So a couple weeks back I wrote about having a cold. Well, the sniffling stopped, the sneezing stopped, and the coughing...well it never went away. In my typical, stubborn, I-don't-want-to-go-to-the-doctor sort of way, I decided the best thing to do was to ignore it and keep coughing. That changed the night my wife asked why I was breathing so fast. I said I wasn't breathing fast, especially since I was just sitting there, not exerting myself with heavy exercise like bending over to tie my shoes, reaching for more cookies, or grabbing the remote to change the channel. When she pointed out that I indeed was breathing fast, I started getting worried. One possible cause could be pneumonia or any other number of pfunny gnamed illknesses.
So, first thing the next day I called the doctor and scheduled an appointment for later that day. The two things I can always count on with my obsessive-compulsive doctor is that no matter what I am there for I have to be humiliated with the scale, and that he will be at the very latest on time. And that is exactly what happened, after finding out I was fat (again) I was taken back to see the doctor...early! While the nurse was pointing out that I was fat and taking my blood pressure, she scared me by telling me how rampant pneumonia has been this year. My doctor came in and had me take several deep breaths, much more than usual, which seemed like a pretty sadistic thing to do to someone that was having trouble breathing. Finally, he told me to take a deep breath, and breathe it out as fast as I could, which resulted in my coughing very hard, getting light headed, and almost falling off the exam table. That caused him to giggle a little and tell me that people usually get lightheaded if they come in in my state and do that, which made me wonder why, if most people get lightheaded and almost fall off the table, why didn't he put himself in some sort of position to catch me? Anyway, he narrowed it down to walking pneumonia or viral bronchitis, and told me to go to the hospital right away to get an X-ray.
Because of my medical past, I have been pummeled by radiation so much to the point that my oncologist wants to limit the amount of exposure I have from now on. For those that don't know, radiation builds in your body over time. It starts from the day you were born and keeps adding up until the day you die. I told my doctor that my oncologist (and his good friend) had ordered a chest X-ray as part of my six month post-chemo check-up for the next week and asked if there was anyway I could just get one set of X-rays that would take care of what both my doctor and my oncologist wanted to see (plus then I would only have to pay one co-pay). He thought that was a great idea and wrote the prescription. My doctor sent me on my way, but not without first giving me two free inhalers. He is one of those doctors that feels if drug companies are constantly going to keep coming around and bugging him, he is going to take all the samples he can, and try his best to keep from actually ever writing a prescription for anything, just give away free samples. I don't think that is what the drug reps had in mind, but I certainly appreciate it.
I rush to the hospital just in time to spend the next half an hour filling out paperwork and answering questions between coughs. I finally got in to have my X-rays done and my doctor called the next morning to say I just had bronchitis (which isn't that much easier to spell) and that it looks like I am still cancer free. I still have another week before I hear that officially from my oncologist, but the surprise X-ray and results have definitely cut down on my scanxiety this time around.
So, going on week four since all this started, I am still coughing and according to my doctor, can expect to still be coughing for another two weeks. I am thrilled. In the meantime, I will steer clear of salty foods, keep making people around me scared that I am contagious, and keep my wife and basenjis awake by hacking all through the night. Let's just call it payback for all the kicking that they supposedly do "in their sleep".
I will close by telling the story about the Evil Casket. The Evil Casket started chasing this poor girl one day. No matter where she went the Evil Casket came bouncing after her. The faster she ran, the faster the Evil Casket bounced. She ran into her house and locked the door, the Evil Casket knocked the door down. She ran upstairs, and the Evil Casket bounded right up the stairs behind her. She ran into the bathroom and locked the door, and the Evil Casket broke that door down too. Cornered and desperate, the poor girl reached for something, anything to use as a weapon against the Casket. She opened the medicine cabinet, grabbed the Dimetapp, threw at her pursuer, and....the coffin stopped!
