Silver Lining Tarnished

So. I have been in my house for three weeks. Insistent on getting better, I haven't pushed things, haven't gone out of the house unneccesarily, and haven't even talked on the phone too much. I had a date with my friend to see a band last night that I was very excited about, and I figured I could afford the luxury of going out, because it was at a small venue and was very low key. But the night before last I started wheezing. I was up all night with awful wheezing and coughing that wouldn't let me sleep. Nyquil and codine let me sleep for about four hours, but that was it. I had a doctor's appointment on Friday, originally just a check up, and the man was so bummed at my status, "This just a check up! You supposed to be better! You have bronchial athsma, here, here are two shots in the behind and 5 more medicines." Inbetween gasping for air and coughing out crass little phleghem worms, I asked, "So this means that I can't go out tonight?" And he looked at me, "You already have tickets?" And I said yes, and he goes, "If you favorite band was playing tonight, I would say stay home." So that was that, and I tried not cry. Cabin fever is real, ya'll.

And those cortisone shots? Easy going in, plenty of cush, you know, but the medicine hurt like a beating. He also put me back on the massive antibiotic for ten more days, and a low dose of steroid, and serious(er?) cough medicine, and two inhalers. I feel like, I don't know, too many chemicals, chemical mouth.

Back to school Monday, which feels like getting to go to a Broadway show -- the lights! The people! The literature! I could have danced all night!

Thanks for being here through the illness. And while I don't recommend the pnemonia diet, I sure don't mind the extra pounds.

I will say it again, thanks, 2007. You make the medicine that makes the bad germs go away. Although if it wasn't 2007, I might have had to move to a more suppotive climate, like say, the French Rivera, a la Katherine Mansfield.

Isn't it annoying when...

You read a book, and you realise you've had this story in you -- but somehow this other person got a hold of characters and setting and details? I don't have this experience often, but recently I read the novel, The Time Traveler's Wife, and I kept thinking...I could have written this. Of course, I didn't write it, and haven't written anything like it in length and breadth, but I kept thinking, if only I wouldn't, gosh, I don't know, it's like I hover over myself, putting myself in the box like it's a punishment well deserved.

I think I should do the novel writing again in November, like we did last Feb(?). I get so frustrated, but I think it's good even to have an abundance of first draft writing to pull from. It's silly that I should fancy myself a writer, because I'm so easily overwhelmed. Writing gets so close to the nuttiestcase part of my being -- it's intimidating, of course, because I want to be only so very slightly a nutcase, not majorly nutcasey.

But I still have to try and try, because I can't keep reading these novels that were, seriously, in my head. I mean this novel didn't even try to deal with the science aspect of time travel -- it just flowed. I was a great novel, if a bit romantic. There were a lot of music references that I liked, and there were a lot of gender aspects that I liked analyzing. Anyway. They're making a movie.

In other news, my lungs feel better. I should be back at school next week, and I'll probably be very embaressed about the coughing. I just hope I don't fart.

Lady Sings the Blues

I normally hate it when people do this in blogs, but oh well.

Its quarter to three,
Theres no one in the place but you and me
So set em up joe
I got a little story I think you oughtta know

Were drinking my friend
To the end of a brief episode
So make it one for my baby
And one more for the road

I know the routine
So put another nickel in the machine
Im feeling so bad
I hope you make the music dreary and sad

I could tell you a lot
But you gotta to be true to your code
So make it one for my baby
And one more for the road

Well, you'd never know it
But buddy Im a kind of poet
And Ive got a lot of things to say
And if Im gloomy, you just gotta listen to me
Till its all talked away

Well, thats how it goes
And joe I know youre gettin anxious to close
So thanks for the cheer
I hope you didnt mind
My bending your ear

But this torch that I found
Its gotta be drowned
Or it soon might explode
So make it one for my baby
And one more for the road

I'm having them framed.

The xrays, that is. They look cool, and although you can sort of see my boobs, it's not as impressive as a good old bathing suit.

The man says that I am getting better. This Doc was SO proud that he was getting me better without going to the hospital. He was like, all eyebrows, and was like, yeah, yeah, you're getting better, you're coughing up more stuff, that's great! See you in a week.

So I may make it back to school next week. Maybe Wednesday.

I have some great ideas about new papers. Especially about Abram/Abraham. There is so much there. I'm ready to write that paper. I'll write the response paper, and see what Brandon thinks. I have a great paper in me about this -- but it's tough not to make it religious/theological. They're just characters. It's tough, but, I'll be okay.

And hey, how come there is no pneumonia awareness month with a ribbon? We should have a mucus green ribbon. Never forget the pneumonia!

Do you smoke? Have you been out of the country?

