Part 5: Not Funny, Bob

Although this blog is somewhat hesitant to admit it, we will tentatively concede that the culinary offerings of the local Medical Care Establishment which we found before us for lunch on Day 19 were actually quite delicious. And when we say delicious, it is also worth noting that we had not eaten for 18 hours and, at that point, according to food scientists around the globe, even a bowl of overcooked mushrooms will taste like filet mignon. This is why many of your finer restaurants will have you sit at your table with nothing but a glass of water and a bottle of ketchup for several hours on end before even starting to prepare your meal. They know the customer is not in a position to truly enjoy their offerings until the second or third furtive glance at the condiment dispenser.

After I finished my entire meal, including the contents of the ketchup bottle, the very helpful emergency department personnel returned to my cell to give me an update on my condition. Apparently, in the calculus of diagnosing causes of chest pain, the Medical Care Establishment first attempts to identify problems that, if left untreated, will kill the patient. If death is not imminent, they will dismiss the patient and keep their collective fingers crossed behind their respective backs. Then, if the patient does not improve and, in fact, is so ornery as to return to the emergency department, the proverbial book is thrown at them. This was the case with me, and explains why I was subjected to further testing, which included rechecking for those things which could cause immediate and sudden death, and also checking for things which could cause problems later on, when you least expect it.

Finding no problems, though, presents another problem. I mean, you have to diagnose the patient with something, especially when aforesaid patient is a healthy 32-year old young man who eats healthily and exercises regularly but who suddenly can’t go up the stairs without becoming short of breath and is kept awake at night with intense chest pain in his chest areas. So, in these situations, there is a secret list of diagnoses, usually kept in a safe in an undisclosed location in the medical care facility, which are then pulled out and, were it not for my tremendous respect for the many qualified members of the Medical Care Establishment, I would say that one is selected at random. As it is, though, they use a strict, rigorous process not unlike the popular pub game involving darts.

So, my official diagnosis is pericarditis, which is an inflammation of the pericardium, the lining of the heart. The very helpful medical care personnel allowed that it could be pleuritis, which is an inflammation of the pleura, the lining of the lungs, or costochondritis, which is an inflammation of the costal cartilage in between the ribs and sternum. Fortunately, and this is the clearest evidence to date that someone in the secret diagnoses department was thinking clearly, the treatment for each of the above –itisis is the same: you take the maximum amount of ibuprofen allowed by the FDA, or more if they’re not looking, and you don’t do anything that makes your pain worse such as activities including, but not limited to, sitting, standing, walking, running, laying down, eating, fasting, talking, or thinking. Oh, and you don’t think or talk about or do anything stressful. Ha, ha! I promise I am not making this up.

I went back home the afternoon of Day 19, after 25 hours in the emergency department of the local Medical Care Establishment facility, secure in the knowledge that the expert medical personnel, using every test and piece of knowledge at their disposal, could find nothing wrong with me. But at least I had a diagnosis and a prescription. I could go home, take it easy, take the drugs, and get better. And for a week it worked; I horked down enough ibuprofen to have caused a significant number of laboratory experiments involving rats, and I tried not to do or think anything that made my pain worse. After carefully adhering to this regimen for seven days, I could confidently report, with a tremendous amount of secure optimism, that I felt no different than before. Perhaps even a little worse.