Sunday, October 25, 2015

Putting Things in Perspective

Today I am thrilled to not have two fractured ribs, or even one. I am not feeling dizzy or faint. I do not have plantar fasciitis in either foot and can walk freely about. I didn't just have cataract surgery so don't need to put three kinds of drops in my eyes three times a day, and I can basically "see," albeit not as well as before the surgery but that's a different blog post. I am not scheduled for a colonsocopy and so am drinking a delicious cup of coffee instead of that rat poison they make you take to prepare for that dreaded examination.

I'm thankful for all of this, since each of the preceding conditions have lain me low in the recent past. But I survived, and my only affliction today is the aftermath of a silly little tick bite on my scalp. Ticks are quite common around these parts, and thus getting a bite is considered no big deal.


Only it is a big deal. I got the bite two days ago. Dutifully, I swallowed the magic bullet prescribed by the doctor to avoid developing Lyme disease, and yet.... And yet my life has been derailed. My thoughts are now consumed by the toxins released into my body by a creature the size of an uncooked buckwheat groat. My regular head now has another, smaller head on it. It is swollen. It itches. I put ice on it. I apply cortisone cream. I try not to think about it but fail miserably. I hate it.

I tell myself I should be happy I don't live in Mexico where they had a powerful hurricane yesterday, so powerful it was described by the folks over at the Weather Channel as literally THE MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE EVER RECORDED IN THE HISTORY OF THE PLANET, with sustained winds of 200 miles per hour. Scary stuff! And yet, despite the downed trees and power lines and smashed houses, the storm caused not one death. That's good news for sure, but still odd, making me wonder how so many people have died in much lesser storms in the past.

I must conclude that not everything with grave potential will have grave results. On the other hand, sometimes little things can cause big problems. (Like a tick bite.) You just never know.

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