near death experience ...

The only time I was sicker than I am right now was when I was working two jobs in the 90's.  I worked a 9-5 job at NBC Productions in Burbank, CA and then jumped in my car immediately after work and drove to La Mirada, CA (over an hour away) to a theatre and handled the props for two different shows, "A Chorus Line" and "Time of the Cuckoo" with Marion Ross and Cesare Danova.  I loved both jobs.  I gave both jobs my all ... but I was most enamoured with working with the celebrities.  

I worked at the theatre every night except Monday night.  We did six evening shows with two matinees on Saturday and Sunday.  The curtain call was at 10:45 PM and I had an hour or so of clean up.  Then I hopped back into my car and drove the hour to my home.  To say that I was burning my candle at both ends was an understatement.  

I was offered the third show in the theatre's Broadway Series, this one with Mark Harmon.  I so wanted to do that show, too ... but I got sick.  Really sick.  It was inevitable.

So, that said, I've been close to that point again.  Near death?  Hardly.  But it sure feels like it.

I took myself to the doctor yesterday and learned I have an 'upper respiratory infection'.  Sounded ominous enough.  I'll accept that dianosis.

I started wondering how I caught it; what it was; how can I avoid this in the future, etc.

I took my questions to a friend of mine who's a pediatrician/internist.  The conversation went as follows: 


kjoy : urgent care says I have an upper respiratory infect. I'm mad because they said I can return to work tomorrow. I so wanted another day off.

Poopsie : Good news that you are getting better

kjoy : I don't feel any better. How does one catch an upper resp'y infect. anyway?


Poopsie : upper respiratory tract infection= URI=common cold. spread by close contact to someone with an infection.


kjoy : I JUST HAVE A STINKIN' COLD?????

Poopsie : yup.

So much for being near death.  So much for getting one more day off.  So much for getting any sympathy - at all - from myself or anyone else.  And so much for thinking I was just as sick as I was back in the 90's.  I wasn't.

Or was I?  Maybe all I had was a cold then, too?  Maybe my C-Section, to bring Elizabeth into this world was just a figmant of my imagination, too?  A simple cold?  And maybe all Rick had was a cold?

Maybe his back surgery never even happened.  Maybe I imagined it all.

Maybe I should stop whining and go blow my nose.  It IS just a cold, you know.

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