Last night gave me quite a scare: I have yet a new type of cough, this time a hollow \u201cwhoo-whoo\u201d sound to it and with it, I was coughing up what I thought were body parts!\u00a0 Everything had the texture of skin, but no blood.\u00a0 When I got out of bed, I did some quick web research to see that I wasn\u2019t dying.\u00a0 Nope. Not dying.\u00a0 The stuff I was coughing up was snot\/phlem\/sputem that had dried and hardened, sort of like beef jerky.\u00a0 This made a lot of sense because I had been irrigating my nose and gargling with salt water.\u00a0 I may have overdone it on the salt; everything tasted salty in my mouth and my blood pressure was way up.\u00a0 Still, the stuff coming out really grossed me out (by the way, except in extreme cases, you can\u2019t cough up lung or throat parts, even though this is widely believed.\u00a0 If you do, there will also be a lot of blood).<\/p>\n
I did two more hours of chip work.\u00a0 Another friend brought me bananas so I wouldn\u2019t starve.\u00a0 There\u2019s still nothing to eat in this house.<\/p>\n
In the afternoon, I got another surprise: first off, my doctor was sick so I was sent to another guy; a young, bright Chinese guy.\u00a0 We hit it off immediately.\u00a0 He realized that I knew what I was talking about with regards to bronchitis and its treatment.\u00a0 He allowed me to help diagnose what was wrong with me.\u00a0 What an interesting approach!\u00a0 With all the clues assembled, we came to the conclusion that I didn\u2019t have pneumonia, so no need for more X-Rays or blood work, but this doctor also concluded that, while I did indeed have bronchitis, I also had whooping cough.\u00a0 Whooping cough hit the schools pretty hard in the final months of school year, so if I had kids (and I do), or spent any time in a classroom, which I did, and have some sort of chronic condition, like severe allergies, which I do, then I was a prime candidate to get this highly contagious disease.\u00a0 The thing with this disease is that the really bad symptoms don\u2019t appear until around week six.\u00a0 Up to that point, it simply appears to be a cold that never goes away, or bronchitis.\u00a0 After week six though, the patient quickly develops a severe and persistent cough that sounds sort of like \u201cwhoop-whoop.\u201d\u00a0 I was just starting the seventh week of bronchitis, so the time frame fit.\u00a0 Whooping Cough can only be cured with antibiotics, otherwise, it is known as the \u201c100 days disease\u201d because it typically takes that long to get rid of it.\u00a0 I got antibiotics and went home excited about the possibility of ending seven weeks of coughing.<\/p>\n
I fired my old doctor and hired this guy.<\/p>\n
I must now be quarantined from everybody, especially my kids, until the antibiotics have begun to work.\u00a0 The thing is, both my kids have a cold right now that could turn out to be whooping cough.\u00a0 My family arrives tonight from the family reunion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last night gave me quite a scare: I have yet a new type of cough, this time a hollow \u201cwhoo-whoo\u201d sound to it and with it, I was coughing up what I thought were body parts!\u00a0 Everything had the texture … Continue reading