What is your worst sick story? I was just reminded of mine.

[Lil Missy]

Eons ago, I had two years of perfect attendance where I worked.

I got sicker than holy crap. Flu, fever, bronchitis, laryngitis, you name it. I had a kid to get fed and off to school. I don't know how I survived.

I no sooner got him delivered him to the school bus, and then curled up on the couch with blankets, the remote, and some hot chocolate to soothe my sore throat.

He stepped off the bus when they got to school, with his hands in his coat pockets, and tripped on the last step. Fell flat on his face against the curb, broke his front teeth and split his lip open. I got an urgent call that he needed emergency care.

Well shit, I had no voice! I did manage to get it across to his dentist office; "emergency", "broken teeth", "bleeding", and his name. The ER was easier after that. All they had to do was look at him. Stitches required for the rest of the injuries.

Jeezus.

Moral of the story: mom's are not allowed to get sick.

[kentauros]

1. It was the Christmas Holidays of 1977. I was sixteen at the time.

A few days before Christmas, I started to get really bad gas pains in my stomach and intestines. The kind that would almost double me over, but never continuous pain, thus why we thought it was gas pain.

The day after Christmas, I woke up with a single, sharp pain in my right side.

When the family doctor poked me there I practically jumped off the table. He said he had never before been so sure of appendicitis in his entire career! :rofl:

So, off I go to the hospital. The attending anesthesiologist was a neighbor jut around the corner from where we lived. I remember him asking me if I remembered him as he put me under. I was out before I could really answer. I remember nothing for the next 24 hours, but heard the story from my parents and the surgeon.

Normally, an appendectomy is pretty easy and only lasts about 20 minutes. Go in, snip it out, remove it, sew ya back up. However, mine had burst and I was completely unaware it had. It had been burst for four days, so the cavity was full of puss. It took them 45 minutes to clean me out, and then I had two drains in my side, made of long flat rubber sheets. The doctor would "advance" them about an inch a day. I was very glad for the rails on the bed. Gave me something to hang onto ;)

The incision was huge for an appendectomy, due to all the extra work they had to do for me. This was also a time when they were using staples instead of other suture means of sewing people back up (I don't know if it's still used or not, but it left a nasty scar.) I stayed in the hospital for three weeks, draining, though one drain was removed all the way and scabbed over for a few days before it started leaking and they were afraid they were going to have to open me up again to clean it all out again. Luckily, it finished draining and they were satisfied there was no more from that side.

I remember the first three days after surgery and having to get up and walk with my IV stand around the nurse's station. Painful, but they insisted I get moving to help the healing. I guess it worked, but it sure was weird not eating and yet never feeling hungry for three days.

It took me a while to recover after all that, and I still had school to do while in the hospital, so more torture :P

That's probably the worst I've ever been sick, even the flu I had some years back with 104.1 temp. That only lasted a day, so it doesn't really compare.

Thanks for starting this thread :D
That was quite the ordeal you went through, too :o

[Lil Missy]

2. That sounds awful!

I've been sicker than that, (what I described for myself) and even close to death in Intensive Care.

But damn, there should be a law that kids can't get injured like that when mom is already sick and half dead.

:hi:

[kentauros]

3. Someone needs to invent the "Day Nurse for Moms"

:D

And make it covered by insurance ;)

Then again, a friend in Australia posted a pick of the school buses their kids ride; it looked like a Metro bus! And low to the ground, nice seats, easy steps and really modern (and safe!) I showed them a pic of US school buses and how they are basically a flatbed truck with a cover over the seats. The Aussies were flabberghasted we had such low standards. I didn't blame them either. I still don't know why we can't have safer buses for school use. :shrug:

[BlueJazz]

4. When I was about 14, I was "into" Model power airplanes. One afternoon,

... I was working on my plane and put some Airplane Fuel in a Glass.

About an hour later my friend came over and I got some Ginger Ale for us both.
I set it down where we were working.
10 minutes later (while looking at an engine), I reach for my Ginger Ale and took a big gulp of Airplane Fuel...It was the same color without much smell.

I was Sick for 3 days and every time I burped, I about puke again,,, Yech...

[Lil Missy]

5. Ohhhhhh yuk!

My sis had a bf who did "chew", and used pop cans to spit.

My son took a big swallow out of a pop can once. He thought it was soda. The results were not pretty. An ER visit, and I was so damned angry ....

[Mad_Dem_X]

6. Food poisoning. 1993.

I had stuff coming out of both ends at once. I seriously thought I was going to die. Nasty!

[Lil Missy]

7. That does not sound pleasant!

What did you eat?

[Mad_Dem_X]

67. From what I remember,

it was chicken, that obviously wasn't cooked right.

[Rabrrrrrr]

37. I had that about a year ago, at night, and I remember laying bed trying to decide

if it was better to just throw up in the bed and clean it up in the morning, or attempt to crawl the bathroom yet one more time, because getting out of bed was so utterly difficult and miserable..

I ended up crawling - my white carpeting kind of sealed the deal. Sick as I was, my cheapness won out, and I crawled instead of having to rent a carpet cleaner. :7

I crawled a few times that night. It was awful. Thankfully the diarrhea had run its course earlier when I was still able to at least get up on the toilet.

[Lil Missy]

45. Oh, such indignities. Crawling to the biffy to do, whatever. Either, or both.

I stepped on the cat last time I got that sick, and fell om my face. So I broke my glasses and face too after I tripped on him. Damn cat was fine.

[LibDemAlways]

78. Both my spouse and I had the same issue......

on our honeymoon! We were poisoned at an after wedding gathering. I won't go into the details, but it was bad. It's now 35 years later and we're still together. I suppose if we could survive that, we can survive anything.

[Lil Missy]

8. Okay, more stories. I can't be the only one that ever got sicker than shit.

I got encephalitis once. The kind from a godamned mosquito bite! Several hospitalizations and surgeries for that. Ya gotta be kidding me!

What's your story?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

9. I had scarlet fever when I was a kid.

Was sick as a dog for a couple of weeks -- high fever, horrible sore throat, felt totally like crap. This back in the olden days when doctors made house calls, and I have a vague recollection of the doctor coming over and poking at me, but I was in a deep fog.

I also got Hong Kong Flu in late 1968, and that was really awful because I was so weak and dizzy for days.

And then there was a bout of food poisoning, which involved sleeping curled up on the bathroom floor for a couple of days.

