{"id":908,"date":"2010-11-30T17:18:13","date_gmt":"2010-11-30T21:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/?p=908"},"modified":"2010-12-01T14:06:21","modified_gmt":"2010-12-01T18:06:21","slug":"a-spoonful-of-sugar-my-butt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/?p=908","title":{"rendered":"A Spoonful of Sugar, My Butt"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This started out as a\u00a0Short List of Things You Should and Shouldn\u2019t Do When You Have Pneumonia.\u00a0 I started with things you <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">should<\/span> do, beginning with &#8220;take your medicine,&#8221; and I realized I&#8217;m taking so many meds that I should just leave off and post this.\u00a0 Tomorrow, perhaps, a list of\u00a0Things You Should and Shouldn\u2019t Do When You Have Pneumonia.\u00a0 Today, a recitation of the things that will make me better, I&#8217;m told.\u00a0 You just be quiet and read now, this won&#8217;t hurt a bit.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Mucinex.<\/strong>\u00a0 This will tear up the mucus in your chest.\u00a0 It will do the same to your stomach, if you can keep it down.\u00a0 That\u2019s if you can get it down in the first place \u2013 they seem to make these for horses.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li><strong>Cheratussin.<\/strong>\u00a0 Tastes like cherry-flavored ass and doesn\u2019t do anything for the coughing.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know why they bother.\u00a0 \u201cThis may cause dizziness.\u201d\u00a0 Yeah, get used to that phrase.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Z-Pak antibiotics.<\/strong>\u00a0 This is the first line of defense against pneumonia.\u00a0 It\u2019s also, it turns out, a great way to get me ready for the holidays.\u00a0 I woke up with hives that looked like I\u2019d been strung with bright red, itchy Christmas lights.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li><strong>Zyrtec.<\/strong>\u00a0 I\u2019m pretty sure the Dr.\u2019s office gets kick-backs from these people \u2013 I came in a while ago with a dislocated shoulder and they prescribed Zyrtec.\u00a0 I don\u2019t have allergies, except to the Z-Pak that\u2019s giving me hives, and the pneumonia.\u00a0 I\u2019ve decided I\u2019m definitely allergic to pneumonia.\u00a0 Also, \u201cThis may cause drowsiness.\u201d<\/li>\n<li><strong>Benadryl.<\/strong>\u00a0 This is great for reducing the hives caused by the Z-Pak antibiotics.\u00a0 Also, \u201cThis may cause dizziness.\u201d<\/li>\n<li><strong>Benzonatate \/ Tessalon,<\/strong> for the wheezing that would have sounded so good at a Halloween party.\u00a0 \u201cThis may cause dizziness.\u201d\u00a0 Ya think?<\/li>\n<li><strong>Doxycycline antibiotics.<\/strong>\u00a0 This is the next line of defense against pneumonia, since I\u2019m allergic to the first line.\u00a0 Stay out of the sun while taking this.\u00a0 WTF?\u00a0 Will I look all sparkly?\u00a0<\/li>\n<li><strong>Levaquin antibiotics.<\/strong>\u00a0 This is the NEXT, next line of defense against pneumonia, since I\u2019m allergic to the first line and the second line didn\u2019t do a damn thing in a week.\u00a0 Also, \u201cThis may cause dizziness.\u201d\u00a0 Mind you, the instructions aren\u2019t \u201ctake this, not that.\u201d \u00a0The instructions are \u201cTake this Levaquin and keep taking all the Doxycycline too.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Let&#8217;s note that around 500 different species of bacteria live in your gut, in a symbiotic relationship with you and what you eat.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 \u00a0SOBUMD has suggested I have some yoghurt, to replace all those \u201cgood\u201d intestinal flora.\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0 I will not do it.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Albuterol,<\/strong> as an inhaler.\u00a0 \u201cThis 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.\u201d\u00a0 Yes, it really says that.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Tussionex,<\/strong> also to reduce coughing.\u00a0 It also reduces those feeling of sobriety and steadiness that were plaguing you.\u00a0 \u201cThis may cause dizziness.\u201d\u00a0 Yeah, no kidding, the way a pint of vodka may cause dizziness.\u00a0 This is something like a cross between the 6th glass of Scotch and a near-death experience.\u00a0 No wonder it\u2019s not over the counter.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li><strong>Advil,<\/strong> because no one will give me valium, and all this stuff together will give you quite a headache.<\/li>\n<li>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.\u00a0 Actually I got these from my attorney, not my doctor, but who\u2019s counting.\u00a0 \u00a0Besides, the only thing more helpless and irresponsible than a man in the depths of an ether binge is a blogger with pneumonia.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The only thing more helpless and irresponsible than a man in the depths of an ether binge is a blogger with pneumonia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[46],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=908"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":913,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908\/revisions\/913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}