Fire Drill

Only two more days until my next paracentesis. At the rate I’m building up fluid, I won’t be surprised if Dr. Liver wants to move me to weekly tap-outs. It would certainly make me feel better if he did, but if I start losing that much time at work I might as well just go out on disability. And I’m not ready to take disability yet. I wish we could run new blood work on me while I am in for the procedure on Friday, but it will still be several days too early for the new warfarin dosage to have made any impact on my blood work. I’ll probably have to miss a half-day some time next week over that. Still, I suppose it will be worth it if my MELD score goes up.

Late this morning the fire alarm went off in the main building. My office is in a small building separate from the mail building, and the fire alarm does not sound in our little area. The three of us who inhabit this little piece of solitude therefore have to be told by someone in the plant when the alarm has gone off. Even though our building is separate, it is very close to the main building, and we are required to evacuate with everyone else when the alarm sounds.

The catch is that we must meet up with the rest of our department for an official head-count. The meeting place for our department is about a quarter of a mile away. I have yet to actually make it over there in time for the head-count for a fire drill; by the time I arrive, the drill has ended and over everyone has returned to their offices. It can be very frustrating, but today took the cake. As I walked as fast as my poor, bloated frame would carry me along the back of the building to get to our meeting point, I noticed the other departments were still outside at their appointed meeting spots. I held out hope that I’d actually make it for the head count this time. I rounded the last corner, made my way through the last throng of people standing about waiting to go inside, and saw the point where I was to meet up with my department. Nobody was there. In fact, nobody from that side of the building was outside.

It turns out that the alarm sounded only on my side of the building, not theirs. All that huffing, puffing, and exercise was for naught; I could just have well stayed on my side of the facility. [insert frustrated grumbling here]. Since I was nearly there anyhow, I went into the building, reported to my department, and collapsed in a chair to recover some energy. There’s got to be a better way to handle the fire drills than this!

I just re-read that. You know, there was a time in the not-too-distant past when I would have loved an excuse to take a stroll to nowhere in the middle of a work day like that. It’s in the forties right now, and downright balmy compared to what weather we’ve had over the past week or so. It’s a day that makes you feel like spring could actually be coming after all, and all I can do is whine because of how tired the walk made me. I don’t think I like what this illness is doing to me.