[Lil Missy]

11. Olden days? Marcus Welby?

I'm old, but never recall a home doctor visit.

(My earliest memory is my tonsils removed as a child.) They gave me a grape soda, and I puked purple all over the place, LOL!.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

12. This would have been about 1959. Definitely the olden days.

[Lil Missy]

15. Yep.

Hugs from one old fart to another. :)

[LiberalEsto]

10. I started getting sick at Disney World

This happened years ago when our daughters were almost 5 and almost 2. We'd eaten breakfast at a restaurant outside Disney World and I think that's where we got food poisoning.

It was a very hot day in May and the air conditioning in Disney World was broken down. The costumed characters were wilting in their heavy outfits, and there was no place to get cool, even in the restaurants. I started feeling queasy and thought it was the heat. Then I felt worse and we decided to leave, since we'd already been there for several days. Our way to the exits was blocked by some stupid parade of characters, and the area was too mobbed for me to reach a restroom in time. Desperately,I whoopsed into one of those perfectly manicured petunia beds, thinking I would get arrested for major littering. I didn't. We finally got through to the exit, caught the train or whatever to the parking lot, and made our way to our car. We decided to head for our next destination: Clearwater Beach, where we planned to spend a few days. Being from NJ, we were a bit hazy on how far it was.

We kept looking for a place to stop so I could use a restroom, but we didn't pass any. I kept feeling sicker and sicker, but rather than make us stop the car and barf on the side of the road, I quietly threw up into ziploc bags and tossed them out the car window. I have always been meticulous about not littering, and felt horribly guilty, but I couldn't keep it in the crowded car with two little kids. Eventually we got to our rented cottage in Clearwater, and all hell broke loose. The two girls began projectile vomiting as Dave and I took turns on the toilet. Then all 4 of us took turns on the potty. After several hours of hell, we were all puked out and cleared out.

As the four of us lay on our beds, too weak to move, we heard the police radios from the police substation next door to the cottage. They were saying that a tornado was headed directly for this neighborhood and the police station. We couldn't move, we just lay there waiting for death. We heard all that roaring wind, but it missed us. We heard the police saying there was damage to cars and houses very close by.

[Lil Missy]

14. OMG. If I were that sick and then got weather warnings, I'd lay in bed too.

Gawd.

:hug:

[XemaSab]

40. OMG!

:o

Poor you!

[Tangerine LaBamba]

13. yu

I was riding an onion boat up the Amazon River in Peru with two boy buddies. We were college students.

First I got sick, sort of a mild fever and malaise.

Then The Rodent (Peter) started throwing up, so I started throwing up.

Then Son Of Rodent (Chris) got the runs, so Rodent got the runs, and so did I.

Then we all had a fever and the pukes and the runs.

You ain't lived until you've lurched into the jungle to have it fly out of you at both ends while you're hallucinating the ground under you turning into wild surf.

Not one of us remembers a thing about the days that followed, but the other people, Peruvians, mostly Quechua Indians, took care of us. They were so kind.

When we got back to the US, we found out that we could never donate blood because of what we'd had.

[Lil Missy]

16. yu right. I could never relate to something like that.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

17. I have no idea

where that "yu" came from...............

[Lil Missy]

18. Uhm, from your original response?

:)

[Tangerine LaBamba]

19. I mean,

that was not at all what I intended to put into the subject line.

See what happens when you cruise DU while watching MSNBC?

[Lil Missy]

20. Okay. Sorry you got so sick.

[Runcible Spoon]

68. yep, we called that "pissing out of all holes" in field school

good times good times

[wickerwoman]

71. Yep, Peru did it to me too.

I forgot about the hallucinations until I read your post.

I can't give blood either but mostly because I managed to be in Britain for mad cow disease AND China for SARS AND Peru for mystery projectile vomiting disease. The last time I tried to give blood, I was filling out the form and the nurse walked by and said I didn't even have to bother finishing.

[WinkyDink]

87. Hunter S. Thompson, is that you?! :)

[WinkyDink]

88. (oops!)

[ashling]

116. So, I guess if your friends had jumped off a cliff

you would have done that to???

Then The Rodent (Peter) started throwing up, so I started throwing up.

Then Son Of Rodent (Chris) got the runs, so Rodent got the runs, and so did I.

When will you kids learn???





:rofl:

[GaYellowDawg]

21. Bad piece of chicken.

I grilled some chicken. I don't know what happened; I have a mild allergy to raw poultry and didn't get an itchy mouth from what I cooked. Well, I started feeling bad about an hour after eating.

Then I went to the bathroom and threw up. Then got the runs. It was ridiculous. I would throw up and then have to immediately sit back on the toilet. I stripped so I wouldn't hazard getting anything on my clothes. On and on, until I was dry heaving and crapping mucus. I mean, my body cleaned out. The stomach cramps started during then, and I was curled up on the floor between the heaves and sitting. Finally I thought I'd be able to be driven to the hospital without crapping my pants - I was emptied out - and got a friend to take me.

So I got to the ER, and had to fill out a form. My friend had to read it to me and write the responses because I was in too much pain to concentrate much. That was finally finished, and they took me back to a bed and left. I didn't want to make much of a fuss because I knew there were people there that were bleeding and so on. I just laid there curled up. Finally, though I had to ask a nurse if it wouldn't be too much trouble, I was hurting badly, and could someone see me? She stuck a thermometer in my mouth - pretty much to shut me up. When she took it out, a doc asked the temperature, and I saw her look stunned and say "93.3." Man, did they swing into action QUICKLY. I had a shot and an IV in me before I knew what was happening. To this day I don't know what was in the IV, but it was GREAT. I'd have it every day if I could. They put a couple of liters of saline into me, too.

My friend came back to help me get back home - he looked kind of shaky and I was so loopy I was laughing at his expression. He told me I'd been in there 45 minutes and he thought I was dying or something. I had no insurance and the bill was $295 (this was in 1996 at a local hospital, after all). Since then, I've referred to it as my $300 piece of chicken.

