Lately, my ass has been getting kicked by a cold. It’s hard to shake when you’re running around all day at work, up all night on call, and staying up too late on your nights in between (watching the UFC and There Will Be Blood).

The part I hate the most is the runny nose. Enough pseudoephedrine will slow it down to a walky nose, but I’m pretty sure taking four at a time is not the recommended dosage. Trying to stay dehydrated so that there’s less mucus to run isn’t the kind of advice I would give to my patients either, but you do what you gotta do to get through the work day.

“So have you been exposed to anyone else who’s sick?” I ask Mrs. Smith, my pneumonia patient. Anyone else other than me, that is. Don’t worry, I washed my hands about 30 times today. I want to cure the infection, not cause it.

Despite this, I think I gave Sun Su my cold. Every night he sleepwalks into our bed and sleeps next to me, while Amy goes into Ooseung’s bed. This morning he was coughing.

“Don’t hug me, I’m sick,” I told the kids today.

“But I’m sick too,” Sun Su opened his arms and melted my heart despite my warning.

“You’ll get more sick if you touch me though,” I said as Amy whisked my little pajama partner upstairs.

“You’re sick, appah?” my four-year old girl asked eyeing me with a calculating smile as if I were a bug in a jar.

Later that night, I got a text message saying, “Lab called – your patient SMITH has TB.” What the fuck, I’m not even on call today.

I paged the Infectious Disease doctor (who was also at home) on the case. Infectious Disease is easily my favorite medical subject and the I.D. docs are always my favorite consultants. They are the last of the medical detectives and the arcane sorcerers. They ask the funkiest questions – Did you eat the custard? May I look at your fingernails? What countries have you been to? Did you put your hand in the aquarium? In all of medicine, they are the ones who are fighting living breathing (or not breathing, in the case of anaerobes) organisms in the battle of humanity versus microbes, the eternal arms race between resistant bugs and new antimicrobial drugs, while also being mindful of the delicate balance between them and us.

Anyways, Dr. Kiltdare, the I.D. doc called me back. He’s an older Scottish man who reminds me of Ian McKellen as Gandalf – the white hair, moustache, and wrinkles. I assumed he was Scottish because I saw him wearing a kilt once when I first came to this hospital – and it wasn’t on Halloween. I respect that kind of crazy. Not because I like old wrinkly knees, but because I admire that bold pride in his heritage. I used to feel that way about my Corean heritage not too long ago and sometimes I still do, but … as a half-Corean, sometimes you just get tired of skating up that motherfucking hill all the time.  You get tired of opening your arms and saying, “But I’m Corean too….”

“Hi Dr. Kiltdare, this is Scott,” I picked up.

“Are you really a Scot?” he asked over the phone.

“Um … what?” I questioned, feeling an odd sense of deja vu.

“Are you really a Scot or is that just your name? I’m asking because I’m a Scot, I wear the kilts sometimes. Many of the Scotts I know are Scots,” he clarified. I used to ask similar questions to people I suspected were Corean or half-Corean. Sometimes I made fast friends, sometimes I just embarrassed myself.

“Well, I have a grandma who was Scottish I think, so I’d be a quarter. So not rea–,” I answered.

“Well then you ARE a Scot. How can I help you, Scott?”

He told me what he thought of the positive TB result and what drugs to start (five!). Anyone not wearing a mask will have to be tested, to see if the patient infected the caregivers. Like me and twenty other people.

The infection expert was informative as usual, but as far as helping me, he already had before even asking to. A small part of my Corean spirit rallied again by his example and maybe a wee Scottish part too.

Inspiration is infectious. Pride is contagious.