Calling on Dr. Deg.....

I went to a new doctor this week because the day after my lungs finally felt better I woke up to burning and aching in my chest, and that was enough. Strangely, my sister who works as a nurse in Maine had dropped in a 3am on her way back home from Virginia, so she hung out in Prospect Park West Medical with me for the lengthy wait. I never expected to be there that day, or to have such good company.

Because the office is a clinic I didn't have to change my PCP to get the visit covered by insurance, which was sweet. I would have gone to my excellent Dr. Pentecostes in Brooklyn Heights but needed more convenience, as I often tend to.

I saw Dr. Salvatore Degliuomini, whose name is nearly impossible for me to pronounce. I ribbed him that he had a large amount of vowels in his name, not realizing the faux pas I had committed. I guess sometimes Italians with vowel heavy names have to deal with certain stereotypes. Oops. He wasn't mad, and explained that his last name means "of the men." So then I started to point out that his name meant "savior of the men," which he did not like. He insisted that I stop immediately. Well, it was payback you know, because when he was filling out my medical history he diagnosed me with a boring character because I don't drink, smoke or do drugs. Funny man. I really enjoyed talking to him.

Boring or not, he heard telling sounds in my bronches and put me on Zithromax, which we have a bacteria called streptomyces to thank for. The tiny organism supplies something called a 15-membered lactone ring that bonds to batcerial ribosomes preventing them from producing proteins. It's ironic that this cure comes from soil and the creepy things living within it, from that sweet, scary, sacred business all things come from and all things return to.