Funny aftermath: the next day was my church's handbell choir concert. I was the bass ringer and handled the entire lowest octave. 24 hours after I was in the hospital in that kind of shape, I rang in a 10 piece concert and most of it was bronze level music. Hard to believe I was that strong but I was just 28. I still remember after the last piece thinking "thank you God, it's over, I couldn't ring another piece." Then the crowd started shouting "Encore!" and wouldn't you know it, the director asked for requests and they picked the busiest piece I had because they wanted to see the bass bells fly again. I hadn't told anyone but the director what had happened so as to not concern anyone. So I actually got through that one again, and after the concert, the choir started putting the bells up, and the director announced that I was going to go lie down because I'd been in the hospital 24 hours before. Then I had to endure about 15 minutes of people alternately asking me if I was OK or fussing at me for not skipping the concert - although I very much appreciated the concern. I watched the videotape and it looked like someone had put baseball blackout all the way around my eyes and the IV bruise was spectacular.

[Lil Missy]

24. DAMN! $295 and 45 minutes? In what country?

I'm glad yo survived the next day, as dificult as it many have been.

:o

[GaYellowDawg]

38. Middle TN. On a Tuesday night. And I misspoke - it wasn't $295, it was $395.

I got lucky and it was a slow night. I probably spend at least an hour in the waiting room before going back - the 45 minutes was after I'd actually been put on a bed. It was a regional (pretty much neighborhood) ER. They probably gave me a price break because I just about went into shock on the table when they could have seen me much earlier.

[Lyric]

22. Salmonella food poisoning, October of 1997. I was eighteen.

I had been working at a poultry factory for about nine months at that point, without incident. However, I always came home covered in turkey grease, meat spatters, etc. I suspect that I must have bitten my fingernails at some point and had some raw turkey crud underneath the nails, because I suddenly came down sicker than I'd ever been in my life.

It wasn't just the horrific vomiting and diarrhea; the worst part was the pain. I had never felt ANYTHING like the agonizing, shredding, ripping abdominal pains that came along with that. Whenever a cramp hit, I was reduced to babbling incoherently, begging it to stop. For the first day, it was constant bathrooms trips with a bucket between my feet to catch the vomit. I couldn't even keep sips of water down. For two days after that, I didn't even have enough food or water in my system to need the bathroom much, although dry heaves and abdominal pain continued. My fever was ridiculously high, and I started to get delusional with fever and dehydration. My Mom and stepfather had no idea how sick I was; NOBODY did--and after that first day, I was too weak and fevered to be coherent enough to tell them. Because I lived in a totally separated "apartment" on the second floor of our farmhouse, and nobody knew how sick I was, there was no one to check on me. Mom thought it was just a stomach virus, and let me sleep. I was far too "out of it" to even know where I was, much less how much danger I was in.

I almost died, to be honest. If my co-worker and best friend Shelly hadn't stopped by on the evening of day 3 and found me half-in, half-out of bed, unconscious, I very well might have died without anyone realizing what was wrong. According to my Mom, Shelly yelled for my brother and my stepfather, and the three of them managed to get me down the stairs of my upstairs "apartment," and out to her truck, where she drove like a maniac to the emergency room. My first real memory is of a doctor shining a light in my eyes, and pinching up the skin of my arm in several places. I started crying from the abdominal pain, and they gave me a shot of Demerol, which knocked me right back out again.

I came to myself again a little while later, and Shelly told me they'd been giving me IV fluids and electrolytes because my blood potassium level was severely, dangerously low. They gave me more Demerol and I went back to sleep. I woke up the next day in the hospital, feeling so weak that I could hardly lift an arm, but at least I was alive. They gave me ice to suck on. I remember how WONDERFUL that felt in my mouth.

In the end, I was in the hospital for four days, and had lost almost eleven pounds over the course of the illness.

[Lil Missy]

28. That sounds dangerously close to death!

I was that close once, with kidney failure. Thank gawd for my little sis. She found me and got help to load me into her car to see a Dr. The Dr. wanted nothing to do with me, and ordered me to hospital. I was in IC and unconscious for days.

Took me about a year to eat again. I lost about 50 pounds.

[XemaSab]

41. Holy shit!

Wow, that's really horrible. :pals:

[DarkTirade]

23. The time that my roommate and I had forgotten to pay the power bill...

I was working the night shift at the time. In Florida. And our apartment faced the sunrise. So even with the AC running full blast it would get upwards of 85 degrees in the apartment from sunrise to noon. Around 8 am, suddenly I started feeling sick. Threw up a couple of times. Tried to lay down and rest. This stomach flu just came out of nowhere and hit me like a ton of bricks.

Suddenly, around 10, the power went off. And the temperature just started climbing. Eventually I realized that I was quite likely going to end up so dehydrated that I'd have to go the emergency room if I didn't do something, because by that point I couldn't even keep water down. So as soon as my stomach was COMPLETELY empty, and there was NO WAY I could possibly throw up, I got into my car and drove across town to get money out of the bank and go to the payment center.

... and the AC in my car wasn't working right then. And I didn't trust the scent of exhaust and whatnot from the road not to trigger my throwup reflex, so I had to drive with my windows up.

Long story short, even after the power came back on it was still the worst stomach flu I'd ever had. For about 30 hours I was unable to even keep water down. And it wasn't just escaping from the front, if you know what I mean.

Were it not for ginger ale, I suspect that number would be even larger.

[kentauros]

26. Ginger is great for digestion

so it's no wonder ginger ale helped. Glad to hear you got through that. I can imagine the heat (and humidity) too. I remember having that kind of stomach flu before as well and I lost my appetite after for about two months. Did anything similar happen with you?



This is not the DU member formerly known as Kentauros.

[DarkTirade]

27. No, but after it went its course it morphed into a regular cold-like flu

and I had the nasty flu-cold for the next two or three weeks.

Then again, that was when I was doing heavy manual labor for a living. So my body couldn't afford to not eat. :P

[Lil Missy]

30. Yes, I know what you mean.

I got really horrible sick like that once, and called my dad. He said come on over. And bring the dog.

I was so damned sick, but dad took very good care of me. Only problem was that my dog pooped on his nice carpet. Oops!

LOL!

[blockhead]

25. I slept with my sister once....

...is that sick enough for you?:evilgrin:


(sorry, old joke)

[Orrex]

29. It's more than sick enough for me, thanks.

I mean, have you people seen his sister?

[Orrex]

31. I had stomach flu about four years ago

Not the life-threatening nightmare that some here have experienced, but unpleasant nonetheless.

The refunding and evacuation only lasted for six hours or so, but I was so wiped out by it that I lay in bed for two days straight. If, while in the throes of reverse peristalsis, someone had told me that I was going to die, I'd have said "Yeah, I kind of figured."

[Lil Missy]

32. Yes! And I'd add, Please put me out quickly and painlessly.

Formormaly known as Lil SnOrrex.

