Me & Doc Holliday

Well, the asthma medication isn't working. The past couple days I've been coughing so hard I bruised my ribs. So, it was X-ray the lungs time. Scary time. Watch the clock waiting for the results time.
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And here's what you don't want to happen when you're sitting in your Doctor's office: You don't want to watch your Doctor read the radiology report, and suddenly... look shocked. No, you don't want that to happen. And then you don't want him to look at you and frown.

Oh, it's nothing terminal. But it could've been, because I almost died right there.

I have TB. Tuburculosis. And after discovering this, what's the first question the Doctor asked me? He asked me if I had travelled out of the country recently. My venom-filled answer was delivered with a single spiteful word. Say it with me boys and girls... And say it with a sneer: Canada.

I got TB. Can you believe that? Who gets TB anymore? It's like I'm in a Western movie all of a sudden. Didn't Doc Holliday have TB? How do you get TB in the 21st century? I live in 2007 Los Angeles for crying out loud. I live in the Los Angeles set after Predator 2, and I get TB. So, now I'm a lunger. That's my new nickname: Lunger. And that's a soft "g," by the way. Don't want you to get confused and think I'm out here leaping at people.

What's next? Polio? The black plague? The vapors?
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And check out the treatment. See, I was born just late enough to still get TB, but too late to be sent to the mountains for months of bed rest... Instead I get 6 to 9 months of medicine to kill the organism in my lungs. Yes, I have an organism in my lungs. Which sounds like a Star Trek episode.