E Pleurisy Unum
This is a guest post from noted local comedian PH Fred about his recent emergency room experiences here in New Orleans. Wish him well.
saturday was a hoot and a half… wandering the quarter in a touristy NON-decadent way, playing music at LOUISIANA MUSIC FACTORY… the buzz was in the air as audience members compared us to ZAPPA ( a fave of mine) and SPINAL TAP (hey what’s not to like?) Tony Joe White followed suit with a killer set … more swamp than CCR and more BLUES then a roomful of naked smurfs… the chooga chooga gris gris ya-ya was a bopping in a very anti-lauper way (no offence, Cynthia) the evening grew more surreal as i donned my sweat suit and viking head and trecked to the mom’s party at tipitina’s (this week hard indeed to avoid all that the word MOM might mean… oedipus was such a m……..) sunday morning i awoke to a punch in the chest, and the day brought several blows to the ribs…. not quite jake lamata… more like leon spinx (sp) on a bad day… no tyson ear biting…. just a punishing jab (imagine rocky before the meat packing plant or better still in Rocky IV)…. every few hours…. it hurt to bend, stretch, move, laugh… hey what’s lil me with the laughter? something was/is very wrong here …. then the sneezes made my ribcage echo in pain…. but no heart attack vibe… no tingling fingers or pain down my arm…. but i felt beat and tired… something was wrong for insomnia man…. i had never felt such a thing since i had broken my ribs…. that’s when i asked to be dumped off at the ER…. sounds like a scene from a mob movie…body dropped on curb… (hey it’s a dramady) EKG…. chest x-ray… waiting room… which should be renamed the “you better call my name soon… because i’m sick, tired, ornery, and about to fill out my digruntled post office application” ROOM 7 hours rolled by…. sandwiched between jerry’s kids, chapelle show, and a po-boy smuggled into my room…. i was poked, prodded, and scared (“there are other heart attack symptoms…. you may have a blood clot… you could die….”). plus there was the lovely I-V ranking of patients chart on the wall…. ranging from the bandaided cliche of “take two and call me in the morning” to “dead within 24″…. how that eased my mind… what ever happened to triage? at least it sounds nice in french… anyway… once the tests came back… the doc suspects that i’ll live…. the verdict is pleurisy…. my lungs have an inflammation and i have vicadin… the next 48-72 will be key… have to watch out for fever… other lung or heart symptoms (whatever that means) BUT …. i’m still here …. for better or worse… like monty python and new orleans i’m not dead yet….
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Damn, Loki, you’ve been sick for too long. I hope you’re going to rest for a few days and not be in your usual perpetual motion mode.
Get well, my friend.
i was born and raised in n.o. i live in AZ right now.
given the number of socially connected (e.g. uptown carnival krewe types) but totally stoopid football players from my high school that then went on to med school…and returned to practice in new orleans, EVEN before katrina i would have had medical insurance that medievacuated me from the city before i went to any n.o. hospital. i’m sure that the nursing staff would be fine, but there are too many doctors who became physicians due to family ‘pull’.
Okay, who has pleurisy? Ph Fred, or Loki? Either way, that sucks. I’ve had it. Hurts like hell. I did better wearing some kind of tight spandex top to support my diaphragm. Anti-inflammatories helped too. Good luck with that. It’s not a great thing to have, in a number of ways.
PH Fred has pleurisy, Loki has chronic exhaustion mingled with a profound need for antidepressants. Especially after the 12 F*cking murders on Labor Day!
Once I get through this web development contract (only 200 some odd hours of prepaid work to go!) and manage to hire some staff so I am not spending every day swinging hammers I might get better. Between those factors and trying to have a wedding sleep is just not really an option.
Since my schedule is so horrendous, and in the spirit of returning Humid City to its former multiwriter glory, I will be adding a few new authors to thee line up. Look for a post about it soon. I will tell you that Alexis and I will be joined here by PH Fred once he is healthier….
I just found out I have Pleurisy. I have hurt like hell for just about 24 hours now. SUCKS