[Lethe]

33. West Nile Virus

hooo boy!

i checked out early on Friday cause i wasn't feeling so well.

Come Saturday I had a fever over 100 and had the shivers. I put every blanket, quilt, sleeping bag, etc, on me, and I still couldn't get warm. I actually asked my neighbor to borrow a heavy comforter...still freezing cold.

Just stuck it out for a couple days....worst sickness i ever had. Lost over 10 pounds in a few days.

Turns out I used to frequent a park that was massively infected with west nile.

[Lil Missy]

34. Come here. I've got lots of blankets and sleeping bags.

[Roon]

35. I caught the flu

I have aids and it really threw me for a loop. I spent 5 days in bed and was never really the same again for about three weeks after.

I get a flu shot every year now. :-)

[Lil Missy]

85. I have a cousin with AIDS. He was supposed to die 15 years ago.

He never took any of the drugs. Now they study him.

[Roon]

95. Great, a non-progressor

I started off with AZT and have taken every drug that has come down the pike. Just when the meds start to not work anymore, they come out with something new. So I have been lucky.

[Lil Missy]

98. Phillip never took anything after he tested positive. Nothing.

About 15 years ago he was on his death bed. I literally had to hold him up when we went to dinner one night.

They study him as an unusual case. He is going blind. His long term memory is impecable. But short term, he cannot recall crap.

I am really glad to hear you are doing great on the meds.

:hug:

:hi:

[Roon]

122. Thanks Missy!

eom

[Adsos Letter]

36. Basic training, Fort Ord, California...it was the coldest/wettest winter there in 40 years...

I had just turned 17.

Everyone was sick with an upper respiratory infection. I got really sick (fever, chills, hacking cough, etc.), and tried to go on sick call.

The senior drill sergeant accused me of trying to get out of training, cussed me out good, said everyone was sick, and tossed me out of his office.

So, I finished the last two weeks, including all of the PT tests and stuff, sicker than a dog.

Then, right after graduation, my platoon drill sergeant took me aside, said I was sick, and ordered me to the base hospital/annex for treatment...where it turned out that I had pneumonia.

I had my orders for my next assignment with me, so that evening I grabbed my duffle from under the bed, hopped a bus back to our company area just in time to catch the busload of guys headed for home. My DI saw me, and I thought he was gonna call me out, but he just stared at me for awhile and then turned away.

I went home, and spent the whole of my leave in bed recovering.

[Lil Missy]

46. I've been to Fort Ord. I was a Weekend Warrior, and oh, the stories!

I had a wonderful time at Fort Ord.

Gergia and Texas were fucking awful.

[Adsos Letter]

47. Every place the Army ever sent me was cold and miserable during winter...

Fort Ord, Fort Lewis, the Czech-German border (early 1970's).

It didn't help that I was in units that spent 2 out of 3 days out in the field... :(

[Lil Missy]

55. Mine were always hot and humid months.

Christ, Georgia and Texas were so hot and humid the sheets and blankets were wet the whole time. And NO air conditioning.

Fort Ord was kinda fun. :D

[Lil Missy]

56. dupe

[WCIL]

39. Back when my kids were young

out of nowhere one afternoon I came down with a stomach bug. One minute I'm fine, the next I am throwing up, pooping and wetting myself all at the same time. Nasty. I told the kids they could watch TV all afternoon, and not to worry about why mommy was laying on the bathroom floor, she would be fine. When my husband came home that evening, he said he would take them out for a while so I could crawl into bed.

He took them to Taco Bell.

Later that night, I had to drag myself out of my deathbed to clean up after the three of them. They got every towel and sheet that we had, and someone even vomited on the poor dog. I contemplated divorce as I cleaned up the burrito-puke of a 40 year old man who ate at Taco Bell when he knew there was a virus in the house.

I also had chicken pox when I was 20. My joints ached too badly to even get out of bed, and I had pocks in my ears, down my throat, and all over my gums. I developed breathing difficulties, and even after I was "better" I couldn't go to school or drive for another week because I was too fragile.

[Lil Missy]

48. Oh dear sweetie. Why is it all mom's job to clean up the massive puke and devastation?

Coming out of a death bed? And the poor pup! I'd have killed the hubby. He can clean up his own puke!

I had the mumps when I was young. My grandfather, an ornery old fart, told me to go eat a pickle. I 'bout died, that asshole.

[SeattleGirl]

42. A few years ago, taking a trip to Vegas with the families.

I started getting sick a few days before we left, but kind of brushed it off. WRONG!

I remember getting on the plane in Seattle, but cannot recall the rest of the flight, including the plane change in Portland.

The ride in the airport van to the hotel nauseated me, and the moment I stepped out in front of the casino/hotel we were staying at, I threw up. (:blush: )

Mom took me straight to the medical center that was in the hotel (thank gawd for that!).

I spent the entire week mostly by myself, sick as a dog. The antibiotics they gave me made everything except Pepsi taste like a giant salt lick. Blech!

Did manage to get out a few times, but mostly I was in bed, trying to will my head to stop hurting.

I never want to get sick like that again!

[Lil Missy]

49. Oh now that really sucks. On a family vacation?

x(

[XemaSab]

43. Puking? Or can't breathe and I'm going to die?

:shrug:

I bruised a kidney back in '05, and I couldn't keep a thing down for a week. Simple lesson: don't fall down the stairs.

I had a bad asthma attack in 1998 and I wound up in the ICU. I really thought I was going to die, and frankly, I haven't been the same since. :(

[Lil Missy]

50. Kidney is nothing to mess around with, that's for sure.

[XemaSab]

51. I was

sick as a dog.

The dude said that I was about 5 minutes away from going in an ambulance an hour away to Fresno. :o

[MsKandice01]

44. Mononucleosis.

I was 16. Three weeks of 103 fevers and excruciating throat pain. I had to brace myself with every sip of liquid I took because it was ridiculously painful. My lymph nodes in my neck were so swollen, I looked like Frankenstein. I took me months to finally get all of my energy back. I felt like I could never get enough sleep.

Pneumonia was pretty bad too and a lot harder on me mentally (I was afraid I might not make it through), but it was a much shorter illness.

[Lil Missy]

52. I've never had mono, but have always heard it is grueling and long lasting.

I had laryngitis for almost a year. They do these awful exams that make you almost puke.

