(Nearly) dead man walking

This is quickly turning into the place I let everybody in the whole world know I am a frail and sickly person.

Yes, the rumors are true: I have the walking pneumonia. What's the difference between that and normal, everyday sedentary pneumonia you ask? The doctor was short on detail, but I gathered it's just a lesser form of the dreaded disease that doesn't put you in bed. That's all well and good, but to assuage my disease-infested ego, I'd like to think this was a full-blown, put-you-in-a-wheelchair version of pneumonia and that my robust immune system tackled it to the ground and gave it a noogie, thus allowing me to continue perambulating. But that's probably not the case...

The evidence suggests that I have the world's worst immune system. Since getting married in November of 2004 I have had:

• Two violent bouts of food poisoning that I thought might finish me off.


• No fewer than 8 colds, each wicked and severe. Many of them occurred within days of each other.


• A double ear infection that required two different courses of antibiotics to cure.


• Several bouts with dizzy spells, headaches and general muscle/body aches.


• A rash that inexplicably exploded on my face and took several weeks to fully dissipate.


• And, oh yeah, I almost contracted hantavirus (but you knew that).

There's been some other stuff I'm probably forgetting but that's because there's been so much illness in my general vicinity.

The secretary at work feigned concern when I called to explain why I wouldn't be in yesterday and then oh-so-subtly suggested I stay home today as well. I figured that because she's like-102 years old that she's afraid of catching something. What a weakling.