I got the blues!

I am very sick with a cold virus. It was getting worse.  I coughed every two hours the night before. Last night hubby took me into our ER. I had an X-ray, and I don't have pneumonia! Thankfully, I was two hours in the ER, including the X-ray, it wasn't too busy at all. They put me on a ventolin mask for a half hour. What relief! 

Hubby has been amazing! I'm not really hungry. Drowning in phlegm, it takes a lot of coughing to clear out my lungs in the morning. There are worries about antibiotic resistant bacteria, and physicians are being really careful about prescribing unnecessary antibiotics. Our young ER physician, seriously, looked old enough to drive, but not old enough to vote. He is a caring, educated doctor, though. I told him, with my raspy voice (laryngitis, too), that I think I picked up this terrible virus from my hospice client! He said, 'That's ironic!' Yeppers.

We've had 45 visits to healthcare for his cancer appointments. It's been give and take. He is a good nurse!

2014

Even more ironic that my client battled it more easily than I did.
I got all sorts of bugs from my students. In 25 years teaching there wasn't a bug I didn't come across! It always lands in my lungs. I often had laryngitis, I know many teachers do, too! Not to moan and roil in self-pity, I'm so grateful I don't have to worry about calling in sick! I am lounging on the couch with chick flicks hubby has brought home. He's a peach!

Memories

I remember being home sick at one point in 2000. I had a gr. 8 class. We had several projects in the works, including a video we were making about Blues in the Schools. There was a timeline. I emailed Red, one of my favourite students, and told her she was in charge. She was up to it. When you write in your day book, 'video', there is no way to tell an occasional teacher what to do. Thankfully, we had a good one, and the video was made. Red had a blast being in charge. This was the year we participated in Blues in the Schools! The ultimate event was a July performance on the Bluesfest stage.

I saw Red a couple of years later. She was volunteering at an Ottawa festival. You get comfort knowing you helped a young lady find her footing.

learning the drums

Happy memories!

They called themselves the Spice Girls!

I taught some kids to use the camera and the school videocamera. 

"Ya sing the blues,
so ya don't got the blues no more!" –T.J. Wheeler

Not only playing music, we integrated the arts and created murals for Bluesfest. The roots of blues music are the slave songs and sorrow songs African slaves would sing in the fields. They were forced to leave behind their beautiful musical instruments, but created a diddley bo in the 30's (Hey, Bo Diddley!) and the blues had a baby, they called it rock and roll!

Derek Debeer and Trevor Findlay,
Ottawa-based musicians

I must celebrate my caregiver!

Yep, I'm home sick. I have received much support from my friends. I appreciate your words of concern. Many thanks.
I began saying, 'It's just a cold.' But it is such a trial. It went bad pretty quickly.

Buster kept me warm.
He sure seems to know I'm sick!

Pneumonia. I haven't had it this badly in a long time. I usually get it -right into my lungs. That awful seal bark, whooping cough that drives your spouse nuts!

I'm not complaining, just weary. I shouldn't be! Once you hit 40 it's all downhill! However, once I left my classrooms behind, and all the germs and germ factories kiddies, I thought it'd be easier. Methinks it's been the stress around this year with all the health issues in our families.
I have many friends, and clients with terrible life limiting illnesses. I was so sad I had to cancel my hospice client visit. Good thing to keep my germs at home!

Here is the dude with cancer, my JB,  giving me much TLC, while he toodles into town and fetches me stuff. The other day, it was a wonderful Sub sandwich, then, a chicken Caesar wrap. I ate the former on the front deck in the sunshine. My friend, Nat (a PSW), wrote, 'Get out, get some fresh air." I took her advice.
It was so delightful! I watched the birds, wrapped in a blanket. That was yesterday's post of photos. It's a wonderful world.

A lot of my very ill clients watch TV all day. I've learned to embrace this when just walking causes you to cough. Hubby has rented me some DVDs. It's tricky him getting them. The young man at the store was most supportive, also giving him some healthcare suggestions: vaporizer, inhaling something or other!

The movies have had various successes. The day our sweet soldier was mourned:
Railway Man - gruesome scenes of WW II torture of soldiers. It was a great movie, just a bad one for that day.
The Magic of Belle Isle - fabulous. Monty Wildhorn, an alcoholic novelist of Westerns, has lost his drive. His nephew pushes him to summer in quiet Belle Isle. He begrudgingly befriends a newly single mom and her 3 girls who help him find the inspiration to write again.
Thanks For Sharing - about sex addicts. Alecia Moore (Pink) is in it!
At Middleton – Delightful! "Two parents fall in love over the course of a single day while playing hooky from their children's college tour."
The Color Purple  - 'nuff said.
Women in Love - Excellent! Lots of nudity, of either sex (only fair). Adaptation of D.H. Lawrence classic novels The Rainbow and Women in Love focusing on the lives of two sisters, Ursula and Gudrun and their developing relationships with two friends Rupert Birkin and Gerald Crich in the aftermath of the WW1.

You can compare hubby's health cures with mine! They are quite distinct, but our symptoms and causes are quite different. The puffer with Ventolin is amazing. A nurse told me I have viral-induced asthma, as every time I get a cold I get asthma.

Chocolate is never bad for you!

This soothes the throat.
It's very nice.
Even Daisy cleaned up my glass!

This is hubby's.
Helps the immune system.
This was recommended by
the Naturopath.

He's got a ton of pills.

I have antibiotics.
Bless those scientists who discovered them!

These were good, too!

Here we are watching my chick flicks!
OK, cat does look a little bored!

There is nothing like cat photos (or kittens or puppies) to make you feel a little bit better. Buster was a hot water bottle. He slept at my feet for hours. Daisy would come by, but the minute I coughed, she was too upset to stay! Buster is my boy!