Finally... the end is is sight. No, no, not that... I mean that I'm starting to feel better.
Most of the last 24 hours have been spent in a medicine-induced haze, trying to sleep and being unable to due to the coughing.
My fever broke about 02:00 this morning, though, and I got about six hours of sleep after that. Better, but I'm still feeling like I was run over by a large truck.
And there's a bonus: I gave it to Karen!
Something that I forgot to mention last Thursday: Karen called me from Applebees, and I met her and Kim and Lacee out there. Lacee was not her usual self, being pretty crabby and actually taking a little nap in the booth. Well, Lacee got taken to the doc Friday with a sore throat, and was diagnosed with strep.
So I think that the antibiotic that I got yesterday (Zithromax) will take care of the strep, too, but Karen might need to get some. We'll have to see how she does... she doesn't get things nearly as bad as I do usually.
Smoking... dammit, I've gotta quit. I only smoked three yesterday, but I've smoked six since I've been up today. I can't really take a good drag, that would send me into a coughing fit... just little tiny drags.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Again, I put the cigarette out, half-smoked, grinding it, crushing it in the ashtray, internally vowing that it will be the very last one... knowing that I'm lying to myself, and not even very plausibly even.
There's a girl at work, a RN that works in ICU, that I've smoked with over the last two or three years. She just up and quit. No pills, patches, no nothing... just quit.
She doesn't know how. It was just time, she said.
I want it to be my time. Right now.
I tried to get some sleep again, but it was a no-go. My temp is back up to 101.5, so I was obviously wrong about how good I felt... I just thought I felt good, with no basis in fact. Well, hell, sometimes that does work. Not this time, though.
I've got stuff in my lungs that I can't cough up... probably too thick and mucousy. Wow, my spell-checker doesn't like that! I need to drink more water... but then, if I do get to sleep, I'll have to wake up and pee. Dammit, it just ain't fair. Aw, I knew that.
Well, I've got an appointment to see the doc tomorrow, anyway. About my sore feet, which, incidentally, aren't right now. Yep, make an appointment and them suckers heal up.
I do have several other things to talk about with him, though. I need to start following up with my cardiac guy, I need to have a sleep study done, I want to get off of the Prozac, I have to quit smoking... and about ten other simple things.
I thought that maybe today's picture would demonstrate how bad I feel, but hell, I don't look nearly as bad as I feel. Damned good thing, too, if I did I wouldn't be able to look in a mirror.
I just smashed my next-to-the-last pack of cigarettes. Possible a meaningless gesture, but maybe not. Someday it'll work, maybe it's today.
More later, or tomorrow...
Ah, the smoking. One nice thing about smoking... it will sometimes cause coughing spasms that will bring the mucus up. Of course, it's the fucking smoking that causes the mucus in the first place...