Man. I haven't been this sick since I was a teenager. When I get sick, I'm always a little thrown off, because I have a high tolerance for discomfort, so I'm like, well, I don't feel good, and my chest hurts, and I can't breathe...but I don't make a big deal, and I just want it to go away...but this time I really am sick. I had to buy this thing, called a Nebulizer, and I have to breathe in this medicine. It's kind of like smoking, I kind of feel like the Caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland when I use it. The Dr. (the second one so far, my regular guy Kaller sent me down the hall to this respitory specialist David) was asking me, do you smoke? And I'm like, No. And he's like, you don't smoke? And I'm like, No...sir? And then he felt my organs through my belly -- which is so strange. I mean, when someone feels your organs, someone that knows what they're doing -- it's an intense experience. It's like hey, that's my liver! Then, of course, while I'm waiting in the exam room, laying down on my paper pillow, I have to cough so hard that I fart! Todd looks at me, and I look at him, and then we just laugh. Being sick is funny sometimes.

Today, I woke up, took a shower, and went to the Dr, then went and got x rays, then went back to the doctor, then went to another Dr., then went to get blood drawn and other...specimens, plus a TB test, then went to Target to get my new prescriptions. I left home at about 9:30am, and didn't get home until 7pm. My poor, wonderful husband. He is an angel.

It's been a long time since I've heard a Doctor say, "If you feel worse, go to the emergency room immediately." Not since the days of mononucleosis have I even considered going to the hospital. Now listen, if I have tubercleosis, that is really going to suck. And also, I'm very grateful that I live in the 21st century and that I live in America, and that we have enough money to treat my pneumonia. I'm very lucky in my misfortune.

I don't know what I'm going to do about school. I can read and write, and email. There's hope!

It's Notta Tuma

But it is pneumonia. I go to the Dr. again tomorrow morning, and will prob need to get a blood scan. I wish they'd make that get well wand like in ST:The Next Generation, where Dr. Crusher would just lay you on the table and wave the wand over the affected area until all signs of infection dissapate. I'm feeling better, but I don't know if it's the Ibuprofen talking. I still have a fever -- so something's not going away.

You're Invited...

I'm sick, for the first time since we have lived in Long Beach. I overextended myself with entertaining family for the weekend, and in my weakened condition caught the illness that they were taking antiboitics for. My brothers family is often sick, and I'm not one of those people who "catch everything," so I wasn't worried. I should have been worried.

What day is it? Friday? Well, I started thinking clearly yesterday, as yesterday was the first day I didn't have a fever of 101 -- just 99. I lay for five nights with a fever that wouldn't quit. My fever simply wouldn't go down no matter if I took Tylenol or Motrin in thier highest strengths and doses -- I couldn't get it down from 102 to 100, but not below that. Then, because I have bronchitis, I was finding it really hard to breathe. So no sleep -- no relief with any kind of drugs, and that means I went to the doctor twice to get two different kinds of cough medicine that don't work, and an inhaler that seems to be giving me a sore throat, and an $80 antibiotic. All this and I still couldn't sleep. I finally took NyQuil at four o'clock this morning and guess what, I got a few hours in.

Of course, when I am sick things tend to fall apart around the house: laundry, vaccuuming, man-shoes pile up, of course my couchside table looks like a pharmacy...the maids forget to get called not to come, so they woke me up this morning -- no clean? Oh, no, not today, so sorry we didn't call...oh, is okay...and I feel like crap because they bring a lot of equipment all the way up the elevator, and that sucks, and my head feels like one of the worst hangovers, like a whiskey hangover, NO, like a Southern Comfort hangover, and this stupid illness has my nuerons all backwards and I feel like I have little ants on me and I look like a crazy person trying to find them.

Well, being as I'm sick, freaking stupid sick (oh and I had to go to the hospital to get an X-ray to make sure that I don't have pneumonia), I have been home watching movies On Demand when I can bring my self to want to pay attention. On Demand is a great, great service, and makes you a little scared to leave your house. So far, the most intersting movie I've watched is Waking Life, an animated movie about a boy who can't seem to wake up, but has continuing dream sequences in which he tries to become lucid, and other people talk about science and philosophy and the science of dreams and brain function and time and all these things that plague the big brains (and hearts, the little man cries!). It was well put together. Kind of gave me motion sickness though.

And let me tell you something that you don't know about yourself. When you say "siiiiiick," like it's a good thing -- I hate it. Because I am sick. And sick is awful and you are awful, you who say sick to mean you like it. What if you were just a honest person for once and said "I reeeeealllly liiiiiiike iiiiit." It would be a big step, wouldn't it? I know, those big-boy pants are so intimidating. I'll wait.

And my cats. Oy. They are in heaven, because I am home and can be slept with/on all day, but they're animals! I don't know, they're grossing me out right now.

I'm not in the best of spirits. But I don't have a bad spirit, like Saul! Are we up t Saul yet? No way! We haven't even read about Sampson yet. Are we going in chronological order? I miss school.

So, thanks for joining my pity party for a few minutes, I hope you had a nice laugh, and see you soon, and adopt my cats.