4 MAY 07: THE SECOND GUESS

Yawning shouldn't hurt. Burping shouldn't prompt you to reach for something to support the impact. But that's what I've been facing for several days, as I keep recovering from my mystery.... oh wait. Yawning CAN hurt, if a child does it in the middle of a private school lecture.

When I visited a clinic for my mystery illness at the start of last week, a doctor told me to come back in ten days - so Thursday I did for a follow-up. There was one sign of improvement on my part right away. I remembered to return the clipboard with basic information to the receptionist.

Ten days on antibiotics had calmed down my high-fever, fluid-filled lung situation a good bit. But I was still coughing in spurts on occasion, to clear the lungs. And some aching remained around my midsection, especially around bedtime. I've slept in bed most nights, but needed to sit in a lounge chair a couple of times -- helping me understand how Abraham Lincoln does it at that memorial.

Several people had offered their own opinions on what was wrong with me. A barber near Fort Benning said I had heart problems, and should see a cardiologist. A couple of friends and co-workers concluded I had the "walking pneumonia." I told them it HAD to be walking, because I couldn't run very well at all.

I told the basics on my health to a clinic nurse, then waited in an exam room for the doctor to come. In fact, I waited more than an hour for the doctor to come. illness. This time I brought a magazine to read during the wait - but I wonder if I should have stretched out on the exam table and taken a nap.

"It's about time I showed up, isn't it?" the doctor surprisingly admitted when she finally came into my exam room. This was a different doctor from the one who checked me ten days before. But then, this is an "Urgent Care" clinic that's open seven days a week. The regular doctor has to hit the golf course sometime....

Doctor #2 seemed to explain my long wait on some kind of "commotion." She never specifically mentioned what happened - but I thought I overheard one of the staff members outside my room say something about "eight pounds, 11 ounces." [True!]

Doctor #2 probed my upper body, challenging me to breathe as deeply as I could. Several times when I did, the left side of my midsection resisted with a piercing pain. It wasn't a full sack by the Auburn defensive line anymore. Now it was more like a Spanish bullfight - and the picador came aiming at me.

Never before had I truly realized how huge my breathing system is. It doesn't stop at the lungs - it reaches all the way to a couple of inches above my waist. It's as if my smoking mother expected all her children to follow her example, so they'd need extra assistance.

Then things became interesting, as Doctor #2 brought in an assistant to give me an inhaler. A long tube was laced with some sort of medicine, and I was instructed to breathe through it for "at least five minutes." It probably wound up being closer to 30 minutes - and I was on that tube so long, my legs were ready to ride an exercise bike for three hours.

(The inhaler produced a bit of white smoke when I exhaled - making this the closest I'd ever come to smoking a cigarette.)

Once the inhaler session was finished, Doctor #2 returned to offer her diagnosis. She talked about last week's chest X-ray with a radiologist, and they decided I had a "highly circumcised grainiola" (however you spell it) mass on my left lung. It sounded like a health bar made especially for Jews.

The good news was that my heart was normal, and the mass is benign. But Doctor #2 concluded I probably do have some kind of pneumonia - and if that's true, I'm at least the fourth member of my church congregation to develop this problem this year. A couple in their 70's had it for weeks. When they returned to church, I settled simply for waving hello to them.

Doctor #2 is willing to wait two more weeks, to see if I keep improving and the problem goes away. But as a precaution, she had a nurse give me a PPD insert to check for tuberculosis. A little wheel-type button will be in my arm until Sunday - so until then: T-B or not T-B, that is the question.

"You can't put a bandage on it," the nurse advised me about the tuberculosis probe. "You can't smush it," she added - making me thankful the Los Angeles Lakers are out of the N.B.A. playoffs, and I can't watch Smush Parker play basketball for months.

I recalled what a TV reporter in Atlanta said about tuberculosis in the early 1990's. She said all it takes to contract T-B was to have a homeless person breathe on you. Perhaps I didn't take this seriously enough - and I need to start wearing a breathing mask when I walk down the street for soda.

If my breathing clears up, the four-pill extra dose of antibiotics I was prescribed should settle everything. If not, Doctor #2 says I might need a "C-T scan" done on my chest -- which will only add to my Citi credit card bill.

My second trip to the Urgent Care clinic wound up lasting a bit longer than the first one, at three-and-a-half hours. You know you're getting old when your trips to the doctor last longer than some college football games.

Because of the medical focus, we didn't catch a lot of news Thursday - but here's what we noticed:

+ The British author of the new book "The Big Eddy Club" came to Columbus, to sign copies and join in a discussion about the city's racial history. David Rose told WRBL his book does NOT use the Stocking Strangler murder case to conclude Columbus is a racist city. Civil rights groups could cite dozens of other cases, without bringing that one up.

(Believe it or not, former Ledger-Enquirer executive Billy Winn is conducting a "tour of Columbus murders" this weekend. At least he's taking the high road -- and scheduling this tour almost six months before Halloween.)

+ Jordan High School's basketball team received its state championship rings, in a fund-raising event at the Trade Center. It's hard to believe this, but Jordan made the Northern Little League ring ceremony in a catfish restaurant look downright cheap.

+ Glenwood beat Bessemer 9-5, to advance to the AISA Alabama high school baseball finals. The semifinal series went three games -- so to borrow from an old love song, it was almost a case of "Bessemer Mucho."

+ Instant Message to the Phenix City Exchange Club: Thanks for the invitation to sing at your fund-raising "Hometown Hoedown" Saturday! It turns out the gospel section will occur too early in the day for me to attend - but with a little fluid still on my lungs, I might have been able to imitate Slim Whitman and yodel.

(And by the way - be careful how you name your events. Don Imus got in a lot of trouble, for something similar to what you're doing....)

SCHEDULED THIS WEEKEND: Our Bill Purvis discussion continues....

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