It Might Be Black Lung

How was your weekend?

Mine?

Well, you know you've read too much of your Austen-esque novel when the first phrase that comes to mind in answering that question is "I was taken ill."

Yes, there is something physically wrong with me, but I haven't settled on my diagnosis yet.

Symptoms:

Summer cold turned sinus infection. Big, bad headache and lovely drainage.
Dull, aching pain in chest and left arm and hand.
Dry, wimpy cough (like Derek Zoolander: "I think I'm getting the Black Lung, Pop.")
Bored to death.

Taking all of these symptoms into consideration, I believe I could have one of three maladies:

GERD (Gastro Esophageal Reflux Disease) although the word sounds like a combination of gout and cottage cheese (curds): "Cottage Cheese Toe."
walking pneumonia
three day-long heart attack

Only time will tell, I guess.

In spite of my affliction, I went to Kristin's first-ever cross country meet Saturday morning. She was nervous (so was I) before she started, but it all ended quite successfully according to her: "I didn't come in last!"


Here is her mother with Black Lung at the meet having her picture surreptitiously taken by Jorge and Katie. Now what kid wouldn't be encouraged by this display of enthusiasm? Black Lung, black hat, black shirt. Let the good times roll. Go, team.



After the meet, I came home and died. I fell asleep all afternoon and early evening.

Sunday morning: no church, just a day spent in bed reading the novel and watching snippets of movies like "The Firm," "War of the Worlds" and "Dances With Wolves," which is so long that think I faded in and out of sleep several times and "Mystic River," which I was afraid to watch full-out due to violence and heartbreak, so I only sort of watched it from behind my book because I am an emotional weenie.

BTW, why does the volume of commercials always come on way louder than the feature? It got so tedious adjusting the remote and removing/replacing my glasses every time I switched from TV to book to commercial to book back to TV. Very strenuous when you have the Black Lung.

Then, because the show must go on, I had to go to 180.Remix to make sure the new registration system worked correctly (like I would know what to do if it didn't). So I took my black lungs to Oneighty and tried not to infect a whole group of kids and volunteers.

Then I came home and collapsed again, here in this chair to tell you every single exciting detail of the weekend, including lovely drainage.

Now I will leave you with a cliff-hanger: Will She Go to the Doctor or Not?

But back to the first sentence of this post--How was your weekend?