I am sitting here this morning with a sore throat and a runny nose, and I had to cancel a meeting and a lunch appointment for today. Not that I could not have sat through both in some discomfort, but I didn’t want to start an epidemic or a pandemic that might get out of control.

I actually don’t remember the last time I had something that forced me to cancel appointments or curtail activities. I think it was the two times I got COVID, and that has been a couple of years ago.

When I was young and got sick, my mother kept me out of school, something that not all mothers did. And she had a strict rule that, if I had a fever, I was not to go back to school until my fever was gone at least 24 hours, and sometimes 48 hours. Once year in elementary school, I was shocked to discover that I held the class record for the number of days missed.

When I was working, I thinking I also used a temperature as my guidepost. So on a day like today, when I didn’t feel well, but had no temperature, I would go to the office, although sometimes I would hole myself up away from the others. It’s only fair.

So far (and I obviously know that one day this will change), I have been pretty lucky with my health. I have been in a hospital only twice, and the last time was in 1969. The first time, I was two years old and it was feared that I had meningitis, which I did not. I think I have written about the second time on this blog, but I am sure you don’t remember it, so I will tell the story once more.

I was in Army basic training in Ft. Ord, California, when I developed what I think was a boil on the bottom of my right forearm. One of the fun things we did in basic training was to “low crawl” under barbed wire, and naturally you needed to use the bottoms of your forearm to move along. And, because of this large and ugly boil, that was something that I felt I just should not do.

So I went to on the early morning sick leave van (that’s another story) to the base hospital, met a nice young doctor who was interested that I was a lawyer in basic training (that’s still a third story), and he told me that he was going to lance the boil, bandage it up, and let me avoid activity for, I think, two days. I went back my platoon with my doctor’s note, and lazed around the rest of that day. But when I got up the next morning, I knew something was wrong. I was lightheaded and feverish and knew I needed to go back to the infirmary. And I did.

Was my doctor embarrassed? Concerned? Expecting me? I don’t know. All I know is that he put me in the hospital. Because I had a law degree, even though I was just a trainee, he told me he was going to do me a favor and put me in a single room. The biggest reason he was doing this is that Ft. Ord was in the middle of a meningitis epidemic and he wanted to keep from infected people. Being in the private room (which had no TV, no radio, no books, no telephone and virtually no visitors) was psychologically tough. I can’t say it was like being in solitary confinement, but it probably was to a great extent.

My only visitors (other than food deliveries) were nurses who came in several times a day to give me penicillin shots. The penicillin shots were given in my rear, and I had so much for so many days that I actually could not walk. Even going to the bathroom was torture. I was in that room for several days (four? five?) and then was visited by a General who said “Who are you and why are you in this room?” He told me that no one below a colonel got a private room, and he immediately had me transferred to a ward for the next two days before I was released. Did my doctor get in trouble? I have no idea.

I also have no idea why I got so much penicillin. I can’t say I ever got a real diagnosis. But my infection from the lanced boil must have been much more dangerous than I thought at the time. Otherwise, I would have been treated much more cavalierly.

That has really been it for hospitals. The only real surgery I ever had was for a hernia, and that was done as an outpatient. Other than that, my only hospital experiences so far have been to visit other people.

I understand how lucky I have been to date.

Just finished the meeting I could not attend on Zoom. Now it’s noon. Time to feed my cold.