Hacking and Wheezing

Hacking and Wheezing

There has been some lousy bug floating around (I’m sure it’s not limited to New York City, but it’s definitely here) that is not the seasonal flu strain (I got that shot), but it has debilitated several people including me.  When I say debilitated, I should be careful.  I have not lost one day of work (some of my colleagues who have it have lost a few odd days), and I have definitely had colds or flu that have been much more severe in terms of congestion or symptoms or fever.  I have been laid up in bed for several days in the past and this bug has been far trickier than that.  This one has imbedded itself in my chest, just far enough away so that I feel like I need an expectorant to find and resolve it.  There is clearly some sinus drainage into my chest, but not so much as to create pneumonia or a bad chest cold.  The path would be worse, but at least more clearly defined if those were the symptoms.  I barely have anything to blow my nose about and the coughing is limited to sporadic burst.  And when I do cough, its hard work to find a resolution and a satisfying end.  Most of my coughing fits end with a whimper and not a bang.

I don’t really even know what I’m saying about this illness. Am I suggesting it is minor yet long-lasting (this has gone on for 17-18 days so far)? Is that something to expect sympathy for in a world where people have real medical issues plaguing them? The worst I can really say is that this is annoying as hell and it is not helping me have the best nights’ sleep I have ever had. Most of my nights involve a 4am cough for a few moments and then back to bed. The pre-sleep routine was initially to dope up on Nyquil Extreme. Then, when that ran out I shifted to a cough syrup, which ran out last night. I have more, but just like with the Nyquil, I am using the end of the bottle as incentive to shift off the palliative of the sauce. Tonight I will try going cold turkey and see what that gets me. I will have the benefit of the first Democratic Debate and the ability to hear the well-formed ideas of Elizabeth Warren. Where others will find that nails on a chalkboard, I will consider that soothing and rest-inducing.

My morning routine has gone through a more Spartan process.  I started with Dayquil Extreme but self-selected myself off of that after 3-4 days and have gone with nothing more than an occasional cough drop during the day. In fact, in a recent show my wife offered me cough drops as a preventative measure to having me start a coughing fit during some a cappella verse.  I went along and found that the cough drop did more to induce than retard occasional coughs.  I haven’t figured that anomaly out yet, but last night at a premier movie event I declined the cough drops and did fine without coughing at the critical junctures.

My work colleague who got this bug on the same flight I got it is younger and fitter than me, by quite a lot. He has actually suffered more and has had to use an inhaler to keep from coughing. As I sit here on day 18 I feel like I am at the tail end of it all, but he is not quite there he says. I am wary of declaring victory because something that has lingered this long scares me into thinking that it could rear its ugly head again if I don’t act respectfully enough to its full completion. My granddaughter (who I saw and kissed on day 1) got a delayed version of this, but as a three-year-old she had worked her way through it much faster than me. Perhaps the joy of the end of the school year (let’s face it, the happiest days of any kid’s year) had a positive effect on it. But my daughter said that the doctor called it The Croup.

I think of The Croup as a very old-fashioned illness that afflicts little kids who have to be taken into steamy bathrooms and have this barking cough that sounds too deep for the size and age of the child and is thus somewhat alarming.  It turns out it is a pretty common illness for children even today and is a sort of 2-5 day thing that has no real remedy other than the steam solution and is rarely, if ever, serious unless it is allowed to morph into pneumonia.  I’m not sure an adult can get The Croup or that it is called that in adults, but I’m pretty sure that’s what I had because there was less cold and flu symptoms and more about airway inflammation and that nasty deep cough and wheeze.

Last night I ran out of cough syrup.  I refuse to break open a new bottle.  I refuse to go back to Nyquil.  In two days I am flying off for two weeks in Ireland on the cool (65 degrees high) and moist (rain every third day at least) far western shore on the Ring of Kerry.  I will be with lots of family and friends, so I’m sure between my wife, my sisters, my niece-in-law that’s a trauma nurse and my own daughter, I will have plenty of sympathy and caregiving if I need it (note that since I am paying for most of this boondoggle they have every reason for keeping me healthy a few more weeks).  If I am as much better by then that I feel like I should be, then I’m on vacation and its all good.  Sick or well, I have no obligations during this sort of rented manor house vacation to do anything I don’t want to do for the next two weeks.  Therefore, I feel I am positioned one way or the other to convalesce as needed.

There are even extra bedrooms (the place sleeps 26 and we have only 21 next week) so I can go into a room by myself and hack and wheeze away if I feel the need.  As you can see, I am psyching myself up to feel that this is set to be a great vacation no matter what my state of pulmonary health may be.  I have a supreme confidence that no outside medical services beyond a pharmacy run will be required.  I would be much more concerned if that were not the case, because for whatever is said or what I believe in the importance of universal healthcare, I do not want to test out the Irish version of that while on vacation.  I have one of those MedJet evacuation services that I subscribe to mostly for my motorcycle trips, but maybe I should remember to get an air ambulance home if I get into too much of a coughing fit.  That sounds like fun and a bit dramatic, but I’ll bet it’s  lot less fun getting an IV put in when the plane is jostling you around (I’ll have to ask my niece-in-law since she actually hires out to do air ambulance services).  Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.  Hacking and wheezing are a nuisance, but I don’t expect that to be my personal Waterloo.