Beep… beep… blip!… beep…
: I have a few things in common with Gary Farber. We have blogs. And we spent time in the emergency room this week with things beeping, blipping, bleeping, and burping at us.
For me, it’s the apparently never-ending aftermath of 9.11. I breathed in a few cubic yards of pulverized building. I got pneumonia. I had a breathing test. They gave a spritz of something probably illegal in 49 states (but I could have pulled a week of all-nighters). My heart lost its rhythm (as a pasty white Protestant, my hold on rhythm is tenuous at best). It has lost its rhythm a few times since. I now take drugs. I stoke my rich, deep hypochondria. So I thought I’d lost that rhythm again but, as it turns out, I only lost the insurance company some money as they told me that earthquake in my chest every 20 seconds is just a “palpitation.” What a cute word. So I take more drugs. I go home, embarrassed. But I go home.
Gary had it worse. He had pneumonia. He had high blood pressure (high enough to squirt a firehose, it would seem). He left with powerful drugs. But, ever looking on the bright side, he notes that at least he doesn’t have SARS.
I note all this from the blog of the good Thomas Nephew, who makes mention of trying out our panting, wheezing, sweating, hallucinating blog friend’s Paypal box and that sounds like a good idea, eh?
