Birthday I

 

My birthday fell in the middle of the week a few days back. Unfortunately, I was the only one around. Well, me and the dog. The Mrs. was in Houston. My oldest was 45 minutes away in her apartment still adjusting to her new teaching gig. My youngest was 1,640 miles away at college. So it was just me. Which I don’t mind. I shun the limelight. However, I was plummeting head over heels into full-blown sickness.

That sickness is viral bronchitis. I’ve gotten it several times over the past decade; in fact, it’s pretty much the only way I get sick. However, and maybe this is due to the dry heat of Texas, I haven’t gotten it in over three years, whereas up in Jersey I was lucky if a winter went by without me catching it.

So I knew it – knew it! – back on Monday when I first felt a little … off. The wife had just left to drive the four hours to Houston, where she’d be inspecting her team and counters down there until Thursday night. I got a bite to eat and when I got home something didn’t feel right. A little dizzy, a little woozy, but nothing debilitating. I thought nothing further of it.

The next two days I went in to work. The first day I was fine. The second day I felt a little fatigued. When I got home, the coughing started. Not much, but just enough to set my warning bells off. There was a family FaceTime to wish my youngest a happy 18th birthday (she was born the day before my birthday). After hanging up, I decided to take a hot bath, because suddenly I was flat out exhausted.

I slept mostly through the night, though drained of energy. The coughing deepened and grew more frequent, and I became aware of phlegm or mucus in my chest that needed to come out. I had taken the day as PTO, so with nothing pressing I basically sat in a chair for three hours and watched YouTube videos. Finally I mustered strength to drive to CVS in the 95 degree heat. I bought Robitussin, four orange Vitamin Waters, and powdered vitamin C, and began aggressively self-medicating.  

My daughter planned on driving over to watch a movie with me, but I canceled. Didn’t want her to get sick and, well, just didn’t feel up to it. The next two days I struggled and while I didn’t get better, I didn’t get worse. But I had to get better for the birthday weekend, because we had things planned. So off to CareNow I went, in search of potent medication.

In the past azithromycin always cured me. But for some reason the doctors never want to give that to me. Yes, it’s an antibiotic and the bronchitis is viral, but from what I understand, the sickness begins as viral and transitions to a bacterial form. Usually after 7-10 days of infection. Well, I was on Day 6, and I wanted a z-pack.

They insisted on giving me a … ready for this … a Covid test. Now I know I didn’t have Covid. I was more than familiar with how a bronchial infection feels and what it does. But I guess the good folks at CareNow get reimbursed $$$ for every Covid test they administer, so they take every opportunity to administer a test. As expected, it came back negative. The doctor gave me a prescription for azithromycin, and off I went.

Before he left I asked for some off-the-cuff speculation: Could my pulmonary vein stenosis problems after my atrial fibrillation ablations fifteen years ago make me more susceptible to bronchial infections? He admitted that yes, what I went through could have “changed the architecture” of my pulmonary system where it cannot clean out infections as optimally as it should. Though he caveated this was not his specialty, and I assured him I wouldn’t hold him to his opinion.

Now, less than 24 hours later, I am a thousand times better, though still coughing. The new cough suppressant allowed me to sleep mostly though the night (I was getting 4.5 hours a night the previous three days). Plus the z-pack is knocking the infection out very quickly, as it always does. I’m ready to go back to work tomorrow. Well, physically that is.

Coming next: Parts II and III, where I detail what we did for my birthday, with pictures. It made a lousy birthday a million times better. In fact, it was probably the funnest birthday I’ve had down here in Texas.