I had a couple stroboscopies, and that DOES make you spit and tear and cry and puke. I had a surgery to remove that lesion off my throat, and I do have a voice now. But goddamn, I am not going through THAT again.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

124. The mono I had as a college sophomore wasn't so severe, but

I have never been so tired in my life. I would literally sleep from 10PM to 3PM, wake up, wash, make some instant coffee, and wait till 4:30 (yes, 4:30), which was when dinner started and my roommate could bring me a tray from the dining hall.

Then I would spend the evening doing the reading for my courses. I was lucky that quarter, because all my courses were of the reading and lecture variety (French literature, German culture, Shakespeare, introduction to film), so I didn't fall too far behind. However, I was ready to go to sleep again by 10PM.

This routine lasted for two weeks, after which I gradually started attending class again, beginning with the films for the film class.

[murielm99]

53. My worst sick story ended just a little while ago.

I have been out of the hospital for eight days now.

I had e. coli food poisoning. I posted a thread about it here.

Never ignore what seems to be a simple cast of the flu. I had a temperature of 106.6. My heart rate was 180, and I am lucky to have functioning kidneys.

Anyone who has a suppressed immune system needs to be extra careful. If you have a thyroid disorder, or if you are diabetic, do not ignore any flu-like illness that lasts more than a couple of days.

I never want to go through anything like that again.

[Lil Missy]

54. I'm glad you came through it okay!

Check in more often, would you?

:hug:

[murielm99]

74. Thanks! I will. n/t

[dana_b]

100. that is nasty stuff!

my kid got it and it went to the kidneys. She was really sick for a while.

Glad you got through it okay.

[cboy4]

57. I had pneumonia during the OJ trial...What am I, 80?

I just remember feeling like I was going to die .. it's a bad flu times ten.

I also had food poisoning from bad cheese from pizza.

I remember feeling like I was going to die then as well.

If you've never had stomach cramps associated with food poisoning, you haven't lived.

Your body evacuating the intruding substance is a "fascinating" process to say the least. :scared:

[Lil Missy]

61. I've never had food poisoning, so I can grant you I've never felt like that.

I was totally sick through the OJ trial too. But perhaps not for the same reason.

I heard the Ridney King verdict on my way to work one day, and I just about lost my teeth. I KNEW, that was fucking wrong, and there'd be total hell to pay for THAT.

I sure wish that poetic justice had gone to some other poor black schmuk, instead of a man tha could afford to pay for a double murder.

Oh, and you don't have to be so polite! When things go in that go out so darned violentley, it's called the squirts! Sometimes, it comes UP and OUT at the same time! At that point, if I am that damned sick, I'd say somebody shoot me in the head then carry me out on a stretcher.

[cboy4]

118. YUP!

lol

[WritingIsMyReligion]

58. Went to DC a few years ago for ~5 days, and spent 3 of them in bed violently ill.

We're talking constant throwing up, dry-heaving, near blacking out in the shower, that sort of thing. Room completely spinning and hazed over all the time. I was staying with family in the area and not in a hotel (thank God) and every last member of that family (even the poor dog, I suspect) was out of sorts for a week after I left. There is nothing worse than being sick while on vacation.

A close second was St Patty's Day 2008--for three days I had the flu, with dragging hallucinatory dreams and all the rest. Felt like I was constantly tripping, had limited sense of up, down, left, right. Then when the fever broke I could scarcely breathe...felt like my chest had been bound in iron, and I hacked around until I thought a lung was going to come up. Sheer hell.

[Lil Missy]

84. Should be a law about getting so sick in vacation!

[Marrah_G]

59. Mine is kinda gross- almost killed me

I had a kidney stone. They gave me pain meds and sent me home to pass it.

The stone got lodged in the tube between my kidney and bladder, blocking things.

The blockage caused a massive internal infection.

The infection went into my blood stream.

Raging fevers for 4 days in the hospital.

Literally almost died a few times.

It took huge amounts of intravenous anti-biotics to finally bring it under control.

Once the infection was under control I was sent home with more Anti-bitotics.

Three days (Christmas eve) later I awoke to my hands and feet being "asleep" (pins and needles feeling).

Christmas day my limbs were so weak I was having trouble walking.

Spent Christmas day in the ER were they ran a bunch of tests, said I was just tired from the infection and sent me home.

2 days later I had to call 911 to come and get me because I couldn't walk and could barely lift my arms.

By the end on the day the ER was clueless as to what was happening and had to have run every test known to man.

By that time my hands, feet, arms and legs were paralyzed.

It took another 3.5 days for them to figure out that the Antibiotic Cipro was the culprit.

Recovery took a long time and I am still healing from the damage done to my nervous system.

As a single mother with no family or friends closer then a 45-60 minute drive this was the most terrifying time of my life.

[WinkyDink]

89. {{{Marrah_G}}}

[Jamastiene]

60. I ate peanut butter on the day after New Year's Day.

The next two and a half weeks have gone into my OFFICIAL "I wish I hadn't done that and now I wish I could forget" list. I won't go into details, but I still don't feel so good. I'm so weak, you could knock me over with a feather.

[Lil Missy]

86. I've had a couple PB sandwiches. Fuck that, I get hungry! My mother has them too.

We have not been sick .... yet.

[momto3]

62. I have had viral meningitis - twice.

Most people do not get this even once. I am the freak of nature that has gotten it twice. the second time the head of infectious disease brought all of his residents to examine me.

The pain in my head and neck was so bad that I could not stand. Plus, the only way to diagnose this is by lumbar puncture. It turns out that the first time I had meningitis, the resident doing my spinal tap was new and it took her 10 tries to get the needle in correctly. I ended up with so much calcification around my spine that I had to have radiology perform the second lumbar puncture. The head and neck pain, coupled to the pain of being stuck in the spine for over an hour almost did me in.

If I should ever get this again, I told my husband I would rather take the chance of it being bacterial, and dying from it, than having to face a lumbar puncture again.

I know many people have probably faced worse than this, but this is the worst pain I have ever faced.

[Lil Missy]

63. See post #8. That is what I was talking about.

Encephalitis, meningitis, whatever. My headache was so gradual, and unbearable after a few days, I could not move my neck anymore. I called the doc asking for better headache pills.

He said nope, go to the hospital to get your head examimed. (LOL! Just kidding! He did not say it like that. He wanted an MRI of my brain first.) I was pissed that he was running up my medical bill, and was practically in tears cause I could barely drive by then.

