Recovery

It was something you don't want to see. Worse: It was something you don't want to see come out of you. It was something like in a B-movie. I coughed it up. I took a photo of it and sent it to my pulmonologist and then had a bronchoscopy (me second). 

When I have a bronchoscopy, I have to get ready for the reaction. First, I put your thickest comforter in the bathroom. Next, I put a heating pad in my bed. Then I wait until the cold comes.

As soon as I start feeling cold, I fill the bath with the hottest water possible. Then, when the shaking starts, I get into the bath and get good and warm. Then, when I am feeling brave, I get out of the bath and I wrap the comforter around myself and rush to my bed to lie on the heating pad and fall asleep with Atavan.

When I wake up, I live on liquids because my throat is so sore, and I cancel all my dates and meetings for a few days while I sleep everything off.

I still don’t know what the beastie was. I have to wait to know. I shouldn't have thrown it down the toilet. I will know what to do if there is  another such incident. They want to do cellular analyses.

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As a single person with no family, I can feel very alone when I am sick. Not sadly alone, just "on one's own." The fever that comes with a bronchoscopy is intense; I shook from head to toe and could not stop it even though I was warmly clothed and wrapped with a down comforter. It was awful. And in my fever and solitariness,  friendships felt like time-fillers. I felt everyone is alone and just involved with activities—from marriage to Facebook—designed help them believe that they are not alone.

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I have to buy a TV. I hate having to make this type of difficult decision. There are so many options and such confusing and incomprehensible terms and functions.