Wednesday, April 5, 2017

What's in a word?




What a day. I’ll spare you the details but I went to the doctor because I got a bit food poisoned last night and needed some advice on what was a good gas breaker and diarrhea plug…and the pain in the center/ right side which had gotten worse on the way to the clinic.

Before it was over they were drawing blood and taking X-rays… The diagnosis?

The pain was caused by some gall bladder stones. Which, if I live long enough, will have to be dealt with. Pepto-Bismo and Gas-X for the bloating and such.

This wasn’t the first time that the medical profession thought I was having a heart attack. I woke up one morning in Las Vegas with sharp pain shooting down my left arm. A few minutes later I was riding down the street in an ambulance..followed by a lot of tests…finally a doctor came in and asked, “Mr Lewis, have you had herpes before?”

“HERPES!!!” I yelled. “No! Why do you ask?”

“Well, I am glad to tell you,” she said, “You didn’t have a heart attack. You have a herpes outbreak.”

She must have seen the panic in my face. “The common name is shingles… The medical name is Herpes Zoster….see those little red dots on the back side of your left shoulder?”


To cap the day off I had to walk a mile to the hospital’s cab stand to catch a cab back to my hotel. 




"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." - Karl Popper “