OMG

I have the cough from hell.

I attempt to cough up a lung, several feet of intestines and apparently my toenail cuticles, almost wet my pants, sneeze, blow my nose, wipe away tears, and repeat.

All night long. All day long.

(The tears are not me crying, but that my eyes water from coughing so hard.)

My chest is kinda burning from the coughing. I can't use the CPAP because of the coughing, I wake up every hour or so to cough up another vital organ, so by 4:30 in the afternoon, when the sun is setting, I feel like it is bedtime.

On the plus side, it's like a free AbMaster.

I can do 100 crunches with much less pain and struggle lately.

And I know my family loves me (or is at least concerned they will have to do their own laundry and cook their own suppers) because they ask me, very worried, if I am okay after each explosive coughing fit.

Yes, I am thinking about going back to the doctor...one of the side effects of a new med I am taking is coughing, but I had a cold that morphed into sinusitis and coughing, so I am wishing that this is the last gasps of that cold/cough, instead of a new side effect.

I haven't gone to the hospital or clinic in two weeks. I knew it was too good to last.

Argh.

So I had the gastric emptying scan, the CT of my (empty) head, and an abdominal ultrasound. I have a anti-nausea med that works without sedating the hell out of me. I will be seeing my GI doc next week, to go over all the test results. And the nausea seems to be resolving itself for now. It flares some, but it's much better than it was. Hopefully it will be a while before I have to see the GI doc again.

Unfortunately, my diastolic blood pressure (that's the second number in a blood pressure reading) is a teeny bit high. So I am on a new drug to deal with that, before it becomes an issue. I have to see the doc around Christmastime, to see how my blood pressure is reacting to the drug.

Unfortunately I also have a horrible cold that turned into sinusitis and a great hacking cough, bad enough that I went to the doctor today. He gave me a bottle of Robitussin DM (one of the great things about military pharmacies is that they hand out those over-the-counter meds instead of making us go buy it ourselves. I love that.) The doc was also very happy that I didn't want an antibiotic.

I am not a big fan of taking antibiotics unless there is a real clear reason to do so. Sinusitis will clear up a day or two earlier maybe with antibiotics. That makes it definitely not worth taking to me, especially as antibiotics always always always give me a (warning! warning! TMI ahead! ) yeast infection. (I warned you. You could have jumped down to the next paragraph...)

I am not really loving the idea that this cough could hang on for six to eight weeks, which is coincidentally about how long it could take for the bp drug's side effect to kick in -- coughing and congestion. Woo. How thrilling is it that I could go from a hacking sick cough to a hacking allergy cough. I love my lungs.

The doctor also suggested today that I should talk to my GI doc about getting the pneumonia vaccine. Which is usually given to people 65 and older. (I will not be 65 for 21 years.) But I have a screwed up immune system. So, apparently, that means I have to take drugs like it's 2029.

And if that is not enough, I have to go in for further screening on a routine test. I am trying very hard not to freak out about it but I am a little freaked around the edges. Out of all the tests and labs and xrays and CT scans and radioactive egg sandwiches, this was the one test I thought was a formality. One of those tests you get to check that block and forget about it for a couple years. One of those things were I have no family history, no symptoms, no nada. Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Everything's rosy.

Except I got the call back.

So Thursday morning I go in for more tests, and then everything will be fine. (fingers crossed.)