The Big Joker Schedules a Job Interview

On Tuesday, which was perhaps the nadir of this cold, I got a call from a potential employer. They liked my application so much that they wanted to interview me on Monday, that’s the only day they could do it, and they had assembled a panel. This was an out-of-the-blue response. The application was submitted a long time ago. I was unable to reschedule it because that’s the day they have the panel and it’s too hard to reassemble everyone again. I groggily assented, having no idea if by that point I would be in the hospital with neutropenia induced pneumonia. However, this was an employer with excellent health benefits. Given my “pre-existing condition” such health benefits are very attractive. The pay is pretty attractive as well. It was time to get off my death bed and work on finding my way back to the land of the living.

I went to see Barbara MacDonald yesterday and she gave me a regimen to deal with the cold. I was too ill yesterday to be very proactive, but Howard was helpful in obtaining the necessary Chinese herbs and administering various forms of hydrotherapy. Last night he helped me with the cold sock treatment. That consists of soaking one’s feet in hot water for about ten minutes, then putting on cold wet (wrung out) socks, then putting on (dry) wool socks over those, then going to bed. I rewarded Howard by waking him up every four hours with coughing fits when the cough syrup wore off.

So today he administered a hydro to my chest and back (applications of hot wet towels followed by cold wet towels). Throughout the day, I took lots of vitamin C, did some steam inhalations, and took the Chinese herbs. The fact that I can even manage these treatments is a big improvement since for the several days before that I felt too rotten to help myself.

So I’m hoping that in the next few days I will radically improve so that I won’t be a total dead lump at the interview or launch into a never-ending coughing fit. It’s bad enough that I have no eyebrows and eyelashes and that I’ll be wearing a wig. This is not the timing I would have chosen. However, the Big Joker will have His way. As we used to sing in Unitarian Sunday School:

Have thine own way, Lord, have thine own way.
Thou art the potter, I am the clay.
Make me and mold me, mark me with a “b”
Then put me in the oven, for baby and thee.

It’s not as if I can start a new job soon so if they want me before June 1st, then it’s evidently not the job for me. However, since I first contacted them last August, perhaps they are good at the long timeline. And hopefully I won't have to undergo a drug screen at that point since I'm taking codeine cough syrup. That just doesn't look good on a UA report.

The good news came late yesterday afternoon when I learned that my neutrophils were at 1400. That’s low, but not neutropenic. Chances are good that I won’t be in the hospital on Monday. Knock on wood.