So I went and had my damned head xrayed in the fancy machine. The results were awful. Oops! I was admitted, and given massive doses of steroids. Which is just as bad as the sickness, cause the massive steroids ruin your immune system. Several surgeries and infections after that. Oh yes, the many spinal taps.

They said I got this from a one in a million bug bite. Probably an infected mosquito. A fucking mosquito! Surgeries and sick as shit fo over a year, cause of a damned bug bite!Ya gotta be kidding me!

You are certainly an anomaly to get this twice. I agree, if my head, neck, and spine ever hurt that bad again, I'd say put that big needle into my head instead of my spine.

[BlueIris]

64. I once got a sore throat...thing so nasty that it was barely a scratch at the grocery store but a

river of lava by the time I got home thirty minutes later. My doc cultured it and diagnosed strep, I think, but I was so little (nine? ten?) that I don't really remember what type of illness it was. Just that I literally went from, "Hey, my throat's a little itchy" to "Ow, ow, ow, ow, OW" in a half-hour.

[Lil Missy]

91. Damn! Ya get sick FAST!!

[1gobluedem]

65. Bronchitis, bacterial infection, sinus infection, ear infection all at the same time

I don't get sick very often and rarely, if ever have gastric problems, lucky me. About six years ago in the summer, though, I started coming down with a cold that I tried to ignore but it got progressively worse; it was summer and I was freezing cold, had no voice, my ears felt like there were knives in them, I could barely swallow because of the pain in my throat, and I had a barking deep cough that could be easily interpreted as the call of seal. When I finally went to the doctor, she said "It would take me more time to tell you what you DON'T have."

I was so weak and tired I could barely drive home. I had no food in the house that didn't require lots of prep; I called my SO sobbing and asked him to please bring me a Boston Market chicken pie because I had to eat something. He's a musician and extremely vague about time; usually when I ask him to go get me something I can expect about a six hour window between the request and actually getting it but this time he dropped everything and went right over to get the pie. I found out from a friend of his that he was scared silly because I'd never called him crying before.

When I finally began to recover about a week later I went to the grocery store; I remember leaning against the cart as I went through the store thinking 'has this store always been this big?' The fatigue was incredible; the only thing I can compare it with was how I felt after brain surgery. The cough hung on for about six weeks too.

Fortunately, I've not been really sick since. Knock wood.

[Lil Missy]

81. Oh man, I recall feeling that weak after my bout with Kidney failure.

Mom wanted to push the gorcery cart to help me. But I said, this cart is the only thing allowing me to stand up!

[LaraMN]

66. I got a staph infection from letting my friends pierce my ears unhygienically.

It got so bad that I had to be on massive doses of antibiotics, which made me vomit for about two weeks.

It was icky.

[Lil Missy]

92. From having ears pierced?

The young neighborhood gal that pierced my ears with a darning needle and held a potato behind my ear, is now a big shot at the hospital where I show up half dead once in Intensive Care in a while.

I know here entire history, and she knows mine too. It's rather comforting. I also met her and her husband at a Kerry meetup. Too cool!

[MorningGlow]

69. Montezuma's revenge

I tried valiantly not to drink the water when I traveled in Mexico for about a week; I thought maybe it was residue on the hotel glasses or pitcher in the room (in Puerto Escondido--really small town on the Pacific), but later I found out it was from swimming in the ocean (questionable sewage practices in the area). My boyfriend and I were traveling by bus all over the southern part of the country, and the very day after I started spewing we had a nine-hour bus trip to Oaxaca. All I could keep down were Fritos and little sips of water.

Also chicken pox when I was 17, and a weeklong flu when I was in my 30s. There's a theory that thyroid problems are kicked into gear by a severe health issue. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it was that flu that set mine off.

[Lil Missy]

102. When I went to Fort Ord, we were told absolutely do NOT drink the water in Mexico.

We had a 3 day weekend. (That's another story, lol!) But we brought our own food and water.

[MorningGlow]

105. I was pretty vigilant

My BF could eat and drink anything, as he'd been acclimated to it--been studying there for several months. But I stuck to bottled drinks the entire time--that was why it took me a while to realize what had made me so sick. And DAMN was I sick--it lasted the rest of the trip and well into the following couple of weeks when I got home. Bleah.

[wickerwoman]

70. Well, you asked.

I was in the little village of Carhuas in Peru and during a three week long trip I ate 1 *one* leaf of lettuce the day before I was supposed to go home. (I'd been living on bread and cheese for three weeks and I was desperate for fiber.)

I spent the night projectile vomiting (the only time in my life I've managed to puke on a ceiling) and barely, barely making it the ten feet to the bathroom with titanic diarrhea.

The next day I had a nine hour overnight bus ride to Lima and then a twelve hour flight to Philadelphia. And the toilet on the bus was broken. And the jagoff on the plane wouldn't let me swap my window seat (next to the only empty middle seat on the plane) for an aisle seat near the bathroom. And the bitchy gate attendant at the layover in Miami wouldn't get a doctor for me when I asked. (Her advice: "go to the hospital if you're that sick"... sure, I'll just take off for the hospital in a strange city when my connecting flight is in two hours, I can barely walk, and I don't have the money to change my flight time or buy another ticket... and they sure as shit weren't going to change my flight for free.)

When I finally got back to my apartment I hadn't been able to hold a molecule of food down for three days and I was so tired I just lay on the sofa shaking for hours.

Moral of the story: never, ever eat anything in the third world that hasn't been cooked to death

[ceile]

73. Mono and Strep at the same time

It was the second I had had strep in the last 6 months. My mom didn't believe that I was sick again so soon after the first time-thought I was faking it-'til she looked at my tonsils and I had a popcorn ball back there. Combined with the mono - I lost 10+ pounds (I only weighed 115 to begin with). Really weakened my immune system. Less than a year after that, I had bronchitis 3x within one year. But honestly, I have not had a bad illness since (this was when I was in high school).

[sakabatou]

72. December, 2006: Seizures and bleeding on the brain

[Lil Missy]

82. Now that sounds pretty damned serious!

[mikeytherat]

75. Bacterial pneumonia

Apparently the strain came from some chicken coops on the farm where my then-girlfriend was the stable master. So, what is bacterial pneumonia like:

I lost my eyesight for 36 hours
"Exorcist" -worthy vomiting
Nothing, and I mean NOTHING "stays down." Not even water. IV fluids for many days (see previous remark)
I lost over 35 pounds really, really fast

mikey_the_rat

[Lil Missy]

83. WTF?

You were not near a hospital?

