Monsters Inside Me

Every year around this time I start getting chest pain, some respiratory problem flares up and I spend the rest of the year trying to get it under control, and I do a good job of it until about this time the next year when something goes a little bit wrong, gets a little unbalanced and my fragile tower of respiratory health comes crashing down in a raspy, painful, phelgmatic mess. Every year it gets worse too. Last year it was bronchitis. I've not been to a doctor yet this year, but everyone I've mentioned my symptoms to starts throwing around this word: "Pleurisy." It's an inflamation of the lining between your lungs and your chest cavity, as I understand it, and the pain I feel with every breath is the two rubbing together and tearing. There can be many causes for this condition but I'm pretty sure that in my case it's some sort of parasite, or menengitis.

Does anyone else watch Animal Planet? I think they're trying to get their fair share of the TruTV, A&E, and Discovery Channel audience, that demographic comprised of people who want be too scared to sleep with their back to the door when they turn off the TV for the night, who can't fall asleep anymore without hearing the theme song to Forensic Files, who think they they would probably make a pretty good detective right now even without formal training, or at least they'd do a better job than the local police who really botched that last murder case, who like to, sometimes, when they're at work and it's slow, read transcripts of old Dateline episodes. Like me. Well Animal Planet has made it into my 54-31-39 channel rotation with such shows as "I Shouldn't Be Alive" and that one about animals who see ghosts or something like that, and most recently "Monsters Inside Me." It's about microorganisims (which should thank Animal Planet's poor ratings with their non-horrifying childrens programing for letting them eek by as actual animals) that attack their hosts from the inside, worms, parasites, terrible-looking little microscopic things that seem to be in everyone's drinking water, salad, and pork. That's what I've got, monsters inside me. That's exactly what it feels like. That and menengitis, the bad kind that virtually guarantees that everyone I've had contact with in the past month has it too. I haven't seen a show about menengitis in years, but the one I saw sticks with me. How could I not have it? It's so contagious.

I guess I ought to schedule a doctors appointment and quit watching terrible shows on TV. Garbage in, garbage out. You know.