I never thought I’d be Patient Zero when
it comes to spreading the Zombie Apocalypse virus that finally wipes out
mankind. And I wasn’t. Turns out I was Patient One. The Lovely Mrs. Taylor had
the distinction of being first. I contracted it from her.
It began three days ago, when Mrs.
Taylor arrived home early from work. Abdominal cramps, generalized pain, nausea,
a bit of a fever. I figured it was flu. After watching every episode of “House”
at least twice, I’m now able to diagnose pretty much any malady in under 60 minutes,
though rarely with any accuracy.
I gave her the Mother’s Prescription:
warm Vernor’s, a soda cracker, and a cool washcloth applied to the forehead.
She lay down to take a nap.
When she woke an hour later with the
pain greatly increased, my diagnosis changed to possible appendicitis. For the
record, Mrs. T is one of those annoying people who wouldn’t ask for a bucket of
water if her feet were on fire. She’s just not a whiner. When she starts
complaining of pain, I know it’s the real thing.
I bundled her into the car and we rushed
to the emergency room. There, medical personnel with actual medical degrees
took over. While I sat unnoticed at her bedside, nurses wired Mrs. T to every
monitoring device imaginable, asked questions, filled out forms, poked,
prodded, scanned.
A fairly cursory exam early on showed my
previous diagnoses (flu and/or appendicitis) to be incorrect. So much for “House.”
Unfortunately, while the docs could figure out what it wasn’t, they couldn’t seem to figure out what it was.
One of the scans they wheeled her off
for required a “contrast dye” (whatever that is). Turns out Mrs. T is violently
allergic to contrast dye. She swelled up like the Michelin Man as five nurses
and a doctor worked frantically to keep her breathing passages open and to
counteract the allergic reaction.
After being stabbed (I use the term “stab”
intentionally) with the same sort of hypo used by John Travolta to save Uma
Thurman’s life in “Pulp Fiction,” Mrs. T finally began shrinking to her
original size. I can joke about it now, but it was probably the third scariest
ten minutes of my life.
It was around this time I noticed the
room was spinning. Considering the size of the bill we were no doubt incurring,
I thought it reasonable to expect an exam room that remained stationary and I
said so as I slipped from my chair.
Now, nurses are accustomed to wimpy
husbands who just can’t shrug off a near-death experience; one of them caught
me on my way down. When I could again focus, I found that now I was laid out on an exam table, wires
attached by sticky tabs to every exposed inch of skin.
I was in my own room, which also was
spinning. After separating my stomach from its contents, I felt a little better,
but not much. The doctor, who obviously had also seen several episodes of “House,”
decided Mrs. T and I had either food poisoning or were sharing some sort of
virus. The fact the virus had jumped from her to me in the half-hour it took to
drive to the emergency room worried me a bit.
I mean, in addition to “House,” I’ve watched
a lot of zombie movies and this is
how it always starts. I figured that within an hour or two, we’d both be
rampaging through the hallways, snacking on LPNs as we went along.
The National Guard would be called in,
but by then it would be too late. The zombie horde – made up mostly of nurses
we’d only partially eaten – would be too large for the military to contain. The
president would call in a nuclear strike, but again, too little, too late.
By Christmas, I figured, we’d all be
shambling around like B-movie extras in an old George Romero flick; torn
clothes, a few missing fingers, blank stares in whatever was left of our eyes.
But as luck would have it, it turned out
to be some sort of stomach virus after all. Mrs. T and I both lived (though
there was a stretch there when we weren’t too keen about that idea) and neither
of us have developed a taste for human brains; probably a good thing since in the
current political climate they seem to be in short supply.
Mrs. T is back at the office today,
though she probably shouldn’t be. I’m writing this, but I’m in my pajamas at
noon, so I’m not sure it counts as “work.” And the Zombie Apocalypse is again
averted.
For now…
(616) 745-9530
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