And it only took hundreds of dollars in insurance copays, about a pint's worth of blood and gallons of urine, one trip to the ER, one trip to the urologist, and three trips to the ol' ZenFo Pro physician.
Mono.
As in mononucleosis, known as glandular fever to the rest of the world, the so-called Kissing Disease.
Er...
Yup.
* * * *
My first reaction was, of course, thank God its not what I thought it was.
When the ol' spleen swells like a balloon and the under-skin bumpy things start bulging, so many nasty, nasty things come to mind. I come from a family with a rather nasty history involving prostate cancer and leukemia. And then, well, there's a certain three-letter abbreviation that, when followed by a plus sign, scares the living shit out of sexually active young adults... not even going to go there.
My second reaction?
Jeebus. I'm 29 years old. How the hell does a 29-year-old librarian get Mono?!?
And what the hell do you mean I need to get more bed rest? Holy hell! I've got a career. And it's summer, which means I can date locally without having to worry about asking for I.D....
I can't do that, either? Holy shit.
* * * *
And then I thought back to where I could've caught it.
Actually, I searched the ol' blog. When the memory fails, there's always the written record. One of my archival science professors used to preach that constantly in grad school...
And I found what I was looking for. Yup, in one of the Quotations posts.
Fairly certain that any woman who could leave me with Hamilton Hash Marks could also be the one who unknowingly delivered unto me my plague.
There was, from what I remember, eight hours' worth of making out involved (I'm not known for being a quick foreplay guy) - plenty of time for contagions to infiltrate the ol' immune system...
In all fairness, it could also possibly be from the woman who puked all over me at my friends' party a while back, briefly mentioned in another April post.
A lot of saliva floating around in the corn and cheap booze she projected...
Dude, when the hell did you become Mr. CSI? You're a fucking librarian, dude. Don't do that. It's unhealthy.
There's no sense in trying to figure it out, Matlock. Look, it's like the Doc told you - it's going around Oxford like wildfire. Could be from anywhere, and anyone.
* * * *
And do you know what the most embarrassing thing is?
I've been asked out three times this week. THREE TIMES!
Once by a woman who was sunbathing in the park this afternoon. Bummed her a cigarette, made her laugh a couple of times, and, she asked me if I'd be interested in going out sometime. She sees me in my library all the time, and figured, well, since I was outside of work and we were both single...
A very attractive blonde. In a bikini. Reading H.G. Wells - for fun.
A woman who indicated that her roommates had left her alone in their big ol' apartment for the summer...
Aw, dammit.
* * * *
Anyway. Quick health update.
While I didn't bother to ask the doctor about it, I'm fairly certain you, dear reader, cannot catch mono from reading this blog post.
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