Ordinary Illness

I have been hawking up a lung for almost a month now. It's a dry fruitless fucking shaking of my whole body, and let's face it that could well be the epicentre of a small earthquake. I did see Dr Geoff and mentioned it quietly to him cos I really didn't want him testing and telling me I had a PLEURAL EFFUSION - a swamp of fluid around your lungs which makes breathing difficult. This is a common side effect of the meds and it gets regular mention on the forums from people who front up to have litres of shit fluid slurped off their lungs at a time, and whilst the weight loss sounds appealing, the process sounds scary shitful and I am happy to admit that I am being a coward about it. I have done the wedge my head in the sand.

But about a week ago Stevie could stand the rattle no longer and sent me off to the GP. I described the symptoms and then last thing mentioned the Pleural Effusion possibility. She went a little white and then got stuck in with listening and stuff and finally said that there was no sign of the monster. Yippee!

She figured I had a bog standard dry cough that is going around, and that just to be on the safe side, cos with my fucked blood, anything is possible, I should hawk up a golly and send it off for testing and should take some super strength antibiotics.

But I was so relieved to be told it was nothing serious that I didn't do as I was told. Nah, I kept hacking away, day and night, night and day, until I finally squeezed a tiny bit of shit into the bottle for testing and got me some of those horse pill antiBs.

Yeh I am still coughing, but the cough syrup the pharmacist sold me puts me out at night so I am only noisy during the day. Yeh!

I am not typically 'normal' ill. In fact I would say I am hardly ever unwell, but since we have moved house I have been off to the GP twice. Maybe moving back to the big smoke is making me normal?

An online friend of mine from the US is starting a new round of horrendous sounding chemo and of course I am hoping she comes through the other side well or at least well enough, and as she described the onslaught I am reminded that I am well and if I think otherwise then I am just a bloody great whinger. Fingers crossed Robin V.