Being sick on a Friday afternoon can be a hassle. Even if you go to all the trouble of going to the doctor’s office, and then going for the chest x-ray that your doctor prescribes for you, you’re bumping up against the fact that both offices are likely going to be closed over the weekend, taking with it any chance that you might have, for instance, of finding out if you actually have pneumonia like the tech who performed your x-ray said you did. You might find that, even if you can reach a nurse at your doctor’s office — because they’re open on Saturday mornings, mostly for blood work — she won’t have been faxed the x-rays the day before, won’t be able to reach the radiology office because they’re not open Saturday mornings, and won’t be able to tell you anything different until Monday.
So, yeah, I’m pretty much committed to the antibiotics I’m on now, and it will have to wait until Monday to find out if I need to do anything different or more to combat the small infection that might or might not be in my one lung. On the plus side, though, the throat culture came back negative, so it would appear I don’t have strep.
I don’t know if it’s the power of suggestion, but it’s like my body has taken the idea that I might have pneumonia and run with it…by which I mean, decided to be more run-down. I knew I’d been a little more tired more often recently, but I really just thought that was a side effect of the cold I knew I’d had. But I spent most of today lying down, doing nothing much more interesting than watching episodes of South Park and 30 Rock.
This evening, I watched The Innkeepers, which is quite slow but also very effectively scary. It’s well paced and looks great, and I really liked the lead performances. The ending is something of a mixed bag, but with this and House of the Devil, director Ti West remains somebody to watch.
Beyond that? Well, I’m unfortunately not the only sick one in the house. Our dog, Tucker, very suddenly started having trouble walking, clearly unwilling or unable to put pressure on his left front paw. There’s nothing clearly wrong with the paw — no cuts, no bleeding, no sharp dog teeth trying to keep you away when you poke at it — so we’ll likely have to take him to the vet at the start of next week. He seems otherwise fine, so we didn’t take him to the emergency vet, and it’s possible it’s more old age than injury. (He’ll be nine at the end of the month; he and I actually share a birthday.) But if it doesn’t get better, there’s not much we can do beyond petting him and giving him the occasional aspirin.
And that’s really the awful thing: forcing him to go outside, because…well, because he’s a dog, and dogs don’t have litter boxes, and watching him suffer and struggle along. And not being able to do anything about it.
My maybe-pneumonia doesn’t seem so bad for all that.
