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After a month of just suffering and waiting for my tummy troubles to subside, I finally went to see an Internist today. For the past weeks I've been generally weaker, and no amount of Gatorade restores the liquids I keep losing. I've always been lactose intolerant, but this is simply absurd.

While waiting for the doctor, I was struck by the number of people waiting to see specialists for their various ailments. Everyone gets sick, everyone deteriorates. It is the way of the world.

As I grow older, I realize that things I take for granted are now things I need to pay more attention to. My health, for example. Traditionally, I get really sick twice a year, when the seasons change (in our case, rain and no rain - which is better than Seattle's all-rain). Now I find myself more suseptible to little things. A cold, a cough, the threat of asthma's return, flu, whathaveyou. I tire more readily and find myself getting drowsy during times I'd normally be up. While I was stuck at the doctor's lobby, I wished I could just upgrade my body, my intestines, my lungs.

Anyway, it seems I have an ameoba or somesuch (though in my mind, I always liked the paramecium better, more visual with all its thousand tiny legs) wreaking havoc with my insides. I'm supposed to see another specialist, a G.I. (gastro-intestinal guy) to see, after my current round of medication and observation, if I have the more dire cyst version of the thing. If so, I'm told that my liver or spleen or whatever is in danger because these fuckers can be nasty. Something like that - I wasn't paying too much attention because I was dreading the inevitable blood tests and the fecalnalysis.

So. I bought all the medicines, choking back my shock at the cost, plus this powder thing I'm supposed to mix with water to replenish myself better than Gatorade can. And I feel sad and tired and there's still a lot of work to be done but I'm just so physically down.

That, and my mind just wants to shut down.