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Monday, April 18, 2011
Taking A Houseplant, Worms, And My Wife On A Roadtrip
One of the things I have done for my wife in the past is take her on surprise trips. In fact, my proposal to her was a surprise trip to Niagara Falls, where for the balance of the trip, rather than enjoy the beauty of the natural wonder, she stared at her recently acquired ring, studying to see if I remembered all the specifics she told me to make sure it had. Since then I have surprised her with other trips like a trip to Holiday World (which has FREE Pepsi products!!!) and the Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. OK, so the quality of the surprise trips has definitely been declining. Anyway, a very good friend had offered me her lakeside cabin for the weekend. I call it a cabin, but it is more the size of an Army barracks, except the cabin can sleep more people.
Two months ago I started planning this trip as a cool, cheap thing an unemployed cancer patient can do for his wife's birthday. It required me to make all sorts of plans, cover stories, basenji babysitters, and secret acquisitions of everything from the keys to the place and groceries to worms (for fishing). This kept me a lot busier than I had thought it would. Everyday last week it seemed I was running around gathering stuff between the hours that my wife left for work and before she came home. I had to run around, buy food and supplies, and get back into my regular lounging-around-the-house clothes by the time she got home so she wouldn't realize I was running around all day buying worms.
My plan went fairly well and she even bought my cover story, that we were going to see my grandma in the nursing home. That story was actually too believable. While I was mowing the lawn the night before our departure, my wife baked a fancy cake and bought a houseplant all for my dear grandma that we weren't actually going to see. So, being the resourceful person that I am, since this trip was a surprise birthday trip, I grabbed some candles and decided she just baked her own birthday cake. Now in the past, I have tricked family members into wrapping their own presents, this is the first time I had someone bake their own cake.
The good news is, my wife was happily surprised and not mad that she baked a fancy cake...for herself, and a cute houseplant got to go on a road trip. The place we stayed was huge! At first it was overwhelming and even deciding what bedroom to sleep in resulted in an hour long dilemma. The irony was, that with this gigantic lake house at our disposal, we basically only really hung out in two rooms. Even though the fishing was non-productive this weekend, I was able to sneak her favorite camera into the car, so what she didn't catch in fish, she made up for in pictures.
As for me, the topography surrounding a house built on a slope next to a lake and some in progress repairs on the front porch, compounded by the amount of stuff we had to haul in and out, really stressed my incision. In my usual stubbornness, I didn't bother to take any precautions as I was rappelling down to the cabin from the car with loads of luggage and groceries...and worms. After climbing up and down the hill, loading and unloading the car, and fishing, and just walking to the lake, luckily, I feel great. So, even though this was a trip for my wife, it ended up being a boost for my own morale as well. One more sign that this cancer stuff is getting further and further behind me.
So, I don't have to sneak around buying worms anymore, and I don't have to worry about all the people that were in on my wife's surprise trip slipping up and spilling the beans. I did a bunch of stuff I shouldn't have physically this weekend, and I am none the worse for it. Although with the storms, it wasn't the best trip, but it was still pretty good!
Two months ago I started planning this trip as a cool, cheap thing an unemployed cancer patient can do for his wife's birthday. It required me to make all sorts of plans, cover stories, basenji babysitters, and secret acquisitions of everything from the keys to the place and groceries to worms (for fishing). This kept me a lot busier than I had thought it would. Everyday last week it seemed I was running around gathering stuff between the hours that my wife left for work and before she came home. I had to run around, buy food and supplies, and get back into my regular lounging-around-the-house clothes by the time she got home so she wouldn't realize I was running around all day buying worms.
My plan went fairly well and she even bought my cover story, that we were going to see my grandma in the nursing home. That story was actually too believable. While I was mowing the lawn the night before our departure, my wife baked a fancy cake and bought a houseplant all for my dear grandma that we weren't actually going to see. So, being the resourceful person that I am, since this trip was a surprise birthday trip, I grabbed some candles and decided she just baked her own birthday cake. Now in the past, I have tricked family members into wrapping their own presents, this is the first time I had someone bake their own cake.
