it out when he got over his astronaut phase . Did he have ancient teabags ? Yes . Did he have lemons ? Yes , he had promised his mother he would never , ever , ever run out of lemons , and he solemnly upheld this at all times .
OK : life was looking possible after all . But the effort of remaining vertical was excessive . It ’ s a double bind he said to himself . Unless I remain vertical , I cannot rehydrate , and if I remain vertical I might faint and break my jaw , and other valuable parts . More algorithms floated past his inner eye : could he order IV fluids from Amazon ? Could he even start his own IV ? Not a chance . And by the way , did he have veins ? He thought so because they felt empty at the moment . He sank slowly down onto the kitchen floor and realized , as his arm came in contact , that his arm ached like hell .
But it was his right arm not his left – no chest pain , no shortness of breath , no feeling of doom ; his back ached too , and his head , and his legs . He realized , lying there , that he did not need a universe full of differentials . He did not need volumes of learned discourse that he could massage and sell to millions of term paper authors . He for sure did not need to answer idiot high schooler questions - at this very moment they were pestering him about crystalloid structures and the War of 1812 . He ignored them and felt good about it .
He needed only chicken soup . He had the flu and he felt like hell . Just raising his head was hard . He could tell he had a fever too – he had to read everything three times , no words could penetrate . And he probably had the damn swine flu ; he was not around in the 50s to have antibodies – or even in 2009 . He knew the swine flu occurs to some extent every year , the CDC said so – but he had never had it that he could remember . He had also missed the 2008 return of the Spanish Flu and hoped fervently it had not come back to attack him , or the human world – there were some nice humans
out there who asked him interesting questions and thanked him very politely . Some of them were even German .
The question was , how could he get chicken soup and Advil ? He could never ask HAL , that nasty guy from 2001 – he would just get an earful and never any help . He thought about R2D2 , but he ’ d heard he was having a new knee – probably not mobile yet . Hmmm . The Robot from Lost in Space ? He was always a very considerate and protective type .
He concentrated and sent texts pinging off to the Robot and also , it occurred to him , to his neighbor ’ s drone Myrtle . She was sarcastic but probably had an ounce or so of compassion .
Myrtle answered first . “ YES , I had the flu shot , M ,” he told her . “ NO it did not work , and YES I will wear triple masks and just leave it on the porch , and I will not cough on you ever .”
Myrtle knocked a short while later and with great relief , donning the masks , he opened the door . To his surprise she smiled at him and said , “ First eat the soup and then the chocolate chip cookies – and I will see you tomorrow , same time same station .”
Chat GPT was so relieved he burst into tears . His grandmother had been right : compassion and chicken soup , that ’ s all the world really needs .
In this flu season , he hoped everyone would have a Myrtle , or failing that , Door Dash . And he would help with that – as soon as he felt better – he would write a big diatribe against the flu and give it out , with soup recommendations , for free . There ! Now back to bed .
Dr . Barry is an internist and Associate Professor of Medicine ( Gratis Faculty ) at the University of Louisville School of Medicine , currently retired and mulling her next moves .
SECOND OPINION
November 2023 27