Tuesday February 8, 2005
All Germs Must Go

Ruby’s daycare is a petri-dish of many flesh eating and debilitating diseases, and ever since she started going there, our little family has played a game of viral and bacterial tag. Ruby finally came down with an ear infection, and for the last few days, we have been semi successfully(she likes to scream and spit) giving her an antibiotic elixir that smells like rancid bubble gum. Even though Ani and I are still miserable, Ruby is becoming her happy healthy self once again.

I know that ear infections can be dangerous, and Ruby needs to be treated. Personally, I have always tried to stay away from antibiotics. In my younger days, I used to say that drugs were good for recreation, but trying to heal one’s self can be a dangerous proposition. Bacteria are becoming more and more resistant to our chemical warfare, and most common ailments are viral anyways. Taking antibiotics for a chest cold usually doesn’t work, but since most viral infections usually run their course in a five or six days, and most patients have been ill for a few days by the time they go to the doctor, the antibiotics she prescribes are really a well timed but dangerous placebo, helping to develop super mutant drug resistant bacteria! Although the sci-fi fan in me sometimes longs for a post apocalyptic world ravaged by man’s scientific vanity, right now I just want to finish school and become an English teacher.
My high and mighty stance with regards to antibiotics dwindled away as my intense, sometimes fevery, sometimes coughy, always snotty sickness dragged on for three and a half weeks. I woke up this morning and realized that I was extremely tired of the sensation of dry morning mouth caused by the inability to breathe through my nose during the night. I also had grown weary of trying to find new ways of expressing the pain I felt in my throat. I think that I described it best as being like having swallowed several ninja stars and a superball full of needles. I finally broke down, went to the doctor, and sat in the waiting room reading the sign on the wall that explained how most winter ailments were viral, and antibiotics didn’t kill viruses. I pulled my hand out of my pocket and flipped off the anthropomorphic drawing of the virus and bacterium that illustrated this public service message.
When I finally got to see him, the doctor treated me in a way that would usually have made me very angry. He was in a hurry, and didn’t even look at me as he ran through a series of questions that corresponded to little boxes to be checked on his clipboard. “Any chemotherapy? Any allergies? Any history of insanity or high blood pressure in your family? Been bitten by a tick lately?” The tick question was real, by the way. After a quick eye, nose, ear, and throat probing and the shock of a cool stethoscope, he scribbled out a prescription for some crazy huge horse pills. Without learning the first thing about me, he was gone in a puff of smoke, like the Road Runner. As I said earlier, this is not what I usually look for in a doctor, but today, since I knew what I wanted, and would have preferred to buy these pills from a schoolyard pusher so that I might avoid the hassle of waiting rooms and insurance cards, I was actually made happy by his lack of compassion, patience, and humanity. The less time I had to spend with him, the better. Besides, I think he gave me the good stuff. They are HUGE.

I am sure that these pills will destroy any yogurt cultures or noble rot within fifty yards of me over the next ten days. Come on dead germs!!!