Daze of our Ooze

WARNING  

The following representation contains graphic descriptions that may gag somebody

READER DISCRETION is ADVISED 
    

The tickle.  It's not a feather one.  I'm not talking a French one.  It isn't sexy.  And it doesn't make me giggle.  It's the throat tickle.  It is the signal that we both feel at the same time, Tuesday morning--the 1st day.

"My throat's got a little tickle in it," Joe says.  So does mine, but I don't say anything right then; only hoping mine was just "suggested" upon me by Joe.

Two hours later, we are both coughing to scratchy throats, and by the 4th hour, our chests have that down-deep raw sensation.

Sore neck, shoulders, and arms.  I cannot bear anything touching my skin; not cloth, not water, not my own hand.  

Joe and I will journey together in this shared, non-climactic experience that is to last three weeks.  And before it's all said and done, I will come to believe that Joe has stock in the Vick's Vapor Rub company.

Sick moving in

Cough the hot, raw, non-productive hack for two days and nights, until I have a pounding headache.  The nose is HOT inside, the eyes are HOT and they pour forth the waters.  There is that constant sneeze on the verge of happening up inside my nostrils, but it will not materialize.  The nose; it won't blow--there is nothing but a drop or two of water.  I cannot sniff, because it makes that almost sneeze sensation swell in my nasal passage; subsequent violent eye-watering follows.  Nothing into it, and nothing important or relief-giving out of it; this nose.  

Seborrhea--Nope, no itch.  Can't scratch and see-a,
Pyorrhea--The trench mouth didn't bite me-a!
Gonorrhea--Clap,Clap! We don't got no VD-a.  
Diarrhea--Ugh! But why do we got diarrhea?? 

Yessum, we-uns dun got the runs........
       
Once.  Twice.  Thrice.  The fourth?  Go for it.

Violent coughing and diarrhea have never complemented one another.   

No appetite, and everything stinks anyway--taste buds are distorted-like.  Could not care less about the dirty dishes, television, dirty clothes, Facebook, don't give a #$!%--don't want to talk!  I can't even think straight!    

Loose waters rush forth from my raw nostrils, no matter where I am or what I am trying to do.  Shove some rolled tissue wads up in there so I'll not dribble disgust all over the floor, the counter, the food, the coffee, the grocery cart, the other person, the book..... 

Wipe the nose.  Wipe the nose.  Wipe, wipe, wipe.  Raw--the nose.  Raw,  raw,  raw.  Red as a beet.  Looks like I pitched a three day drunk with this red nose.   Sneeze and sneeze and sneeze and sneeze.  Drip, wipe, sneeze, drip, wipe sneeze, and on and on with this relentless nasal horror.

BAD nose

                                       

Day 3:  I must attend a class, and I am the pariah, the disgusting thing that must sit apart from the others, with my tissue box, my Walmart nose-discharge bag, my disgusting vile noises and emissions: hacks and blows and snorts and drips.  Please do not look at me!

A kind fellow student tosses me a couple of cough drops.

Day 5:  Saturday, dizzy in the morning, and weak, and disoriented from the past few days of sickness.  Saturday night and Sunday AM has us sort of feeling like we are on the mend.  My nose skin is dried up to the point that big flakes are trying to come off, so I trim up my nostril holes with toenail scissors before heading to church.  Don't want to show up with a flake-ridden nose.

Are we really on the mend?

Sunday night the sinuses retaliate with a vengeance.  The top of my throat and the far back reach of my nose has that horrid drip sensation.  The sinuses in my face all feel sore, swollen.  I cannot bear the feeling--the pain; in my ear, nose, and throat as I swallow saliva.  This will turn out to be the worst night of respiratory assault.

All night, there is no sleep, as I lie on my face to keep the vile drip from choking off my throat.  I cannot stand for saliva to go down and be swallowed.  I must let it run out onto a towel wadded up by my mouth, which is nearly stifled in the pillow.  My nose is trying to run, and there are rolled tissues in my nostrils.  I have to breathe through my mouth, wedged open by the pillow.  I sleep none.  I wait for the daylight.

I don't even feel this good

Hard, loud wheezing in my chest. 

The coughing returns, this time it is trying to expel something foreign. To no avail.  Blow gobs of things out my nose.  Second, third box of tissue; rolls, rolls of toilet paper; second Walmart bag for snot garbage is full; trash can by the bed is full of its second load of snot garbage.  Red nose hanging on my wretched face again.

