Another Diagnosis

If you've been anywhere near me since last April, you've heard me cough. I have done nothing BUT cough since then and have hated it passionately. I couldn't get it to settle down, so I gave in and went to the clinic and saw the nurse practitioner. Don't get me wrong, she's a nice lady and has helped my family most times she's seen any of us over the years....but if I went in there with a pain in my foot, she'd tell me I had a sinus infection. It's about the only diagnosis we ever hear.

April, my sinus infection was different. I had all these other irritating symptoms too, like watery itching eyes and aching ears. My neck even hurt some. So I went to see her and got the dreaded diagnosis: sinus infection due to allergies. Well that was something new! I'd never had allergies before so didn't recognize those symptoms when they struck ME. But that's handle-able so we took care of it (that means I did take the antibiotic and claritin, and also took my herbs.) It eased up, but I had a little bit of a cough that lingered. Just the annoying noise, nothing major.

Then along comes June and BAM! It struck again full force and miserable! I recognized it as identical to the April incident, so why pay the clinic to tell me that? I just got another box of claritin, nyquil to knock me out and took more herbs. It went on its way and all that lingered was a little nagging cough. Then along comes August and BAM again. Just exactly the same thing. This is so unfair. It didn't help that these events were also coinciding with Tommy's episodes.

Well, here it is September and wouldn't you know it,....it hits me again. Now I've dealt with this garbage in the spring, the summer....and now the fall. What the heck am I allergic to? The pollens should all be different? Was I THAT unhealthy?

We made plans to go out of town. I had the dreaded sinus stuff hit just a couple days before. I got well enough I could survive the trip, and then the day we were supposed to go home, Tommy's health got a bit stressed. So we stayed. That next day, I got the full brunt of this irritation. It was awful,....but it wasn't the worst. That was still to come for the day we left Tennessee to drive back home. THAT was the worst of it! I lost bladder control weeks ago, so that's not new, but the serious pain in my kidneys was. Every cough was like a vice clamping down on each kidney squeezing the life out of me. It was so bad I couldn't drive and had to turn the wheel over to Tommy. I cried the rest of the way home. Having babies isn't quite that bad! Skipping past some of the details here ... Yesterday I got up and called one of Tommy's doctors. I don't have insurance and was scared to go see them, but had to know for sure if I had swine flu and the clinic had just misdiagnosed me. I haven't had all the symptoms for that, but it has been found in my region, so I had to be sure. We went and saw the doc and she asked when I first started showing signs of allergy. I told her about the April visit to the clinic. And she asked me when I got over it. I told her I never really had completely, that I always had a bit of a cough left behind. A few more questions later, she tells me I need to rip out the carpet in my house and put my dog outside! She said the pollens aren't getting me, my house is!

My opinion here: The dog has been here since last year and she's only indoors in the evenings. She's not going anywhere until I'm forced to put her out. The house though,.....

When I was younger, my mother told me that all it took for a word to be bad was intend it to have a bad meaning. She said I could even say "hot dog!" and that be a bad word if I had bad intentions when I used it.

My house is a piece of HOT DOG! Tommy inherited it from his parents and I can't tell if its been a blessing or a curse. Right now, I'm cursing it with every Oscar Myer word I can come up with.

Good news is.... I was right! It's a sinus infection that is bacterial,...and the bacteria is a resistant variety that has gotten firm hold of my sinus cavity. Thats why nothing has helped me much all this time, only helped me bide my time. The house keeps feeding the infection so it stays strong and I stay weak. I'm not contagious but I'm not getting it over it rapidly. I've got new meds: a stronger antibiotic (the stuff they use for anthrax) and a steroid and 2 cough suppressants plus robitussin and claritin again. Oh and one of those tablets is VILE tasting! I have to cram food and such in my mouth with it to get it down and not throw it up. The doc told me I could feel this way for another week, but next week I should feel some better and in 2 months I should be well. yeah.... t w o l o n g f r e a k i n' h o t d o g m o n t h s!

Anyone have a tissue?