Mmmm. Healthy.

So they've been bothering me the past few days. I thought I had a cold, but what the hell is a cold? What I have is a problem with mucous in my chest and my head. And it sucks.

See, this is where breathing becomes a problem. It's involuntary, so the lungs have this response when there's some manner of blockage--like a gob of phleghm--you take in some extra air, then expel it very forcefully in an action that the doctors and I like to call "coughing." After enough coughing, either you tear up your throat, or you clear your airway.

Right. This has been going on since Thursday. I finally got some sleep this afternoon, but I am still coughing. It's not a problem, except that coughing does damage throat tissue, and damaged tissue is more likely to get infected, and I don't need any more help in that area.

I am avoiding going back to see my ENT, because that almost always leads to no good. The exams themselves are unpleasant at best and in my experience they always want to go in and "clean out." I've had polyps removed twice, and I didn't like it.

Anyway, if it doesn't clear up in the next week or so I'll go see somebody, but I've been pretty healthy this year, only the one weekend in the hospital, plus... well, I did walk around with an IV line in my arm for a month and a half and I got to where I was comfortable taking them out by myself.

So, uh, never mind.

before - after