Bronchitis sucks.

Hi Steve,

Well, I finally went to the damned doctor yesterday---what a racket the medical field is---but ya know, I have NEVER ONCE met the actual damned DOCTOR.  All I ever get to see is the nurse practitioner.  So apparently the DOCTOR is too damned BUSY to actually see PATIENTS.  (Grrrr).  Anyway, so I paid my $20 co-pay, just to be told that "wow, you're sick."  NO SHIT!!! REALLY?!!

Makes me wanna punch somebody right in the neck.

Over the phone they said I might have walking pneumonia.  Lovely.  They told me this while I was in the middle of WAL-MART, getting groceries.  Not exactly the best place in the universe to avoid GERMS, ya know what I mean?  Buncha germ-riddled riff raff walkin' around in that place.  And I, unfortunately, was just told that I was one of them.

So I get into the check out line after agreeing to go see the stupid doctor, and sure enough, I'm right behind a crying newborn baby and his 3 year old sister in the cart, who's gibber-jabbering at me, and I'm tryin' REALLY hard NOT to breathe on this cute little girl, or the baby, but she's asking me if I like the magazine picture of Halloween cookies, and I'm trying to have a conversation with a 3 year old, feeling miserable and trying to get the hell outta there quick.

I get home, take all the groceries in, and then head over to the doctor's office.  I'm coughing my head off, wiping my runny nose, feeling tired as hell....but then she says, "Well I wish I had a magic pill to give you to make it all go away overnight, but I don't."  (Gee, I just love the bed side manner of doctors nowadays).  So she gives me a prescription for more Robitussin (which I had already been TAKING), but this one has codeine in it, to make me drowsy.

I said, "Um, well, you see, I've been laying around in bed for 2 solid days, and it didn't seem to do much of anything for me...so why are you making me lay around in bed even more with drowsy cough medicine? That makes no sense."  She just smiled and said, "Well, it should help your chest congestion too, so you'll cough more."  GREAAAAAT....COUGH MORE?!

I looked at her incredulously, "Why exactly would you make me cough MORE? I pulled a friggin' MUSCLE in my BACK from coughing so hard...I really don't WANT to cough more, that's why I am HERE, so that you will make it STOP."

Sometimes, I can be a royal pain in the ass.  Especially when I'm sick.

Anyway, that's all she could do for me, apparently.  Officially, I have bronchitis.  I don't exactly know when this COLD of mine morphed into that, but apparently that's what I'm stuck with now.

So now I'm taking this codeine cough medicine, and last night, (still sleeping in an upright cushy CHAIR in the living room because I can't lay myself DOWN), I finally fell asleep and made it with only a few wake-up's during the night.  My average wake up number is 16 times.  I know this because I sleep with a LARK on my wrist, that keeps track of my sleep pattern.  I got up at 1:45 a.m., from coughing, then 4 a.m. to use the bathroom, then 7 a.m. because the cat was hungry and made sure I knew it loud and clear...a few hundred times.

I feel a little better today, but yes, I am coughing MORE now, and it's loosening up in my chest a bit.  But, nothing so far has come OUT, so I don't know if that's what I should expect next or what.  I just know that I'm tired of coughing, and just plain tired OUT from being sick.

Sooooo that's MY weekend ahead, I hope you have a much better one planned for yourself.

Well, have a great weekend Stephen, and I'll try not to breathe on you.

Love you lots....xoxoxo

---Rebecca