This sucks. Man will I ever get better? I'm doing a little work from bed these days, but only a few hours a day. Nights are still the worst… coughing fits and so forth. At least twice now the coughing fits have been so severe they've led to puking fits… or whatever you call it… you cough hard a few times and then you ralph up a little lunch. And then you do it again. Cough-cough-cough-wretch. Cough-cough-cough-wretch. Loads of fun. Doc has recommended Mucinex DM for that, and it seems to be helping.
I stopped taking the Vicodin and the flavors of things seem to be coming back. Now I take Tylenol when I start feeling discomfort.
Here's a snapshot of my little world.
Daytime television is awful. There's very little worth watching and on some channels they have perhaps 10 commercials (or less) which they will rotate through multiple times every hour. The Science Channel is one of the worst offenders. The first time I saw their ad for their upcoming show about an expedition to Borneo, I thought it looked interesting. Upon seeing this same damn commercial repeated 2000 times, I realized I have no interest in watching the Expedition to Borneo. Know why? Because all the way through it I will have to watch some other endlessly repeated commercial that will make me nuts. Eff that.
Oh and GEICO? All your commercials make me want to do is stomp that stupid lizard to death.
So I've mostly been rotating through the Discovery Channel, the National Geographic Channel, the Science Channel, and occasionally G4TV. Heavy use of the MUTE button on my TV remote to shut out the annoying commercials. I saw an interesting show about the Cassini orbiter, and another about gamma ray bursts. Most of it hasn't stayed with me.
G4TV… what the heck happened? Didn't this use to be the video game channel? What's all this other crap? The Jamie Kennedy Experiment? WTF has that got to do with hot games?
In its defence the best show I've seen this week was on G4TV and it wasn't about videogames. It was an English subtitled Japanese show called “Ninja Warrior” (in Japan the show is called “Sasuke”). Hundreds of contestants from around the world compete to be a “ninja warrior”. How? By attempting to cross an extremely challenging obstacle course in four stages. The obstacles are nightmarish and I really felt for the contestants. The courses were so difficult, it was typical to have no winner at all.
G4TV ran about 8 episodes of Ninja Warrior back to back on Sunday. Apparently some time passed (like several months) between each new round of attempts on the course. During those intervals the courses would also change somewhat, obstacles would be added and removed, as if it wasn't challenging enough for some of these guys who were building their own copies of the courses and training at home. Oh did I mention that most of the stages had time limits?
On the last episode, the guy I had been rooting for (it really pulled me in) finally won, being only the second person to ever complete the course. It was pretty intense.
In some ways it reminded me of American Idol, because some of the people who showed up to compete were actors, or comedians, or beauty queens, or whatever–clearly untrained and only looking to get their few minutes on camera. One guy who showed up every time was a sculptor who built miniature models of the ninja warrior course. The models were exquisite and delicate. And their creator was also obviously delicate… he was clearly a very frail little man who had no chance of completing the course, and yet he would attempt to run it anyway, failing spectacularly at the very first obstacle every time and falling in the drink.
I enjoyed the show a lot. If you get a chance to catch it sometime, check it out.
Well I'm getting tired. 
Hope everyone out there is happy and healthier than I.
Three letters: DVR
I really feel for you, having to watch commercials. It's soul-sucking. We rarely ever watch TV live anymore, so we can skip the commercials. I even reprogrammed our DVR remote because it didn't have a “skip” button; now it's just 6 or 8 presses to skip commercials. And you kind of see them going by, so if there is something you're interested in (like an upcoming movie trailer) you can go back.
And when we want to watch a show while it's airing, I wait until about 1/4 to 1/3 of the show is over and I start watching so I catch up just about when the show ends.
Anyhow, enough about DVR – that's not going to help you right now.
I'd recommend TV shows to you which you could watch online (there are a lot of them) but I don't think you really like TV anyhow. So you're better off reading. Pick a subject and become an expert. The way you devour books, a few days of just reading for you is like months of study to the normal person.
Of course, then all your friends will sound like idiots when they attempt to talk to you about said subject. So that's a downside.
Well, I'm glad you posted… I was beginning to wonder. Did you ever get your new antibiotic?
Just chew your food really well, eat small portions, drink a lot of liquids… that should make the puking less unpleasant. Since you're sleeping most of the time, you don't need a lot of calories. Just make them smart calories.
Take care. You'll get out of your little hell-hole eventually. Maybe you should order DVR or something. Then you could record shows and zip through the commercials.
