For six months I have felt Exhausted and Worn Down and Generally Unwell. I figured I probably had mono. I got blood work done in Portland but nothing came up. I now realize I got it done too early for anything to show up. Reckon there’s an “incubation period” for viruses and the like.
I got good health insurance, don’t you know, so I went down to see my doctor, who is real cool and nice. She ordered labs for me to figure out why I felt like I was trapped inside the body of an 85-year-old man.
(The woman who took my blood asked me what color bandaging I wanted, and I asked if she had purple. She did! I got my arm wrapped in dark purple sticky gauze. I said, “That’s my favorite color right there” and she gave me the whole roll!)
This morning I got an email from my doctor. She confirmed that I have the epstein barr virus . . . that I have mono! Which is now “dormant” and “no longer acute” and I am not contagious or anything like that. Like all viruses, it will live inside of my body for the rest of my life, which is fine with me as long as these lingering residual symptoms clear the fuck up soon. She said it was almost certain they would!
She also sent along this huge document containing all my different levels, or whatever . . . sodium and protein and calcium and potassium and all that stuff. I asked her: “Doc, are my levels good?”
To which she said: “The metabolic panel indicates normal electrolytes, kidney, and liver function. The CBC is also normal and there were no signs of anemia or infection. HIV screen was negative.”
. . . my body, she told me, has built up antibodies toward mono, and so I guess this will probably always show up during lab work. OK!
Who the hell gave me mono? Some jabroni in Portland I reckon. I’m sorry I passed it along to you, A. I thought I didn’t, but I definitely did.
At any rate, I don’t have cancer and I don’t have HIV. I am not anemic. That’s got to count for something.
Yeah well that’s all I got to say about THAT~
BONUS
Hey what the hell, take a look at this stuff if you want. “EBV” is epstein barr virus aka mono, obviously:
