Time to whine
If whining and long descriptions of symptoms turn you off, stop reading this and move on to something more pleasant.
My greatest health challenge: cold and flu season.
Mind you, I am a cancer survivor. But when you are in treatment for cancer, it's a battle. No matter how ill you feel, you're in the fight for your life. So you put on your armor and engage in the struggle.
I have many friends who deal with chronic, debilitating illness. Having a cold or the flu is nothing compared to that, I'm sure.
But it's cold and flu season, so let me be a little self-indulgent for the moment.
Because I can't stand having a cold.
You know where it hits me the hardest? My ears.
You would think, after two bouts of bronchitis and a case of pneumonia that put me in the hospital for four days, that my lungs would be the most vulnerable to the germs making the rounds. You'd be wrong.
Spring 2004. Bad cold, major congestion in my sinuses. It felt as though my head was wrapped in cotton, everything filtering through the congestion. Sudafed wasn't helping and was making my heart race and bloodpressure skyrocket.
And then I realized I couldn't hear out of my right ear.
Finally gave in and went to the doctor. And heard those words "bilateral otitis media".
I knew what that was, I'd seen the pediatrician write it in Becca's chart countless times.
An ear infection. In BOTH ears.
In fact the doctor hadn't seen eardrums that badly blistered in .... Well, he couldn't remember when.
It took three weeks of antibiotics and Flonase to clear everything up.
Yesterday I felt it ... scratchy throat, a few sneezes ... and then that burning, itchy sensation in my right ear, the feeling that my ear is draining into my throat ...
All hail Dayquil, that miracle of modern science.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
My greatest health challenge: cold and flu season.
Mind you, I am a cancer survivor. But when you are in treatment for cancer, it's a battle. No matter how ill you feel, you're in the fight for your life. So you put on your armor and engage in the struggle.
I have many friends who deal with chronic, debilitating illness. Having a cold or the flu is nothing compared to that, I'm sure.
But it's cold and flu season, so let me be a little self-indulgent for the moment.
Because I can't stand having a cold.
You know where it hits me the hardest? My ears.
You would think, after two bouts of bronchitis and a case of pneumonia that put me in the hospital for four days, that my lungs would be the most vulnerable to the germs making the rounds. You'd be wrong.
Spring 2004. Bad cold, major congestion in my sinuses. It felt as though my head was wrapped in cotton, everything filtering through the congestion. Sudafed wasn't helping and was making my heart race and bloodpressure skyrocket.
And then I realized I couldn't hear out of my right ear.
Finally gave in and went to the doctor. And heard those words "bilateral otitis media".
I knew what that was, I'd seen the pediatrician write it in Becca's chart countless times.
An ear infection. In BOTH ears.
In fact the doctor hadn't seen eardrums that badly blistered in .... Well, he couldn't remember when.
It took three weeks of antibiotics and Flonase to clear everything up.
Yesterday I felt it ... scratchy throat, a few sneezes ... and then that burning, itchy sensation in my right ear, the feeling that my ear is draining into my throat ...
All hail Dayquil, that miracle of modern science.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
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