The Sommers Whine

My fourth day of fighting the dreaded cold and I feel like crap. Zinc lozenges, Mucinex, Zyrtec (or its generic equivalent) salt water rinses, probiotic, chicken soup broth, tea with lemon and honey, hot baths, B complex, cold remedy, nothing is cutting into the crud.

Can't breathe through my lungs or my nose. You can imagine what a joy I am to live with. The pollen count is high and my recently diagnosed acute allergic rhino sinusitis is in full bloom.  The antihistamine only serves to give me the serious cotton mouth every morning, being deathly afraid of my macho mucus.

I don't want to get up in the morning and the day is a slough. I am going to lay on the couch all day and read Melville's Typee. Read the David Kherdian translation of Monkey, Journey to the West (Hsi Yu Chi) the other day, recounting the mythical stone monkey's travels for enlightenment. The tale was originally written by Wu Ch'eng En in the 16th century. Shambala is such a great publisher. Where would I be without them?

I have taken quite a few regimens of antibiotics over the past three years and hope to not have to go on another course. I think that you build up a resistance and doctor friend Carmen says that you need to take them for a lot longer than they tell you. Might be forced to. Carmen is an MD who has sort of morphed into an alternative doctor and I may have to go hard core.

I have adult onset asthma and got off my medication last month when I found out that the cost of my Symbicort inhaler was now over two hundred bucks. I am in the dreaded deductible phase of my health insurance. I wonder if they are cheaper in Mexico? I have to bite the bullet and get one because the lungs just ain't working and I can't figure out how to breathe through my ass. I am practicing though.

I have to force myself to get dressed this afternoon and go in and pay bills. It is the end of the month. Add a little to the misery. Good for every writer.