Big Ugly Man Doll

This started out as a Short List of Things You Should and Shouldn’t Do When You Have Pneumonia.  I started with things you should do, beginning with “take your medicine,” and I realized I’m taking so many meds that I should just leave off and post this.  Tomorrow, perhaps, a list of Things You Should and Shouldn’t Do When You Have Pneumonia.  Today, a recitation of the things that will make me better, I’m told.  You just be quiet and read now, this won’t hurt a bit.   

• Mucinex.  This will tear up the mucus in your chest.  It will do the same to your stomach, if you can keep it down.  That’s if you can get it down in the first place – they seem to make these for horses. 
• Cheratussin.  Tastes like cherry-flavored ass and doesn’t do anything for the coughing.  I don’t know why they bother.  “This may cause dizziness.”  Yeah, get used to that phrase.
• Z-Pak antibiotics.  This is the first line of defense against pneumonia.  It’s also, it turns out, a great way to get me ready for the holidays.  I woke up with hives that looked like I’d been strung with bright red, itchy Christmas lights. 
• Zyrtec.  I’m pretty sure the Dr.’s office gets kick-backs from these people – I came in a while ago with a dislocated shoulder and they prescribed Zyrtec.  I don’t have allergies, except to the Z-Pak that’s giving me hives, and the pneumonia.  I’ve decided I’m definitely allergic to pneumonia.  Also, “This may cause drowsiness.”
• Benadryl.  This is great for reducing the hives caused by the Z-Pak antibiotics.  Also, “This may cause dizziness.”
• Benzonatate / Tessalon, for the wheezing that would have sounded so good at a Halloween party.  “This may cause dizziness.”  Ya think?
• Doxycycline antibiotics.  This is the next line of defense against pneumonia, since I’m allergic to the first line.  Stay out of the sun while taking this.  WTF?  Will I look all sparkly? 
• Levaquin antibiotics.  This is the NEXT, next line of defense against pneumonia, since I’m allergic to the first line and the second line didn’t do a damn thing in a week.  Also, “This may cause dizziness.”  Mind you, the instructions aren’t “take this, not that.”  The instructions are “Take this Levaquin and keep taking all the Doxycycline too.”   Let’s note that around 500 different species of bacteria live in your gut, in a symbiotic relationship with you and what you eat.  They perform a host of useful functions, such as fermenting unused energy substrates, training your immune system, regulating aspects of development, and producing vitamins and hormones for you.  My gut, on the other hand, is a dark barren wasteland, an empty shallow dirt trench littered with empty blue and red capsules and the battered corpses of a million million bacteria, most of which never knew what hit them.   SOBUMD has suggested I have some yoghurt, to replace all those “good” intestinal flora.  I think throwing those poor bastards down there just to die like dogs with their predecessors when I take the next dose would be too much like Churchill throwing wave after wave of ANZAC troops onto the jagged deathrocks of Gallipoli.   I will not do it.
• Albuterol, as an inhaler.  “This medicine may make you shake like a leaf about to fall from a tree during an early November windstorm, watching a thousand of your fellows fall to the ground and die under the blades of the ride-along chipper he just bought at Home Depot on Black Friday and is now pulling on the black of his suburban lawn tractor, beer in hand.”  Yes, it really says that.
• Tussionex, also to reduce coughing.  It also reduces those feeling of sobriety and steadiness that were plaguing you.  “This may cause dizziness.”  Yeah, no kidding, the way a pint of vodka may cause dizziness.  This is something like a cross between the 6th glass of Scotch and a near-death experience.  No wonder it’s not over the counter. 
• Advil, because no one will give me valium, and all this stuff together will give you quite a headache.
• Seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls.  Actually I got these from my attorney, not my doctor, but who’s counting.   Besides, the only thing more helpless and irresponsible than a man in the depths of an ether binge is a blogger with pneumonia.

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