[mikeytherat]

119. Winter. Farm in middle of nowhere. Pre-cell phone era, all land lines down.

Took two days to get to hospital.

Ah, memories.

mikey_the_rat

[ashling]

76. Two, actually .... or do you just get 1???

Oh hell, I'm goin for two:

1) When I was 15 we were over looking at the new house that we had bought and I was outside kicking a football... when I came in I told my dad (who was a doctor) that my foot was hurting a little when I had been kicking the football.

Later that evening I told him about it again and he said (I swear!)"It could be acute migratory rhematoid arthritis" just like that after just looking at my foot.

My Mom was in the next room and, as usual, says "that comes from not eating right" We all had a big laugh. With mom, everything was from not eating right. LOL

The next morning my foot really hurt when I was getting ready for school and then at 2nd period it really hurt as I was headed out to play football at PE
I actually got picked for a team rather than being left for the end so that the last team to pick got stuck with me. That was a real coup!

But my foot hurt too bad, so I headed back in. The coach sent me to th nurse who said I had a sprained ankle and called my mom.

Turns out I had rheumatic fever just like my dad had said, and I spent the next 3 months in bed. My joints hurt terribly - especially my feet. They were swollen up and I even had to use a bedpan for a while.

When I went back to school I did a report on rheumatic fever in biology. At that time, rheumatic fever was the largest cause of deaths for kids under 15!

OK, it's amazing that you got this far, so I'll save the other for another time (teaser: endocarditis, had a main line drip of antibiotics for six weeks)

[Lil Missy]

93. You get to mention however many. This is not a contest or competition!

I've never had rheumatic fever. Or had to use a bedpan. I was cathed, and I'm not so sure that was a good thing. I resisted, but it was DR orders for kidney failure.

I guess he knew what he was doing, because I was unconscious for the next 3 days. Took me another week after that to walk again.

My mom is not the brightest bulb in the world, but after I was not conscious for several days, she scared my family half to death insisting I was going to die.

Sorry, but I am too stubborn! I learned how to walk again. And eat too!

Bite me! I am too damned mean and ornery to give up!

[Orrex]

111. oops--wrong place!

[ashling]

117. Thanks. Don't worry about it

oops--wrong place!

this is the kind of responses I generally get to my posts

[whistler162]

77. Most recent

in October 2007 I took a set of train trips.

Syracuse --> Toronto --> Cochrane ON --> Moosonee ON --> Cochrane ON --> Toronto --> Montreal --> Gaspe --> Montreal --> Toronto --> Syracuse.

Getting to Cochrane I reliezed I was coming down with a cold. By the time I reached Moosonee I was searching the local grocery store for cold tablets. The cold lasted until my return to Toronto just before returning home. Not fun.

Then there was the time I was working at a summer camp and got sick just before July 4th 1976. I wasn't feeling up to enjoying the celebrations.

[Lil Missy]

103. I am glad that is the worst you've ever been sick

:hug:

[Haole Girl]

79. Mine...

When I had a fever & contacted someone I shouldn't have. If I'd been well, I never would have. It was a mistake that caused a lot of heartache.

Second runner up: When I threw-up all over the seat of a 747.

[Lil Missy]

104. I suspect I know what you meant about #1

You barfed all over a 747??

:rofl:

[Haole Girl]

106. Oh, I doubt you know... but it's better that way

And yes, barfing all over a 747 was pretty humiliating.

[guitar man]

80. Mine

I don't know if it's the worst, but it's the one I remember best.

I had been walking around with pneumonia for a while and didn't realize how sick I was. I rode my motorcycle on a 300 mile round trip to go help out a friend in need, sick the whole time. When I got back, a few days later the pneumonia brought me down like a ton of bricks. Gawd, I have never felt so bad. x(

[Lil Missy]

107. No good deed goes unpunished.

I'm glad you had a place to just fuckin' pass out and sleep for a few days.

[WinkyDink]

90. I'm lucky; my worst pain ever was nothing menopause couldn't cure!

[Lil Missy]

94. LOL! Best answer so far!

:thumbsup:

[TK421]

96. When I had mono back in 2003....

I couldn't move, eat, piss, or have the energy to do much of anything for about three weeks

My job told me to stay home, because there was a show coming up ( if the actors got sick, they were fucked ) I remember having absolutely ZERO energy...lifting my arm was a monumental effort. TOTALLY-SUCKED-ASS...wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy...

Well...actually, a couple people come to mind right now

[Lil Missy]

101. Mono is something I have thankfully avoided.

But I've known every person to get it knocked on their ass exhausted for months and sleeping constantly.

I think I'll pass!

[JTG of the PRB]

97. I've got a few that are of about equal nastiness.

In elementary school I got the flu when I was in 4th grade. I started feeling really crappy about halfway through the day, so my teacher (an evil witch of a woman otherwise) sent me to the nurse's office. She took my temperature and immediately called my mom. I had a fever of 102.4 and went right home. Fortunately, my temperature went down later that day and I was only out of action for a few days. Pretty miserable time, though.

In middle school I somehow got pneumonia when I was in 7th grad.e it was in the middle of the week, and the doctor told me I had to stay home for the rest of the week. Three days off from school, plus the weekend. I felt lousy the entire time, but I got to buy a new model to put together while I was sick (I was way into model building back then).

About a week and a half after my high school graduation in 2001, I got food poisoning. My sister did too, though heres wasn't as bad as mine was. I'm pretty sure it was bad bologna that did me in. In any case, I felt miserable for nearly a week. Barely ate anything for the first four days, and when I did, it came right back up. That was probably the flattest I've ever been knocked on my ass.

Finally, the last time I was significantly sick was back during the second semester of my third year of college. I woke up on a Friday in January feeling awful, but I still managed to drag myself to my 8:00am Chemistry class. As soon as I sat down in class, however, I knew I wasn't going to be able to make it. I was nauseated, and had a terrible pain in my stomach. So I got up, dragged myself back home, and promptly threw up as soon as I got there. Wound up puking three times that day, but man did I feel 110% better the next morning.

So, yeah. Good times. :hi:

[Lil Missy]

113. Aww, gawd damn. getting sick at school is a bitch!

My city lost power for about a week. I was sick, and I do mean very sick. My dad had power and heat.

