As anyone who follows my twitter feed knows, I’ve been sick for a week. It started off as the typical viral bronchitis-type thing I’ve had before. I had a bout of it last year for my yearly sick. But this time, it got way out of control. After 5 days of tylenol, advil, aleve, mucinex and cough suppressant, it was clear that this was not going away. Yesterday, after another sleepless night, I got up early and asked Nick to call the Dr for an appointment. They took me immediately.
You know it’s serious when I choose to go to a Dr. You know it’s REALLY serious when I go to the Dr w/out a stitch of makeup or even my contacts in. o.O It was that bad.
She looked me over and prescribed pretty much everything possible for bronchitis: albuterol inhaler, medrol prednisone pack, Z Pack antibiotics and codeine cough syrup. I’ve never taken this many meds at once in my life! Welcome to old age. Harumph.
Luckily we got some prescription discount cards in the mail (randomly!) and the plan did indeed seem to bring down the cost of the meds. All that stuff cost a little over $100, which seems cheap to me. Last time we got a Z Pack it was $80-90. If Nick will find me the receipt, I’ll post the exact savings from the card. So with the Dr visit, it cost me about $150. Beats the SHIT out of $800/mo for shitty insurance IMO.
I consider this whole thing to be warning #2 from my body to STOP SMOKING. All the way, not just when it suits me. Until last year’s bout of bronchitis (warning #1), I’d never had lung issues. Now I do. I must stop, so I shall. The ecig will just have to do. With my body type leaning strongly towards my father’s side of the family, I need to heed the warnings. My father, his sister and his mother all suffer(ed) with emphysema/COPD and I will, too if I don’t stop smoking. I’m very healthy in general, but clearly my weak spot is my lungs.
I’m not better yet, but I tell ya, I feel FABULOUS compared to the previous six days. I plan to watch football and movies today and resist the urge to jump up and start cleaning things. I’m going to try to keep myself on restriction for a week. Rob’s got paperwork for me, which will fit the bill nicely.
Now I’m off to walk (gently) around the yard and enjoy this lovely day. :)
Hi girl,
Gosh, good luck with your quitting smoking. This may sound silly, but my husband has quit, cold turkey, totally, for over 40 days by using a thing called the ‘Livestrong’ quit smoking app on iPhone. It tracks your progress, there is a social network of other quitters, ect. It is a real support network…
Sorry to hear you are sick, but I am glad to hear you are feeling better! Those z-pacs can kick butt :)
Oh, I can quit. I just need to stop being such a pussy about giving in to my urges. :) I’ve quit for long periods and come back, round and round. But with this lung development, I’ve just gotta stop being a hedonist and get used to being OLD. Meh. I use Livestrong for tracking food, etc. Good site.
Thanks for checking in! Yes, I don’t know if it’s the antibiotics or the steroids, but whatever, I’ll take it! :)