This is the 7th day of a good old fashioned head cold, ie, upper respiratory infection. Last Sunday my sinuses started draining to the extent that I could not separate myself from a box of Kleenex. And they gave me incredible pain. There were a couple days of this wherein I did not leave the apartment. I lost my taste for food. Into it a day or so, I started some benadryl to cut the production of mucus and some tylenol for pain. It wasn't long before I began expectorating. My sleep mask so irritated my sinuses that I could only stand it for a few hours at a time. At the peak of it, I cancelled lunch on Tuesday. Then, per usual, there were the lung sounds of wheeziness and a great deal of coughing. I took a couple hits on the atrovent inhaler nearly every day. Taste is slowly returning. The headaches are fewer and farther between. The coughing has diminished. The drainage, too. While I am still not finished with this episode, there appears to be light at the end of this particular tunnel. And the course of this particular bout appears to be falling within the common 7-10 day period.
I am sure that this sounds familiar to most of you--these symptoms that--with variations such as sore throats and middle ear infections--hit us all every once in awhile. I have been a fairly long time without a cold. And, given my history of a seriously compromised immune system and the pneumonias that have followed, I take them very seriously. As luck would have it, my semi-annual check up occurred right in the middle of this. My doc concurred with the lay diagnosis. He said that my history has led to bronchiactisis, so my lungs are ready to be further compromised. When he examined me all was clear. Since he was going out of town the next week he asked if I wanted a script for an antibiotic, so that if there wasn't abatement during the usual period, I could start self-treatment. I demurred saying that I had a complete dose of amoxycilin that I had wangled the prior year before visiting Mexico. We agreed on the dosage levels.
When I was a younger person this kind of infection would hit me in autumn, pre-winter most years. It would run the course above. Then it would come back in a couple weeks with a diminished vigor, usually just for several days. And then it would retreat for a year. I think I should expect that again.
I am babbling at length here out of a perverse joyfulness. If this bout resolves on its own, so-to-speak, then it says something about my immune system, doesn't it? Could it actually have developed some of its old strength? I am prepared to think so. A great deal has changed post my heart ablations. Now that the heart is in better rhythm than it used to be I feel healthier overall. (Everyone keeps telling me how good I look!) Others think so, therefore, I am (with apologies to Descartes).
So, that's the good news out of the bad, but wait, a bit more bad: Jan now has it, too. (My bad!) This is unusual but I am guessing it is because we find ourselves in the more confined environment of the apartment. I fully expect she will survive, and probably come out of it more quickly than I.
