Monday, November 15, 2010

Codeine Dreams

For the second year in a row, I came down with the flu about a month after getting a flu shot. Good job, flu shot.

I was out of work for three days and spent most of my time off sleeping, lost in bizarre fever- and codeine-fueled dreams. At some point I fell asleep in front of the TV and my brain picked up on some weird word that it wouldn't let go... I kept dreaming about the word, "fistula."

Fistula.

I didn't know what a fistula was, but my first instinct was that it was a medical problem. My second instinct was that it must be a fist that bursts, Alien style, out of the unsuspecting victim's chest.



When I looked it up on Wikipedia, I read that a fistula is, "an abnormal connection or passageway between two epithelium-lined organs or vessels that normally do not connect."

Based on this definition, I think we can all agree that my first instinct was correct: a fistula is a medical problem. And based on my inability to make any further sense of this definition, I suggest we also agree that my second instinct was correct as well.

Right?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I know that the King, in All's Well That Ends Well, had a fistula. So, it's not only medical, it's Shakespearean.
-Cliff

Anonymous said...

I thought that guy's mouth was a mustache. All I see is mustaches.