Bad Aftertaste

Nobody likes being sick.  Unless you're a kid, staying home from school and missing the big algebra exam, it's just about one of the most trying times of a human\s existence.  Between the sniffling, running nose and irritating blinding coughs, it's truly quite a bothersome ordeal.  My personal Hell is the coughing.  There are times that I get on a stria that is difficult to decipher whether it's a string of individual coughs strung together or simply one hellaceous cough.  Either way, the end result is the same.  I begin to get light-headed, accompanied by a severe headache that borders on a migraine level.  Getting sick completely sucks.  The only positive that comes from it, is the constant coughing is a good workout for the abdominal region.  I've had bouts of influenza and pneumonia where it felt like I'd just completed about a thousand and two sit-ups.

One memory that I have of being sick, is re-instilled every time I see a commercial for Buckley's Cough Syrup.  Several years ago, I was invited to accompany a friend to his parents house in another city.  It was an overnight excursion and as luck would have it, I became very under the weather.  I was quite ill, with all the fixin's that accompany such an ailment.  Runny red nose and a heavy cough from Hell.  My friend assured me that he had "just what the doctor ordered" by way of combating the illness that was striking me down.  Buckley's Cough Syrup.

I've never been a fan of cough remedies of any sort.  They'd always tasted horrendous.  Even the cough syrup that was administered to us kids, growing up, which was aimed at tasting "good", tasted quite bad.  So I was reluctant to try this remedy when my friend offered it to me.  However, in a show of solidarity, he opted to take some, too.  So I reluctantly agreed.

The directions for an adult dosage called for two tablespoons.  "The trick is," D_____ explained, "Don't swallow the first tablespoon."  He informed me that I was to take the first tablespoon and leave it in my mouth until I took the second tablespoon.  "Because," he went on to explain, "It tastes SO bad, that it's unlikely you'll take the second tablespoon."

He was correct.  The taste of Buckley's Cough Syrup is SO unbelievably bad that there was no freakin' way that I would have committed to taking a second administering of that awful concoction.  On the bright side, though, just as the slogan promises, it DOES work.  Overnight, my cough had pretty much disappeared entirely.

It tastes awful and it works.

In the years since then, I've battled many bouts of sickness, knowing full well the benefits of Buckley's Cough Syrup, yet I've never made any effort to add it to my non-existent arsenal of cold remedies.  Part of me is chicken shit.  A frightened child wrapped in the body of a grown male, afraid of two tablespoons of awful tasting medicine.  It's pathetic, really, when you think about it.  In the meantime, I still have that simple memory which I reflect on a few times a day, when I see that commercial, and it never fails to make me smile.

Out With A Bang, In With An OUCH!!

The beginning of 2013 had me fighting a bad case of pneumonia, followed by a few months of worry and concern, with return visits for X rays and CT Scans, following the progress of, what was described to me as a "black mass" on my lung.  That turned out to not be as serious as was initially believed. (Phew!)  Then the last half of December, I found myself sick, again, which I eventually found myself battling an excruciating bout of pneumonia, once again.  That fight took up most (if not all) of my two week shutdown break from work.  Yay!  At least the weather was shitty and cold, so I never had much need (or desire) to leave the comforts of my house.

January 2nd, 2014, was my first day back to work.  While I didn't feel a 100%, I did feel (or so I thought) well enough to return to work.  I knew that there'd be at least a couple of people still gone with extended vacations, but we were down four in actuality.  I managed to muscle through my Thursday, but with a badgering cough that was fueling an exasperating headache.  With every frenzied cough attack, the world would fade through my eyes and the painful pounding would commence.  Thankfully, it being the first day back, my job wasn't too strenuous and was easily manageable, despite the discomfort.

The fight never ceased after the final bell rang and it was home time.  I came home to a snowy driveway, packed with hardened snow that I foolishly took a stab at clearing.  The hard packed snow had accumulated a few days prior, so much so that it blocked my front door, which caused the bottom of the door to bend and tear away, upon my exit on Tuesday.  (Great!  More expense out of pocket.)  The temperature had warmed up significantly, but not enough to avoid heavy breathing.  With my asthma, I find that the cooler temperatures really have an adverse effect on me.  Especially since the discovery of the "black mass" on my lung.  Earlier in the season, with the dropping Mercury, I found my breathing to be difficult and laboured, at best.  This is something that the specialist relayed to me as the norm for the remainder of my days.  (I really gotta win that lottery, so I can retire to Texas or Arizona.  Or maybe New Zealand.  That place looks like it could be kinda cool..., except for all the god damned Orcs.)

Thursday night and Friday morning was disturbing.  It seemed for every thirty minute to hour patch of sleep, I'd be woken up abruptly with a coughing frenzy.  Even in the darkness of my bedroom, with my head pounding hard, my surroundings seemed to fade from my view.  Reluctantly, I contacted my employer in the morning, notifying that I regretfully would not be coming into work.  I hate leaving them in a lurch like that, despite my boss thinking that I do.  I went back to sleep for (thankfully) a very restful hour, before I got up and drove myself to the hospital.  This is something that I really should have addressed over my break, but I had my pal's van while he and his family were on vacay in Florida and I didn't want them to come home to needing to be taxied to my house to pick up their van.  However, I do think that if I'd had addressed my illness in a more timely fashion, my current predicament could've been avoided, possibly.

I was hooked up to a nebulizer, where medication was administered into my lungs.  "Breath deeply." I was instructed by the wee little blonde nurse.  On completion of that, I was ushered to the X ray department to get an X ray done, then ushered back after that.

The beginning of 2013, I fought a terrific case of pneumonia.  The end of 2013 had me fighting the worst bout of pneumonia (or any sickness I've ever experienced, including Swine Flu in 2009), and now, I'm barely ankle deep into 2014, and I'm forced to fight a f*cking lung infection??

I don't subscribe to any sort of religion and you'll never see me crouching at my bedside with hands clenched, praying for this or that, but in case I'm terribly mistaken, if there is a God, he'd better bless me with a substantial lottery win pretty f*ckin' soon.  I've paid more than my fair share of dues in this shitty life of mine.  I deserve a god damned break.  This inability to breath, bullshit, is just that.  Bullshit!!