I Am a Walking Medicine Chest

It’s allergy season, and although I’m delighted that flowers are blooming and birds and singing and temperatures are rising, I CAN’T BREATHE. My lungs have officially filled with gunk (which, I’m sure, is the medical term for it), leaving me with the distinct sensation that there’s a cinderblock on my chest at all times. Gotta love asthma and allergies. Breathing, I heart you.

Yesterday, at a lunch with business colleagues, I had a non-choking-related coughing attack that drew attention from the entire clientele of an upscale restaurant while I hacked and gasped for air for what had to be a solid two minutes. I’m not joking. In addition to the searing pain in my lungs, it was mortifying. I wanted to crawl under the table and suffocate in the dark cocoon created by the 400-thread-count floor-length table cloth.

Instead, I just pressed my napkin to my face to try to muffle the sound — because making an escape would have drawn even MORE attention — and rode it out, tears streaming down my face (along with my mascara). Good times. After the coughing finally subsided, I managed a couple of puffs on my “rescue inhaler,” which did virtually nothing, and just sat quietly for the rest of the meal, trying not to die. It was just awesome.

I went to the doctor on Tuesday and have been taking steroids (methylprednisolone, if you care), antibiotics, and hardcore cough medicine on top of my Advair preventive inhaler, my useless albuterol inhaler, and my daily antidepressant (Zoloft) and mood stabilizer (Topomax). So, like I said, I’m a walking medicine chest.

Reports of prescription drugs in the US water supply freaked me out initially, but now it’s like, what’s a miniscule amount of ibuprofen in my tap water going to do compared with the stuff I’m downing on doctor’s orders anyway? Sigh.

(photo via SXC.hu)

Contents © Copyright 2008 Kristen King

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