Getting A Grip On Things

For a woman with a generously endowed midsection isn’t it peculiar that I am shortchanged in the tummy settling department? For instance just the smell of liver cooking half a block away sends me hurtling to the nearest flushing facility. Likewise a generous wift of cigar smoke is enough to make me puke. I grew up one of those kids with terrible car sickness. “Daddy, go STRAIGHT, I’d wail.” In my teens I got coaxed to ride a roller coaster. Wrong choice. Turning bilious green my friends swore never to suggest that disaster again.

So this week has brought unfair gastronomical challenges, unfair because what is wrong with me is respiratory.

Five days ago, by x-ray, I was diagnosed with viral pneumonia. I suspect I’ve been harboring the virus since before Christmas as I’ve been dragging around like an old rubber galosh. I thought it was just sloth. Rounds of prednisone for allergy and then a magic antibiotic for “a bug” gave temporary relief. Alas, relapse was on my agenda.
Making a sour face I rejected my doc’s hospital proposal. That’s where people really get sick these days, right? In retrospect an i-v might be a gift. Science has provided the perfect antidote. The problem is the new antibiotic comes with a digestion challenge.
Even though I live in the city limits I am still on a septic tank. This week my sturdy old tank in the rose garden has had its work cut out for it as I explore various strategies for keeping down the pills. They are supposed to be taken on a full tummy. My appetite is nil but I try. The current strategy goes like this: eat a bowl of anything, trying not to cough between bites, stand tall, swallow a quarter of a pill with a full glass of water, walk erect for six minutes. Opening the sliding glass doors to the deck do 25 toe raises humming America the Beautiful, all the while waving both arms in the air to distract the contortions going on in my mid section. Open my jammie top to the elements to get in more air. Ignore Kodi’s looks of skepticism and keep one eye peeled for the police helicopter patrol. Return to the kitchen table doing either the polka or the schottische. Still standing tall, march in place while stuffing down four more tablespoons of whatever. After twenty minutes of keeping the pill down I know I have it made. Repeat whole process four times a day. I’m getting pretty proficient at this at last but I may loose my sanity.