Hi.
Yep, I'm still sick. I am MUCH better, though the cough lingers. I walked to the bank at lunchtime today and very nearly had an embarrassing coughing attack at the teller line. I don't know if you heard, but New England is in the clutches of an insane storm today. It's raining, but the main issue is the wind, which is gusting to 50 MPH, says my secretary.
So what precipitated the almost coughing fit? Battling the wind for the half block between my office building and the bank. Oo wind. Oo walking half a block. Yeah, I don't think the elliptical is in the cards for at least the next couple of days.
I'm losing my motivation. My body is so weary of coughing. I feel like I've been coughing for about 2 months, though I know there were a couple of weeks in there where I wasn't. Last year, I cracked a rib from coughing. I know I haven't done anything that serious this time, but every time I cough, my sides hurt. My muscles are officially sore from coughing. I would like them to be sore from, you know, crunches and weights and things that are useful.
Jason got our plane tickets for Hawaii on Friday night. We leave April 24th. I am sticking to my original goal of losing 19 pounds by then. Think I can still lose 5 pounds this month? Yeah, I don't either. But I'm keeping the goal and as soon as I stop coughing, it is on!
Of note: the two batches of ginger cookies I made this weekend are NOT PRODUCTIVE. Sigh. I had been craving cookies - specifically, cookies dunked in milk - for a couple of weeks and Friday night I gave in and made some. What I SHOULD have done was bake maybe 10 cookies for me and Jason and put the rest of the dough in the freezer. That is not what I did. There are still cookies at home, but I'm not eating anymore of them. Maybe I should just freeze the cookies... Do cookies freeze?
4 comments:
Maybe you have mentioned this before, but are you on an inhaler? Maybe you should try a 2x a day one and then one for when you start your coughing fits.
Yay Hawaii! Where are you guys going? I lived on Oahu for a few years and will give you tons of unsolicited advice. :)
Have a great time! And take pictures!
Steph, I'm not on an inhaler. My doctor never suggested it and I didn't think about it when I was there. My cough is much better. For the last few days I've been fine except for 3 or 4 random coughing fits. If those haven't stopped by the end of this week, I'll start asking about inhalers.
Nicole, you are the queen of the fabulous beach locales, aren't you? We're going to the Big Island for a week and then Maui (where I'll be for only a few days, but the rest of the family will be for the week). Please make suggestions! I've never been there before. Personally, I'm especially interested in beaches and snorkling. I know everyone else wants to hike a bunch, which is fine with me too, but I don't want to miss out on the ocean too much since that's the big draw for me. My sister-in-law will have her 2 month old and we've already discussed having quality beach time.
I second the inhaler rec as an option - I had several years of bad sinus infections that would get better but leave me with coughs for months on end. And yes, cracked rib episode too - man that sucked, sorry to hear you had it too. I also popped so many blood vessels in my right eye during a week of coughing that I looked out of a horror movie.
Anyways, once I got past the sinus issues (turns out that dairy really aggravated that for me), I noticed that these days any congestion seems to automatically set off coughs. I told my new GP that, and he listened to my lungs for a long time, and sent me to a pulmonary specialist because he could hear a little something, but it was not typical wheezy athsma sounding. After a visit to the specialist, turns out, I might be mildly athsmatic, and it was never even considered before (I'm 31 going on 32 now). I need more tests to determine that for sure, but I did get an inhaler, which, after a few intermittent uses over a week, seems to have broken my cycle of coughing.
So bottom line, the inhaler did help with the coughing. As for the mild athsma, apparently, weight loss helps it, so I am going to wait until I lose more weight (I'm 5'9" at 175 these days, down from 234 in july 2008) and get down to 160 before doing the tests. Those 15 pounds may take a year (or two) at the rate I am going, but I dont want to get all those expensive tests (my insurance only covers at 80%) when I am already feeling much better.
Sorry to write an entire book. Hope this helps.
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