I've been sick for just over three weeks now. It started as a nasty head & sinus cold that hung on for dear life. It used to be that a cold in me lasted about five days and then I was back to normal. In the past few years, I've noticed that they are lingering (or malingering, as it were) for a lot longer.
After about two weeks, my head cleared up, and then the coughing began. At first it was relieved by throat lozenges, but it wasn't getting better. In fact, it was getting worse. Then two nights in a row of not sleeping due to coughing all through the night, I finally took Dan's advice and went to see a doctor.
I have spent rather a lot of time in health care settings, almost as much time as a patient as I have as staff or a student. Not by choice, I am acutely aware of the challenges of health care - so I try not to burden the system unless absolutely necessary. In this case, I was desperate for sleep, my insides hurt from the constant coughing and I was absolutely wretched.
So the doctor prescribed azithromycin, an antibiotic. Take two on the first day, one on the four days that follow. Really? I'm used to the ten-day course with three or four pills a day. This is way better. He also prescribed salbutamol, an inhaler. I was very reluctant to take the inhaler, since I feel they are overprescribed (it seems all respiratory problems are asthma around here) and worried that they would be expensive. Not so! In fact it was way cheaper than the azithromycin. He also suggested Benalyn to dry me up so I can sleep.
On top of this, I sustained a minor injury after some fun times on a boat the weekend before last. See, I was swimming in a lake (!), and when I went to get back on the boat, I was all "I don't need a ladder!" and hoisted myself up on the back platform. Um, and then I miscalculated the force it would take or which direction the water would push me, and I ended up - well, I don't know exactly what happened. I seem to have landed on a bottom rib that bent in and bruised an oblique muscle. That's the consensus, anyway. And oblique muscles take a l o n g time to heal. The pain from that only stopped feeling intense a couple of days ago. So sleeping on my left side has been out. And with an old shoulder problem, I can't really sleep on my right shoulder. And when you have a productive cough, sleeping on your back is really the last place you want to be...
I'm trying really hard not to whine (poor me!) here but really, my health has pretty much been the only thing on my mind these last few days. And O yeah - the hurricane that swept through my future home and where Dan is now...
Well, I'm hoping that my cough will go away in the next day or two, my head will clear, and I will feel up to doing some physical activity again. Lori has more things for me to do, see, there is the other half of the TV room that needs painting...
After about two weeks, my head cleared up, and then the coughing began. At first it was relieved by throat lozenges, but it wasn't getting better. In fact, it was getting worse. Then two nights in a row of not sleeping due to coughing all through the night, I finally took Dan's advice and went to see a doctor.
I have spent rather a lot of time in health care settings, almost as much time as a patient as I have as staff or a student. Not by choice, I am acutely aware of the challenges of health care - so I try not to burden the system unless absolutely necessary. In this case, I was desperate for sleep, my insides hurt from the constant coughing and I was absolutely wretched.
So the doctor prescribed azithromycin, an antibiotic. Take two on the first day, one on the four days that follow. Really? I'm used to the ten-day course with three or four pills a day. This is way better. He also prescribed salbutamol, an inhaler. I was very reluctant to take the inhaler, since I feel they are overprescribed (it seems all respiratory problems are asthma around here) and worried that they would be expensive. Not so! In fact it was way cheaper than the azithromycin. He also suggested Benalyn to dry me up so I can sleep.
On top of this, I sustained a minor injury after some fun times on a boat the weekend before last. See, I was swimming in a lake (!), and when I went to get back on the boat, I was all "I don't need a ladder!" and hoisted myself up on the back platform. Um, and then I miscalculated the force it would take or which direction the water would push me, and I ended up - well, I don't know exactly what happened. I seem to have landed on a bottom rib that bent in and bruised an oblique muscle. That's the consensus, anyway. And oblique muscles take a l o n g time to heal. The pain from that only stopped feeling intense a couple of days ago. So sleeping on my left side has been out. And with an old shoulder problem, I can't really sleep on my right shoulder. And when you have a productive cough, sleeping on your back is really the last place you want to be...
I'm trying really hard not to whine (poor me!) here but really, my health has pretty much been the only thing on my mind these last few days. And O yeah - the hurricane that swept through my future home and where Dan is now...
Well, I'm hoping that my cough will go away in the next day or two, my head will clear, and I will feel up to doing some physical activity again. Lori has more things for me to do, see, there is the other half of the TV room that needs painting...
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