Connectivity and the Coming Sickness
Sep. 21st, 2005 11:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oneirophreniaYou may have noticed I have connectivity at home again. Yay. I'm currently printing out the thousand-some papers my students have emailed me over the past few days....
But all is not sun and light in the world of Pegritz: I feel like the plague that has hounded so many others has finally made its way past my defenses and has begun wreaking havoc in my body. I don't feel like total shit yet, but that may be due to the fact that I've been gobbling zinc/echinacea/vitamin C lozenges by the handfuls for the past few hours. I also picked up some of that Zicam stuff to give it a try as well. Most "homeopathic" remedies are total bullshit, but I'm literally willing to try anything to lessen the potential impact of this sickness on my body. Last year, I fell badly ill at about this time of the year and stayed sick for the next six months: I was literally coughing up my lungs from the first of October through the end of April or May....I'm doing everything I possibly can to avoid that this year, because I am faaaaaaaaaaaaaar too busy to miss class time or work due to collapsing health.
I don't think I'll survive another six-month coughing jag. I honestly don't. Another bout of severe bronchitis is going to put me in the hospital, I fear. When I start coughing, it's not just a little goodnatured dry hacking--it's lung-rendering, throat-searing, vocal-cord-wrecking fits of choking that leave me completely breathless, occasionally cyanotic, and bent double with muscle pain. Most of you know what I'm talking about. The scary thing is, last winter, I coughed so hard I literally heard the cartilage holding my ribs to my sternum creaking when I fought for breath afterward. The only other member of my family to ever suffer through anything like this was my Aunt Marge on my dad's side of the family: she would cough so hard sometime she actually broke a rib and did something nasty to her solar plexus...though what exactly I'm not sure (probably just a severe muscle strain). If I have to go through that, I'm going to demand someone put me in an oxygen tent, because I'm gonna need it.
But, hey...it may not come to that. I'm full of ZINC! And you know what zinc is also in? ARMOR-PLATING! For robots!
But all is not sun and light in the world of Pegritz: I feel like the plague that has hounded so many others has finally made its way past my defenses and has begun wreaking havoc in my body. I don't feel like total shit yet, but that may be due to the fact that I've been gobbling zinc/echinacea/vitamin C lozenges by the handfuls for the past few hours. I also picked up some of that Zicam stuff to give it a try as well. Most "homeopathic" remedies are total bullshit, but I'm literally willing to try anything to lessen the potential impact of this sickness on my body. Last year, I fell badly ill at about this time of the year and stayed sick for the next six months: I was literally coughing up my lungs from the first of October through the end of April or May....I'm doing everything I possibly can to avoid that this year, because I am faaaaaaaaaaaaaar too busy to miss class time or work due to collapsing health.
I don't think I'll survive another six-month coughing jag. I honestly don't. Another bout of severe bronchitis is going to put me in the hospital, I fear. When I start coughing, it's not just a little goodnatured dry hacking--it's lung-rendering, throat-searing, vocal-cord-wrecking fits of choking that leave me completely breathless, occasionally cyanotic, and bent double with muscle pain. Most of you know what I'm talking about. The scary thing is, last winter, I coughed so hard I literally heard the cartilage holding my ribs to my sternum creaking when I fought for breath afterward. The only other member of my family to ever suffer through anything like this was my Aunt Marge on my dad's side of the family: she would cough so hard sometime she actually broke a rib and did something nasty to her solar plexus...though what exactly I'm not sure (probably just a severe muscle strain). If I have to go through that, I'm going to demand someone put me in an oxygen tent, because I'm gonna need it.
But, hey...it may not come to that. I'm full of ZINC! And you know what zinc is also in? ARMOR-PLATING! For robots!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-09-22 03:27 am (UTC)BUT...Cold-Eeze zinc lozenges DO work for me, and others I know. Just pound them. You can get them at any CVS.
Re: Cold-Eeze contains zinc. Zinc overdose causes diarrhea.
Date: 2005-09-22 06:18 pm (UTC)Er...I don't recall having that issue...thankfully!
Re: Cold-Eeze contains zinc. Zinc overdose causes diarrhea.
Date: 2005-09-22 06:29 pm (UTC)It's just that at times I take more than the rec-not often, cause the stuff is icky, and not by much. Fortunately, that side effect has not occured--but very good to know!
The resulting dehydration which could occur is a great way to get yourself in bigger trouble with an illness.
That's why I say, "Hey, man, nice shit!"
Date: 2005-09-22 07:02 pm (UTC)*pplpppplllllllplplllpplpllllpplplpllllllpppllplplplpll*
Oh, the humanity....
Actually, though, I haven't taken anywhere NEAR enough zinc to cause a butt-'splosion of Biblical magnitude. I'm, of course, watching my intake levels, but so far I'm still well in the black.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-22 12:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-22 07:05 pm (UTC)