Well, it's been a
week.Sunday I went through all the chores except for cleaning the hall bath, roasted some chicken drumsticks for dinner, paid some bills, and then as always before bedtime, walked the dog.
By the time I got back from the walk, I was coughing, one of those hacking coughs caused by a raw spot on the throat, one I hadn't had when I went out for the walk. In those ten minutes, it had just shown up. And I kept coughing, except when I was drinking, which made it hard to sleep. So let's say I didn't get much sleep and spent Monday miserable and much of Tuesday miserable as well. James was also suffering the aftereffects of the two weeks of antibiotic (cephelaxin); he seems to be sensitive to this one, since he was feeling as if he could not breathe well the last couple of days, but that eased up the moment he was off the antibiotic.
Now, James had a cardiologist's appointment on Wednesday, and there was no way either of us were going to show up if we had COVID. So we took the at-home test on Tuesday, and both of us came up clear, which was a relief. Really, I can still smell and taste fine (the mucus most of all—it's revolting), and I've had dozens of colds that started just like this: cough first, and then my sinuses going into overtime and producing wildly, and then cough from the endless post-nasal drip-drip-drip. I sound like a frog and I'm exhausted.
So James did get checked out by Dr. Shash, who assuaged our fears by saying his EKG was fine, and he listened to his lungs, and said they sounded fine as well (we were worried because since his fall, the CT scan noted small plural effusions on his lungs). We told him we would definitely keep the appointment with the urologist on the 20th to see if his prostate was enlarging so much that it was blocking his flow again.
And then, guess what.
Yes, his damn UTI is back, even after two weeks of antibiotic! He sent another note to the urologist. So Thursday, along with going to Lidl, Publix, and Kroger, we had to go back to Kaiser yet again for a fourth lab test. But, I got through the shopping okay, although I was cross and tired, and thought the cough medicine I got at Kaiser was doing me good, especially when we stayed in Friday because we were supposed to have a storm (it never came) and I felt pretty good, if still slightly stuffy, with no bouts of coughing so hard my eyes watered and I couldn't catch my breath!
We spiced up the evening by watching the second season finale of Picard (all threads neatly wrapped up), the "Ready Room" short that went with both Picard and the new series, and, finally, Strange New Worlds, the new Star Trek series featuring Captain Kirk's Enterprise
predecessor, Captain Christopher Pike, with Spock as his science
officer, and Number One as his First Officer. Uhura is seen as a
fresh-from-the-Academy role here, and we also meet Dr. M'Benga and Nurse
Chapel. It is very good. They are going for individual stories here, not serialized adventures like Discovery and Picard
have been. It also sounds as if the "big bad" in the series are going
to be the Gorn (the "lizard man" Captain Kirk fought in "Arena").
Alas,
Friday night was a cough-fest again and I woke up Saturday feeling like
my head was stuffed with cotton. James went off to his club meeting Saturday afternoon and
I settled in front of the television for a minor Vincent D'Onofrio film
fest: the Homicide: Life on the Street episode "The Subway"
which won a bunch of awards and was so innovative that PBS made a
documentary about it (the documentary is also on the DVD set, but I
didn't get to it), and also another episode called "All is Bright" that
guest-starred Kathryn Erbe as a young woman who caught AIDS from having
unprotected sex with an HIV-positive guy (who, of course, didn't tell
her). (This also featured a sweet performance from Carol Kane as one of
John Munch's [Richard Beltzer] ex-wives.) The final thing I played that
afternoon was an interview of Vincent from a 2017 Chicago Comic Con. I
did this great screencap of him talking with his hands—it reminded me of
all the family gatherings when I was a kid, everyone gesturing!
(Later on, I told James to watch a couple of episodes of The Expanse, which I really don't care about—did notice Burn Gorman from Torchwood is in it—and I watched a very early television appearance of VDO's on the original The Equalizer
series with Edward Woodward; he plays Davy, a mentally challenged young
man who nevertheless is overjoyed to finally be on his own and working
in a department store, until one night he stumbles upon a murder and is
accused of the crime, so he goes to Robert McCall for help. It's called
"Suspicion of Innocence" and is on NBC's website.)
Alas, Saturday night seemed to end well: I fell asleep with no coughing fit!
Only to wake up at two in the morning with one instead. Bleah.
This is getting very, very old...
Labels: chores, errands, events, food, shopping, sickness, television
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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at
10:11:00 PM
