Tuesday, September 9

Starve the Fever

Answer me this:
If one is plagued with a viral infection turned bacterial known by name BRONCHITIS and one is well, you know, coughing incessantly no matter the position one is in or the time on the clock, while also suffering interchangeably with chills, fever, aches, massive headache and general feeling super sorry for oneself, what should one do while one waits rather impatiently for recovery to come knocking at the door?

(A note to my readers: I don't know how to insert a proper poll here, and let's be honest can't really be bothered to learn it right now, being on death's door and all. And besides that stunningly good reason for laziness, having a non-anonymous-you-must-leave-me-a-comment poll not only offers me all the warm fuzzies of reading your comments it also offers you the creative leeway you, my lovely readers and friends, deserve in that YOUR answer to the question may not lie in the choices below.)

(P.S. I get delirious with fever. I don't know why I mention that now, I just thought it was something you should know about me)

1. Soldier on, little trooper. Also known as: Go to work everyday. You might as well be sick there and accomplishing something (which won't get done without you there) rather than bored and hacking up bits of lung at home.

2. Stay home and whimper loudly about the sorry state of your sorry self. You, after all, need to keep the bronchial passages moist. How better to do that than shed some tears over your poor pathetic self?

3. Take the high road and do both things. Spend your days at work cough, cough, coughing and causing all around you to wonder just why oh why you are there in the first place (read as: awe over your selfless sense of dedication to your work) and secretly scrutinizing whether you are going to infect them in the second place. (read as: how could you be so self centered as to enter this building and make the rest of us sick?) AND then come home to sniff and snort and well, cough. A lot.

4. Email your friend in between naps and/or coughing jags and laugh out loud over this line describing Bronchitis recovery: I knew I was getting better when I recovered enough interest in living to be amazed at the amount and variety of stuff my lungs started throwing back out of my body... But only laugh for a second, because, you remember now, laughing makes you cough. And coughing is bad. Very, very bad.

5. Laugh harder when you receive a Get Well Soon HOOPS & YOYO e-card in your inbox (from someone who never misses a beat) And then, of course, try to stop coughing while you are snorting over it.

6. Take lots of medicine, including your antibiotics (which you will finish to completion because you DO NOT believe in making superviruses--regular bronchitis viruses are crappy enough, thank you very much). Not that any of the cough medicines will really help all that much but it does serve as a good model for Andrew who is also suffering from the big B and who doesn't, I repeat DOES NOT enjoy taking his medicine.

7. Snuggle up with your significant other, who is approximately a day behind you in this journey to bad-bad-bronchitis hell, and reassure him that it only gets worse before it gets better. Then cough loudly into his ear. He will like that.

Or are there better ideas?
Please, enlighten me. But try hard not to make me laugh.

16 comments:

  1. Oy. Well I vote Feel Better Right Now. But if that's not an option I say a day or two off is fair and time to recover if you're not feverish or viral.

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  2. Ahh the infamous Bronchitis - known all too well in my house. I say just sit back and rest - there is nothing else you can do and there is no point in feeling just as miserable at work. You cannot snuggle up and watch Soap Operas at work anyways!! (This coming from a woman who goes to work even if she is dying! LOL)

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  3. Oh, I'd go for 8. Wait till you feel better and then go on with everything. In the mean time go lie on the couch and watch tv, read books/mags/blogs, hug all the other people in the house (and infect them) to make you feel better and then have some nice hot lemon flavoured tea with honey.
    Get well soon!

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  4. oh dear Jen, I'll come and snuggle with you in the sofa and make you some hot tea!

    If it'd happen to myself I fear I'd do option 3 until the fever gets to hight to continue (>38.5C) and then snuggle miserably on the sofa while pitying myself endlessly until I feel better and then add an extra day to make sure I am truly better because I then pity myself that I've worked with fever before :p.

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  5. lilac-
    I like that vote. Can you make that happen? Now?

    krystal-
    I must say, being a first timer with this particular madness, I should also very much like it if it is the LAST time it comes to play at our house.

    anneke-
    Yes, a very good idea. Tea is brewing now. I would invite you over but I *ahem* wouldn't want to make you sick.

    gb-
    Ah, now, see? You and me could be the same person!

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  6. Just get better. NOW! I miss you too much.

    Otherwise, rest, drink lots of fluid and keep coughing up bits of lung until there is nothing left to cough.

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  7. smid-
    Okay. You are the mom after all...

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  8. for the sake of everyone at school please stay home. and catch up on movies if you can. loud ones.

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  9. Oh wow I hope it's better soon--I've never had it (knock on wood) but had heard enough stories to be very grateful.

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  10. I'm going to go with 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 and 7. Don't forget that wine has alcohol in it and alcohol kills germs. Oh, and coughing builds up your abs. No, really! It might work on your pecs, too.

    And remind me one day to tell you about the little chunk of my life that was forever lost to fever delirium.

    GET BETTER SOON, SWEETS!

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  11. All great ideas, but did I miss the "imbibe in a bit of your alcohol of choice" option?

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  12. Urk. Well, here's what I did: I took all the antibiotics, but they didn't quite finish the job, but I was feeling a little bit better so I went ahead and left for vacation with my family without going back to the doctor first and I spent a week in Croatia going COUGHCOUGHCOUGHCOUGHCOUGH, and then I got home and went to the doctor again and she said oh joy, your bronchitis is now pneumonia, into the hospital you go.

    So my advice is take ALL of your antibiotics, and then go back to the doctor and get MORE.

    And get well soon.

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  13. I can choose all of the options, right? What a drag, woman. And yet you can still write such poetic posts which make the rest of us laugh without pain.

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  14. My vote is for snuggle up, sleep and or watch movies (Love Actually and Sense & Sensibility are two of my favs!)

    Oh yeah - and let my healthy children play role reversal for awhile and TAKE CARE of MOM!

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  15. I'm sorry you're not feeling well. I had bronchitis in college. I attempted to drink it way. This did not work, though, it made the coughing slightly less painful.

    I vote for indulging in guilty pleasure-type movies and reading.

    Feel better soon!

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  16. Leslie tried to drink away her bronchitis-- in a flash of brilliance I tried to cure mine with cheapo cigars! What were we thinking in college?

    Hope you're already feeling better! Get well soon!

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