How [NOT] to Get Well Soon


Hey everybody, I’m sick!  Yes, ‘still.’  In fact, I’ve been sick for this entire year (and then some)!  I’m afraid it’s GCD – Generic Coughing Disease.  GCD first broke out as an epidemic sometime around 2001, during the peak of my obsession with Les Miserables (“Oh, Fantine…”) and the release of Moulin Rouge.  Generic Coughing Disease symptoms are as follows:  glamorous cough, prostitute cough, French cough, death.  I’ve even seen a doctor and the best he could determine was that there’s nothing wrong with me, aside from this soul-rattling cough that will not go away.  No matter what I’ve tried.  And I’ve tried all of the following:

1.  Rest, fluids, and ‘taking it easy’ don’t do anything.  Spending a couple of days laying low, taking vitamins, eating soup and cutting yourself some slack? 

2.  Trying to ‘power through it’ doesn’t help either.  So you thought you could just ignore it, pretend like it’s not so bad, and go back to work?  HA.

3.  Stream Netflix about people dying long, slow deaths like The English Patient and Terms of Endearment.  Look in the mirror.  How come Debra Winger’s hair is so perfect when she’s convalescing in a hospital bed the last half hour of the film (oops, spoilers)?  Practice looking glamorous in bed, just in case.  Post to Instagram.  You may be sick, but you still got it!

4.  Doctor can’t do nothing for ya!  So you finally decided to see the doctor on the coldest day of the year?  At least you didn’t have to wait – freezing cold means you’re the only one foolish enough to leave the house!  He can poke you in the forehead and take your temperature, but science can’t figure out why you’re not better yet.  He’ll give you an antibiotic “just in case,” and because you’re so pathetic and he feels sorry for you, a prescription for cough medicine with codeine in it!  When you skip your little Rx for your controlled substance down to CVS, the pharmacist has to check to make sure she still has it in stock.  “Hot ticket item?  Been flying off the shelves?” you joke.  She says yes.  Only she’s not kidding.

4.  CODEINE DOESN’T WORK!  This shit has an orange warning label, orange!  It should at least make you sleepy!  Nope!  Opposite effect!  Sit bolt upright (“makes you cough less!” – BF whose dad is a doctor) in bed until the wee hours of the morning, coughing violently until you give yourself a jaw ache, which transmutes into a toothache.  Now that the entire left side of your face is in throbbing pain, cry on the floor of your tiny bathroom while you boyfriend runs a steaming hot shower (“loosens chest congestion!”) and pours you a mixture of honey and bourbon (“at this point, what have you got to lose?”) while you hack up mucus in the toilet.  I missed the scene in Terms of Endearment when Debra Winger puked up her own boogers.  Maybe that’s in the director’s cut.

5.  After a night of not sleeping, clutching pillows to your chest and apologizing to your sleeping boyfriend for ruining his life, resolve to take a nap.  Get about as far as the couch before ordering food delivery from Whole Foods.  You know what they say:  those who can’t, pay someone else to do it for them and then tip 20% out of shame.  Hit up Instacart and stock up on comfort foods, because even if you have no appetite anymore, it’ll be nice to have bagels and ice cream in the house when you do feel better.  Someday, right?  Someday…

Lastly, do not complain about being sick on your blog!  Hey, didn’t we already do that last week?  That definitely didn’t help, remember?  Nobody likes a whiner!  WWDWD – What Would Debra Winger Do?  She would pull herself up by her funky knee socks (seriously, that movie is #SockGoals), crank up the showtunes, give Shirley MacLaine a piece of her mind!  Does that even make sense?  Oh, is the codeine finally kicking in?  Seriously, how long are these things supposed to last?


6 responses to “How [NOT] to Get Well Soon”

  1. I am side-eying your doc for prescribing antibiotics "just in case" but worries about superbugs and antibiotic-resistant bacteria are just like this THING that I have. But maybe he had his reasons?

    Both of us are sick over here so I feel you. Maybe you picked up pneumonia? Like a true old-timey heroine.

    • No fluid in the lungs, so probably not pneumonia… slight fever, so I wondered if it was just the flu? I wondered about those antibiotics too, but as long as they promise to make me feel better, I'll keep taking them!!!

  2. I've been sick on and off since I got here a month ago. Currently I am laid up with this feeling like a truck has run me over. Anywhoooo, I had a lung infection a number of years ago and now, whenever I get a cold or illness involving my chest or throat I cough for about a month after it's over, and I need inhalers to help me get through it.

    Not sure if you have had one in the past or maybe have one now, or if you have inhalers already, but I know the pain of just bone wracking coughs that seem unconnected to the rest of your life's ails.

    I hope you feel better, and we can hang out soon!

    • Thanks I've never had an inhaler before, but now I wish I did! Lung infection – OUCH! My BF had an ick that wouldn't go away after Burning Man, and by the time he saw a doctor, it had turned into an Upper Respiratory Infection. His coping skills are better than mine though. This keeps morphing into new things: runny nose, dry cough, toothache, bloody noses, migraines, nausea, on and on. Someday I'll feel better, and I'll rejoin the human race. Until then, everyone I see/talk to keeps telling me to "go home and get some rest" as soon as I open my mouth to speak/cough. The outside world has abandoned me.

  3. Hilarious. And go ahead and complain about being sick on your blog. I feel for you. And Debra Winger. Even without the cancer, Jeff Daniels was a real dick to her. (Whoops. Spoiler. But Debra said it was okay to talk about the cancer.)

    • Thank you! I actually didn't even mean to watch a depressing movie! Even then, I totally identified with Debra Winger. Starting with getting high to "Anything Goes," then coming on strong around the time she puts on "Gee, Officer Krupke" in bed with Jeff Daniels, I was like "damn this girl is totally me." So when she got sick at the end I was trying not to take it as an omen! I still have total sock envy for that character. She had the best wardrobe.

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