I know I mentioned this earlier. I just said to him, I'm sick dad, and freezing. He did not ask questions. He just said, come here now.

I had my first hot meal in 3 days. I slept in my little bro's warm waterbed for two days, I was so cold and tired and exhausted. Little bro was sleeping on the couch. My littls bro started to get worried.

Bro came to at least stir me, and I mumbled and snorted and spoke to him incoherenntly. The dog did whaaaa? Snore. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

[dana_b]

99. many episodes of food poisoning

(that seems very popular here!) but the sickest I've ever been was when I was 5. I had a kidney/ureter surgery. Before that I was sick every other week with infections -fevers, pneumonia, you name it. Then I had the surgery and the docs said I was dying and my family all came in to say "goodbye" to me. My mom said "bullshit!" and stayed by my side for days. I obviously survived and credit my mom's tenacity for it.

[nomorenomore08]

108. I puked in the middle of class as a freshman in high school.

Apparently I'd come down with a sudden bout of the stomach flu, and out of nowhere I just exploded. Not surprisingly, I missed the rest of that week.

As a senior in college (so we're talking only two years ago), I came down with a mild cold/cough sort of thing, but since, like a dumbass, I wouldn't stop smoking weed on a daily basis, it eventually developed into bronchitis or something similar. I remember coughing so hard I felt like I was choking, and at one point I had to sit in the bathroom with the shower running hot to clear my lungs, just to stop the gagging and wheezing. Sure learned my lesson...

[Orrex]

109. The lesson?

Only smoke weed in the shower.

[nomorenomore08]

112. Yeah, something like that...

:P

[nytemare]

110. Got terribly dehydrated in the Army.

Our company was doing urban terrain exercises in Germany. It was very cold, with snow on the ground. I suppose I was moving around a lot, and because of the cold, didn't feel as thirsty.

The second day of our training, I was gasping for breath just marching. My head was absolutely pounding. I didn't know what was wrong. The third day of training, I threw up my breakfast. I went behind one of the buildings because I didn't want to be embarrassed. My Corporal came over and asked what I was doing, yelled at me for getting sick. That night, I went to the medic. He said my pulse was 110 just sitting down, and standing was 130. He told me to drink fluids, and rest, and if I still felt bad to see him in the morning.

I was sick all fucking night. Every half hour or so, I had to get up, walk from the barrack room to the latrine to heave. It was awful. The next morning, I am still sick, and my Corporal knocks on the door and says to be down at formation. I told him I was throwing up all night. He again said to be at formation, it's at 7. I told him again I was throwing up all night and I need to see the medic. Then, one of my bunkmates yelled at him, "look, you prick, she's been keeping us up all night with her upchucking, and she's fucking sick. She needs to go to the Goddamn medic". So then he said, "Ok, go to the medic".

My pulse was 120 sitting down. I had to get two IV's and it took me another day to quick tossing my cookies.

I get pretty bad migraines, and they really suck, but being dehydrated really took the awful cake.

[angrycarpenter]

114. West nile virus.

Imagine the worst flu you ever had and then double it. I ran a temp as high as 102 for two weeks. It took a month to start feeling like myself again.

[murielm99]

115. We have had some very ill DUers.

I am surprised that some of the people here survived the things they have described.

[meegbear]

120. In the fall of 1991, I got laid off ...

I figured I'd try to make the best of it, by saving money by going on a diet. I grew up obese and while I was no longer like that, I still had fat on my body.

About 3 weeks in, I started feeling a lump on the upper left of my back. The lump started getting bigger and bigger until it was about the size of an egg. It would leak a bit and I figured since I have no insurance, I would let it drain itself out.

Well it didn't and laying down or sitting back hurt, so I made an appointment to see a doctor at my local hospital. He looked it, feeling it and asked calmly "How long have you had this?" "About a month." His face turned stone cold and he yelled "Nurse, book me an operating room for tomorrow morning." The next day, we went in, he numbed the area up and put a tube in. The sides leaked and I could feel gunk, for lack of a better word, running down my back. And God did it SMELL! He then checked the area and said it's deeper than I thought, so he took a scapel and removed more tissue. He wanted to test me for diabetes, but I said no, I never had it and it doesn't run in my family.

He said he would prescribe some high-end antibiotics and something for the pain. I blurted "Percoset" and he said "OK" and I got it (had fun with those ;-)).

I had it happen again on another area on my back, and my regular doctor took care of it. Where the original one was, I call "the hole in my back". If you run your fingers across the area, you can feel a small depression about the size of a penny. That's it.

[applegrove]

121. I once had a flu bug & diarreah (sic) for a day. I needed the toilet for both

ends of me at one point. Used a garbage can. Not pretty but you asked.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

123. I was scheduled to fly from Portland to Minneapolis for Christmas 1999

The planned schedule was to sing at my church's midnight Christmas Eve service and fly out of PDX at 7:00AM on Christmas Day.

On December 23, I was finishing up the last of my translation work when I started to feel feverish and weak and achy and all the rest. I was hot and thirsty and woozy, all within about three hours. I took my temperature, and it was 102°.

Hoping that this was a 24-hour bug, I crawled into bed and went to sleep, although I woke up coughing several times during the night. By morning I was no better, completely incapable of much but lying around and drifting in and out of sleep. Somehow I managed to get out of bed, fix myself a tall glass of sugared tea, and phone the choir director, my family in Minneapolis, and the airline, but that effort exhausted me, and I went back to bed.

I spent Christmas Eve till noon Christmas Day in bed, drifting in and out of sleep, occasionally taking a sip of the tea, and listening to the radio, which I had tuned to the classical station that I volunteered for. I soon realized that the station was playing different arrangements of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" every hour on the hour.

But Christmas morning brought a new complication, a severe cough, so severe that I was afraid I had developed pneumonia. Calling upon the unofficial single women's mutual aid society in the building, I phoned my neighbor and asked if she could drive me to Kaiser-Permanente's urgent care clinic.

The good news was that I didn't have pneumonia. The bad news was that I had "what's going around" and that I was probably due for another day of misery.

The predictions were correct. By around noon on the 26th, my fever broke, and I felt good enough and hungry enough to eat some rice cereal. Improvement was steady and rapid, so I decided to reschedule my flight for late on the 27th.

I continued coughing for my whole stay in Minnesota, which wasn't helped by the fact that my mother and stepfather kept their house dry and 78°. I didn't stop coughing until I returned to warmer, moister Portland and slept one night with the windows open.