Tuesday, March 06, 2007

It's pnot pneumonia.

There is a family (me and the husbeast) legend from our time in Hawaii. We had this tree in our front yard, and every summer it would flower, and my lungs would fill up with goo, and I'd get pneumonia. Three summers in a row. And every summer I would insist it was simply bronchitis until the husbeast would get fed up and force me to go to the doctor. That last summer, I'd really dug in my heels and was sure that it was the year I'd avoid pneumonia, to the point that the husbeast finally made the doctor's appointment and physically hauled me into the office and shoved me in the exam room (my doctor loved him, and used him as a scale for how sick I was). Long story short, I had pneumonia. I come out of the exam room, the husbeast stands up and says "Well?" and I say "I have pneumonia."

And he says "YOU DUMBASS."

Everyone gasped and waited for me to burst into tears. I just rolled my eyes at him and trailed off to the pharmacy to get my medication.



With this past experience, the husbeast thinks he's an expert on my lungs. So I've had him looming over me, bitching, for the last two weeks, telling me I have pneumonia and to get my ass to the doctor before he does it for me. (To date he hasn't hauled me into my new doctor's office, but that day is coming, and when it does, my new doctor will love him too.) The thing is, after all those rounds of pneumonia, I know what it feels like. So I've been trying to ignore this lung thing.

Then I woke up Sunday morning, and my lungs felt just like my face does when I have a sinus infection. So off I went to the doctor yesterday afternoon. (See? I'm not stupid. When I think there's a problem, I go. I just have a different definition of 'problem'.) Since I'd had the bug for six weeks, they took an X-ray to be sure, but it's not pneumonia. They gave me antibiotics anyway, and a boatload of decongestants/bronchiodilators, and this morning I feel more human than I have since maybe Christmas.

I'm sure the husbeast will gloat over that, so I'm not going to tell him. Bastard.



Anyway. While I was in the waiting room at the doctor's, I knit on the sock (the heel gusset is all fucked up because of distractions):

Usually when knitting in public, some idiot makes some stupid comment, but yesterday I just got one, and it wasn't stupid. A woman sat down next to me and said "AH! I should have done that!" and pointed at my sock. "You knit?" I asked politely. "Well, no," she said, "but I could have brought SOMETHING." Someone else asked me if what I was doing was knit or crochet. It never fails to amaze me how ignorant some people are about where their underwear comes from.

Sekhmet (that fucker) has figured out that my laptop is warm. And she likes laying on my lap anyway. It leads to things like this:

Excellent treatment for bronchitis; get your cat to lay on your chest.


Just a reminder; I'm leaving for Florida tomorrow morning. Any orders made between now and then will get mailed, but after that, I won't be home to ship anything until next week. Of course any orders I get while I'm gone will be shipped as soon as I get home, but there WILL be a delay. I'll put up an announcement at the shop, too.


Oh, and The Baby is still cute.

See the cat ignoring her? While 'watching' with her ears? Idiot cat.

10 comments:

Alwen said...

[sniff]I used to have a dear *little lapdog named Sky who would sit in my lap just like that! She liked to nestle her head in the crook of my arm, and give it a little wriggle back and forth to settle it.

*Okay, I say "little": she weighed around 25 lbs. or so, which I thought was the upper limit of lapdog weight, until Ajax the Golden (111-lb) dog!

Anonymous said...

Cute, cute Baby!
But great pic of Sekhmet; I know just what she's doing...

(And leftover from the last post-I like scruffy Aragorn better than the cleaned-up version)

April said...

Where in the world did all The Baby's hair come from? She sure didn't have all that two months ago.

Bells said...

Glad you finally got to the doctor. Hope the Florida sunshine does your chest a world of good!

Sheepish Annie said...

Yeah...once you've had pneumonia you can identify it pretty quickly. There is no other feeling like it and I don't ever want to feel it again!!! Glad you got the meds, though. You'll be feeling better soon!

Yup...the baby is still cute. How does she do it????

Amy Lane said...

The baby has a great "Go on...no, really!" Pose--too cute...and good Husbeast...gooooood Husbeast... any Husbeast that makes you take care of yourself gets the highly coveted "Mate-For-Life" award and needs handknits to keep him happy:-) (And I got my yarn when I got home, and it was freakin GORGEOUS and I might even make something with it for ME...maybe not...maybe for the baby...but maybe for ME!!!)

Anonymous said...

Have you ever had allergy testing?
I'm thinking that would be a good idea. I used to discount a lot of allergies as just seasonal until I almost died from eating Kiwi -my body thinks it's birch tree pollen.
serious Julie so far you are just miserable at times but some of this stuff is life threatening.
Get thee to an allergy specialist, woman!

Catie said...

The eagle has landed, i repeat the eagle has landed. by the way, the eagle is sock yarn from Julie and landed in my mailbox yesterday in perfect condition

Terby said...

The same bug has been circulating through my house. It's not going away, either. I hope you're feeling better for your trip to Florida. Oh, and I'm with you on not going to see the doctor if you can avoid it - there are a lot of sick people there, and I really don't want what they have.

Anonymous said...

You mentioned having the cat lay on your chest as a treatment for bronchitis. I had great success with this once, but my experiment included a thick coat of Vicks Vapor Rub before the kitty. Very effective.

I have since found a product called Air Power by a company named Enzymatic Therapy (available at health food stores). By the time I finished the first bottle, the chronic bronchitis my doctor had diagnosed was gone. I recommend it to everyone with lung problems. They always thank me later. Try it.