The good news is, my wife was happily surprised and not mad that she baked a fancy cake...for herself, and a cute houseplant got to go on a road trip. The place we stayed was huge! At first it was overwhelming and even deciding what bedroom to sleep in resulted in an hour long dilemma. The irony was, that with this gigantic lake house at our disposal, we basically only really hung out in two rooms. Even though the fishing was non-productive this weekend, I was able to sneak her favorite camera into the car, so what she didn't catch in fish, she made up for in pictures.
As for me, the topography surrounding a house built on a slope next to a lake and some in progress repairs on the front porch, compounded by the amount of stuff we had to haul in and out, really stressed my incision. In my usual stubbornness, I didn't bother to take any precautions as I was rappelling down to the cabin from the car with loads of luggage and groceries...and worms. After climbing up and down the hill, loading and unloading the car, and fishing, and just walking to the lake, luckily, I feel great. So, even though this was a trip for my wife, it ended up being a boost for my own morale as well. One more sign that this cancer stuff is getting further and further behind me.
So, I don't have to sneak around buying worms anymore, and I don't have to worry about all the people that were in on my wife's surprise trip slipping up and spilling the beans. I did a bunch of stuff I shouldn't have physically this weekend, and I am none the worse for it. Although with the storms, it wasn't the best trip, but it was still pretty good!
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Ah, The Good Old Days When I Could Take Dimetapp...
After a week (or weak) of coughing, snorting, hacking, sniffling, wheezing, whining, blowing, gasping, and honking I think I have almost beaten this cold. According to my wife I was just complaining and it wasn't that bad, until she caught it four days later. I maintain, that if she would have taken better care of me, she wouldn't have gotten it. However, since she just left me to flounder, I remained sick and infectious and she caught it from me.
I think the worst part of this cold or any cold, is when you start coughing without end. Although a few blogs ago I was saying I finally felt like I was over my incision pain, I was coughing so bad a few days ago, I was afraid I was going to rip it back open again. Luckily I didn't.
When the coughing started, I reached for my tried and tested Dimetapp Children's. Not being able to take anything with any alcohol, this is my usual goto remedy for coughing and itchy throats. However, I haven't taken any since I had chemo. Tired from wiping, coughing, and spitting all day, I took the maximum dose of Dimetapp and laid down to enjoy a sound night of slumber. Five hours later, I was still waiting for slumber, or at least for the monkeys in my head to quit typing. OK, there were not any actual monkeys typing, but my mind was racing so much, it felt like there were approximately one thousand and two monkeys typing on old fashioned manual typewriters with worn out ribbons. I don't know why it had to be worn out ribbons. Maybe they weren't monkeys, they were gibbons and that is where I got the "ribbons" from. Anyway, I couldn't concentrate on sleeping if that makes sense.
Ever since chemotherapy, anything with diphenhydramine (like Benadryl) instead of making me tired, makes me wide awake and has my mind racing. I guess it's a good thing I've never done meth. My mind would be racing and I would never get anything done from the diphenhydramine. Meth addicts get a lot done right? And diphenhydramine is one of the things they make meth with right? Yup, it is, I just looked it up. Now I am probably on some government list for looking it up.
Well, with the Dimetapp a failure, I was even sicker from not getting any sleep. So, I slept all day and completely screwed up my sleep pattern, which helps in healing too. Eventually, through the use of Lifesavers and Luden's I was able to make it through the sandpaper-against-the-back-of-the-throat days to now where I feel almost normal....for me.
The caveat is that now I have a coughing wife keeping me awake and a coughing basenji. I know you are probably wondering why my dog is coughing, and frankly we are too. My mother-in-law's theory is that she caught the cold from us. Now while I don't think she caught our cold, I do think this basenji is hacking because of it. Lately, she has had a smorgasbord of Kleenex's lying around. Now before you say "Ooh, boogie eating dog!" I am not talking about used Kleenex's. It's just that we have had boxes of Kleenex's within arm's reach of every flat/cushioned surface in the house, and that to Daisy the basenji is a lot like having a beer tap with mouth's reach of an alcoholic. Because a Kleenex box works much like a beer tap, more just keeps magically appearing.
