Not So Great. And You?

Two nights of coughing and four nights of headache have settled in my face, and I am doing a fine impersonation of Droopy Dog.

When I was at the pharmacy the other day, I picked up some Airborne throat lozenges. They come in several flavors. As I popped the first into my mouth, I silently begged, "Please don't let this be the licorice one." Sure enough ... You guys, I used to like licorice, a long time ago when my mom didn't let us eat candy and licorice was a treat. Then I was introduced to Twizzlers, and licorice and I haven't been on speaking terms since. I think licorice must be what hell tastes like.

I coughed up some phlegm the other day and it was bloody. That's never happened before, so I looked it up online. I have this genetic strain of hypochondria which, mixed with the family heritage of fatalism, makes medical dictionaries one of the most dangerous reference books I could own. When I took my Exceptional Child class in college, I was convinced I had every disease we studied, up to multiple sclerosis and including spinal bifida. Anyway, according to WebMd, I have lung cancer.

We celebrated Joon's birthday last week. Joon gets a bad allergy problem in the fall, but I've never suffered from allergies. She's all stuffed up in the nose, and I talk like a man. (Autumn with the Flowers is interesting.) Anyway, I told Joon that I could feel all the stuff sitting in my bronchial passages but it hurt my throat too much to cough. She said, "Maybe you have that thing where people have to pound on your back all the time."
"Cystic fibrosis?" I said. "Hmmmm ..." I googled it when I got home; of course I have it.

Today I coughed my way through my TiVo listings, tried to find a way to pound my own back, and woke up the cat because she was snoring.

So ... a productive weekend, and by "productive" I definitely mean "what I do every weekend."