Bedside Blow Refuse

Days 9 & 10:  Had wonderful snow all over the place.  Normally I would've wanted to play in it.  I would've wanted to go out and take pictures.  I would've wanted to slide down the driveway on a jagged piece of aluminum siding.  I couldn't do any of it--didn't really care.  I had to stay inside and wait for the HEAL.

I cough and pee in my pants immediately after putting on clean clothes.  

All this time Joe and I continue to work, and I continue to go to a class two nights a week.  I also have a very important job interview one day during this ill nightmare.  It is very hard to appear well and competent when my face reveals illness; the cocaine-looking nose, the addiction to Mentholatum, and the watery eyes of a queen who suffered a previous night of diva drama, and the cough of a serious pot smoker.  And the sounds I make send warnings to stay away.  Why would they think I was the person for the job?  Why should they hire me? 

I need to be put in quarantine.  I want a hospital!

Day 13 of this s%#t:  Cough cough.  I have eaten three bags of Mentholatum cough drops by now.   
I go to class.  Cough cough cough cough... Fellow student quickly flings a couple of cough drops toward me, since I had eaten all mine.  Somebody else throws a handful of Jolly Ranchers at me.

Kind offerings from concerned classmates

     
Keeping in mind that Joe is on this same s&%*#y ride:  I have never seen him so sick from any respiratory situation before now.  It's even worse than the time we both brought back vile infections from a trip to Honduras.  That illness didn't come close to topping this curse.   

Blow constantly for two days.  Cough violently and uncontrollably.  Cough until my rib cage on both sides has pulled loose from cartilage.

web2.sheltonschools.org

I look it up on the internet:  Strained intercostal muscles on the rib cage.  Oof!  I feel like I have been in a car wreck or a street fight.

Cough at night, and it hurts my lungs and my rib cage, and my whole core; and my head pounds.   There is the most disgusting matter I cough up and out.   I am a vile thing.  Never in my life have I seen such repulsive odiousness come from me.       

Vile phlegm.  VILE!!

And from my nose, the nostrils now produce blood globs and repulsive infection-ridden disgust.  Blow!  Again and again.  Fourth box of tissue.  Toilet paper's 'bout gone.  Fill the third Walmart bag by the living room table.  Take more Aleve for this chest and side pain.  Somebody please stick a Shop-Vac to my face!

Goners

Days upon days.  Today is Monday.  This is the 14th day.  Afraid to post this until I am all clear.  It might not all be gone until more days go by.

Day 15:  I show up for class.  Cough cough cough.  Irritated fellow students savagely throw cough drops and hard candy at me--the Jolly Ranchers fly by again.  "I don't want to listen to that tonight," I hear someone say.  Hard things land on the floor about me.  I, who should be outcast, gathered my "crumbs for the reject" and tied them up in my well-used snot rag.  Inside I found the usual cough drops--actually, the whole cough drop bag.  Plus the Jolly Ranchers.  And some money; guess someone wants to pay me to leave.  Why is there is an orange highlight marker?...A few rocks (ouch), a fork (whoa!), a Pez candy dispenser (empty BTW), and some forbidding offerings of .38 Specials.  Geez, I thought the fork was threatening enough!  These are not the gifts I want or expect to see in a "kindness package".

Sent from the Un-Well Wishers

        
Well, it could've been like that.   

Cough cough COFF damn it!  I want codeine, morphine, opium--anything!!  

Five daggers are in my side from this coughing.  I am pilled out with Aleve.  I have to bend over to cough.  I have sated on Halls Mentholatum cough drops for over a fortnight.

I am a decrepit thing.  

Day 19:  Have to bend over to get a deep breath.  Feels like a horse has kicked me in my side. Throat and sinus gurgling.      

Joe, who by-passes the tissue box, blows his nose on his bath towel.  He announces that he's sick of snot.  He keeps trying to push the heating pad on me.  

Sunday is day 20.  This is the first day there have been no coughing fits nor in vitro-worthy nose-blows.

It's Monday and I think we'll be OK.  My side still hurts--the musculature in my rib cage will mend in time.  I am thinking about all those take-outs I've ordered of baby back ribs, spare ribs, and short ribs.

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