -- honey and hot water.

This got me through the night. At 6:15, when Kaiser starts scheduling Sunday appointments, E. called another advice nurse (I think) and bullied her (so it seemed to me) into giving me an appointment today. Oakland was full up, so we drove into SF, to the Kaiser cluster not that far from USF.

I had the nicest little doctor who apologized for reading my medical history from her computer while standing up, for (she said) she was just too short for the stool. She did a variety of things -- including by implication and in the nicest way possible disagreeing with the doctor I saw Wednesday.

So, today: Some tests (results tomorrow), some new medicine, the suggestion I stay home for a couple more days -- unless it turns out that I do have pneumonia in which case Katy, bar the door (and hang a black wreath on it).

But she does not think I have pneumonia. What I have is a textbook case of getting old. I probably have some variety of the flu. It hits you harder when you are older and your immune system weakens.

She was cheerful. She said I was the fifth teacher who had come in today, and her day was only half over. It was like I filled out a epidemiological flush for her. She'd had a preschool teacher, a three public school teachers (grammar and high) and now college level.

She was pleased. After she retires, she thinks she'll volunteer and go to Africa and help the poor, though (she said) there are plenty of people to help here, so maybe she won't have to go that far.