New Feature Film of Sam’s Life: ‘Meet the Baby!’

No, our baby is not born yet (hopefully in the next couple of days!!). But quite honestly, for the past week or so, I have felt a little like Ben Stiller in Meet the Parents. As I tell the story, it probably won’t sound too much like it, but give me a break – I’m still sick!

Last Thursday night, I went out to my friend Simon’s new burger restaurant called Dempsey’s. He was feeling pretty under the weather, but, being the 2nd day they were open, he had to kind of suck it up and keep serving his burgers. I was feeling like I had a slight cold or something, but it didn’t seem too major, so I had a 1/2 lb burger, fries, and a couple of beers (he only serves 1/2 lb burgers – so I didn’t choose to order the ‘big one’ or anything like that). When Yuka and I returned home, I started to feel worse. It wasn’t diarrhea or vomiting – just a bad fever, headache, chills, and body aches. (As a matter of fact, in this whole 5 days of sickness, I have gone to the bathroom, ‘truly’ gone, if you know what I mean, probably 3 times. I’ve also only ‘opened the upper hatch’ [aka upchucked] once and it was all water. – If you’re grossed out by now, just try to keep thinking: This is Ben Stiller in the new box office failure ‘Meet the Baby’). So the morning after the 1/2 lb nuclear beef bomb – don’t get me wrong, awesome burger! just bad timing – Yuka and I went to the doctor’s office to find out exactly what was going wrong with my body. Keep in mind our baby is due any day now..

So the doctor did the normal checks – breathing, blood pressure, etc. – and then I told her my symptoms. She said it looked like I had the stomach flu and possibly a respiratory flu. She said with the stomach flu, I would still be fine to be present at the delivery of our baby. I would probably just have to wear a little mask or something. However, if I did have a respiratory flu, I couldn’t be around the delivery and I wouldn’t even be able to hold our baby once she was born! The doctor then went ahead and checked me for that worse-of-the-two flu by sticking a skinny, long Q-tip up my nose. It was so high up there that I literally felt it scratch my brain. Fortunately, that test result came back negative.

For the next few days, I struggled sleeping AND being awake because I was constantly plagued with the same symptoms. I even had a nightmare about Obama’s stimulus plan – funniest part is, I don’t even know what his stimulus plan is! I just kept rolling around in bed thinking of ‘the stimulus plan’ with a fever and a headache.

To wrap things up (and this is where I start feeling like Ben Stiller) – Yesterday, I stayed home from work for the afternoon. I tried to rest, but with her mom coming today from Tokyo to stay with us for a month, we felt the urge to clean our house. We cleaned and cleaned, and it truly did a great job of taking my mind off of my sickness. I really started feeling better! Then, last night, as Yuka and I were about to head to bed, she suddenly pointed at my chest. She said, ‘What’s that?’ as she poked her finger into a quarter-sized, circular rash located smack-dab in the middle of my chest. At once, traumatic memories of being sent home from grade school with ringworm on my forehead flooded my brain. I said, ‘Did you touch it!? Go wash your hands!’. I then shaved my chest hair off so I could get a better look, and, lo and behold, there it was in full glory. It looks just like they did in the good ol’ days. I honestly don’t know if it is truly ringworm, but right when I’m done posting this story, I’m off to the doctor, AGAIN, to have them now check out my ‘rash’.