So, I don't think Daisy is coughing from a cold, I think she is coughing from eating several cases of Kleenex the past few days. And although Kleenex may be a welcome relief on a runny nose, I can imagine it would tickle the back of your throat if you ate one, or a box. At any rate, our vet didn't seem too worried, and just in case she gave us medicine to fix every possible thing it could be. Which made me jealous. I think next time I have a cough I will just go to the vet. She's cheaper than our doctor too.
Anyway, with the weather warming up, I am hoping to be well enough to get out and enjoy it. Hopefully my wife will feel better soon too (because unlike toughing it out like I did, she whines a lot). Plus I am getting wore out from waiting on her hand and foot.
I think the worst part of this cold or any cold, is when you start coughing without end. Although a few blogs ago I was saying I finally felt like I was over my incision pain, I was coughing so bad a few days ago, I was afraid I was going to rip it back open again. Luckily I didn't.
When the coughing started, I reached for my tried and tested Dimetapp Children's. Not being able to take anything with any alcohol, this is my usual goto remedy for coughing and itchy throats. However, I haven't taken any since I had chemo. Tired from wiping, coughing, and spitting all day, I took the maximum dose of Dimetapp and laid down to enjoy a sound night of slumber. Five hours later, I was still waiting for slumber, or at least for the monkeys in my head to quit typing. OK, there were not any actual monkeys typing, but my mind was racing so much, it felt like there were approximately one thousand and two monkeys typing on old fashioned manual typewriters with worn out ribbons. I don't know why it had to be worn out ribbons. Maybe they weren't monkeys, they were gibbons and that is where I got the "ribbons" from. Anyway, I couldn't concentrate on sleeping if that makes sense.
Ever since chemotherapy, anything with diphenhydramine (like Benadryl) instead of making me tired, makes me wide awake and has my mind racing. I guess it's a good thing I've never done meth. My mind would be racing and I would never get anything done from the diphenhydramine. Meth addicts get a lot done right? And diphenhydramine is one of the things they make meth with right? Yup, it is, I just looked it up. Now I am probably on some government list for looking it up.
Well, with the Dimetapp a failure, I was even sicker from not getting any sleep. So, I slept all day and completely screwed up my sleep pattern, which helps in healing too. Eventually, through the use of Lifesavers and Luden's I was able to make it through the sandpaper-against-the-back-of-the-throat days to now where I feel almost normal....for me.
The caveat is that now I have a coughing wife keeping me awake and a coughing basenji. I know you are probably wondering why my dog is coughing, and frankly we are too. My mother-in-law's theory is that she caught the cold from us. Now while I don't think she caught our cold, I do think this basenji is hacking because of it. Lately, she has had a smorgasbord of Kleenex's lying around. Now before you say "Ooh, boogie eating dog!" I am not talking about used Kleenex's. It's just that we have had boxes of Kleenex's within arm's reach of every flat/cushioned surface in the house, and that to Daisy the basenji is a lot like having a beer tap with mouth's reach of an alcoholic. Because a Kleenex box works much like a beer tap, more just keeps magically appearing.
So, I don't think Daisy is coughing from a cold, I think she is coughing from eating several cases of Kleenex the past few days. And although Kleenex may be a welcome relief on a runny nose, I can imagine it would tickle the back of your throat if you ate one, or a box. At any rate, our vet didn't seem too worried, and just in case she gave us medicine to fix every possible thing it could be. Which made me jealous. I think next time I have a cough I will just go to the vet. She's cheaper than our doctor too.
Anyway, with the weather warming up, I am hoping to be well enough to get out and enjoy it. Hopefully my wife will feel better soon too (because unlike toughing it out like I did, she whines a lot). Plus I am getting wore out from waiting on her hand and foot.
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