Conversations with and about my immune system

Having lived in my body for all of my life, I do tend to notice when it fails me. Sometimes I miss the small stuff like knee twinges and shoulder pain until they’re painful knee twinges and very painful shoulders, but other times I catch the minor symptoms before they get worse.

Like the sore throat and light head. That’s a sign to pack it in.

For whatever reason, the sore throat always means a bad cold is coming on. It’s the GDP of my body’s flu-like recession, a leading indicator that my body and I will soon be at odds. I’m never sure if the sore throat is from post-nasal drip or swollen lymph nodes, but combine that with a feverish dizzy spells and I’m out of the cubicle faster than Wally heading for a breakroom full of marketing’s leftover doughnuts.

Forget health care reform and insurance co-pays … what I need is at the grocery store. Night-time cold meds, electrolyte enriched beverages with artificial grape flavoring and mentholated throat lozenges. Brian needs to rest in a place not filled with coworkers who do not appreciate a germy engineer dangling his head over their cubicles.

I have a cell phone, DSL and webmail. I can annoy my fellow engineers from any global location, sick or well, so why risk spreading my ilk to the productive members of the economy? I’m packed for the trade show next week, my slide deck is finalized … nothing good will come of me trying to shrink-wrap a palette doped up on orange pills that suppress the signals my body sends when things are out of balance.

The Russians want to spam my websites, the Nigerians are after my inbox and some microorganism has passed through my body’s firewall. Time to get some sleep before my metaphors get sick as well.

Goodnight sweet immune system, wherever you are …