I couldn't sleep when I had my bad cold at the beginning of January and I survived because they had Roseanne reruns on Nick every night that week, all night. LOL. I hadn't watched Roseanne in a long time, but I really thought it was a funny show, so I just sat up and watched Roseanne and tried not to stress that I wasn't sleeping. I still have a little box with medications and tissues next to my bed! I only recently stopped taking them. Now I look at it and remember how miserable I was, but I'm not miserable any more. You'll get there. :-}
Thanks guys. I don't seem to be able to read for long stretches. I get really weary quite easily.
On the antibiotic, yes & no. The doc decided to extend the drug I'm on now. So I am not on a new drug, just giving the old one more time to work. As long as I don't feel like I'm getting worse, I'll play along.
My teeth have begun to ache terribly… not sure if that is a side effect of the antibiotic or just eating less than usual. The Tylenol helps with that too.
I just want to get better. I've had enough sick, thank you. I'm ready for better and I'd like a sixpack of it.
BTW neither my employer nor anyone else at the office has seen fit to send me a “get well” card. I remember a time when if a guy was gonna be laid up in bed for weeks, someone would get him a card and circulate it around the office for everyone to sign. I swear all the personality/camaradarie has been sucked out of that place. I got an email from a guy who I just worked with on my killer project and he had no idea I had been out of the office with pneumonia. Sheesh.
Ah well, it's just a job. And in my home life my friends and family have been calling me, or IM-ing me, and posting comments on my blog, and that has been making a lot of difference for me. Thanks you guys.
Your teeth can ache from sinus pressure or infection. You should mention that symptom to your doctor.
I don't know much about pneumonia, but is there a reason to believe that what you have is bacterial vs. viral? If it's viral, it's just going to run its course.
I do think your doctor's making the right decision to keep you on the same antibiotic. You don't want to kill some of the bacteria that are susceptible to antibiotic A, but leave the more resistant ones to reproduce while a new set are killed off by antibiotic B, creating a void for the resistant ones to fill, thus giving you an infection that's much harder to kill. If you're improving some, then either it's working or it's not bacterial.
Hey there dumb ass
Glad to hear there's at least a little progress. I'm in bed today, sick again as well. Not nearly as sick as you are, but sick for the 2nd time in a month. I typically get one bad cold a year, and that's it. This is my second go-around in 4 weeks, and it sucks.
I agree with you about daytime TV. I'm watching A&E right now, but I'm getting ready to put a DVD in to help pass the time, “The Bourne Supremacy”, I've seen it many times, but I really like it.
Anyway, feel better buddy, take care of yourself, and get some damn sleep! I've been using Delsym, it's the best cough medicine I've ever seen/used, and, it tastes GREAT. My son begs for it when he's got a cough
Tom
LOL, Tom, I can't get Delsym down without gagging. I think it's the most disgusting stuff I've ever had!! It's a 12-hour form of dextromethorphan, which hasn't actually been shown to have any effect on coughs! I shouldn't say that, because it's probably the placebo effect that's working for you. But I'd steer clear of any medications that don't have scientifically demonstrated effects, because of the potential side effects.
I hope you both feel better soon. My nephew had pneumonia three times this fall, and the cold I had was really nasty. It's a bad season for that stuff, and even worse, it's a bad year for norovirus. Ugh. Nastiest “harmless” virus ever.
Somebody put together a montage showing the winning Ninja Warrior attempt by the second man ever to defeat the entire course. This is the guy I was rooting for. The stuff he does is pretty amazing…
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Zc8OO2YbDB0
Delsym is what the doctor always recommended for us when the kids were small. And you had trouble finding it at the store because there would be a run on it.
Maggie's right about the studies on DXM (dextromethorphan) — apparently it can't outperform placebo on nighttime cough suppressing (at least not in children). I suspect that they are widely recommended because they don't hurt and because parents like to think that they're helping. But the American Academy of Pediatrics no longer recommends over-the-counter cough medicine for hte treatment of coughs.
For an adult, it looks like equal parts of warm rum and honey would be just as effective as DXM, and it tastes pretty good. You probably shouldn't give rum to kids, though. But the honey is OK – maybe in a little tea.
Not to infants, though — remember never to give honey to a child under 12 months because of botulism.
http://www.drgreene.com/21_825.html
I don't know if everything in that article is scientifically demonstrated, but it looks like honey is pretty good for you!!