Just came back from an appointment with my GP.
He says my symptoms match some of the symptoms of asthma. I am highly dubious. He prescribed me a puffer. I am not keen on this idea.
Generally speaking, I don’t like it when I leave the doctor’s office having to learn to use some scary new thing. I have a lot of (mostly irrational) fears about my ability to do stuff in the real world, especially when they are new and not part of my existing skillset, and this asthma puffer business fits that to a T.
Still, I am happy that I was assertive enough to ask for clarification when the pharmacist said “Two puffs four times a day as needed”.
I said “So that’s two puffs…. ”
He interrupted me to repeat himself. I held up my hand to stop him and said “So is that two puffs at a time, or….”
I am quite proud of that. I advocated for myself quite well there. Turns out the answer is no, you do one puff, wait a minute, then do another.
Overall, I have been feeling more assertive lately. I think I have reached a place where I can accept a certain amount of crankiness in myself when it is justified.
And it’s definitely justified sometimes. Like when people are being idiots.
Now I do not believe I have asthma. That’s absurd. I just looked up adult onset asthma and I do have a few of the symptoms but none of the rest and a two factor diagnosis for something this complex is highly suspect at best.
However, all the puffer does is dilate my lung’s airways, and it’s hard to imagine how that could hurt me, so I will give it a shot anyhow.
I will be back with fresh reportage after I give my puffer a try.
After carefully reading the instructions, I then did it wrong two times.
The first time was not so bad. I was supposed to start breathing in, then spray, and I sprayed first then breathed in.
But tghe second time I was totally not holding the thing right and blasted myself on the tongue instead of breathing it in.
Oops. I blotted at much of it as I could off my tongue with a Kleenex as fast as I could beause the booklet says “Do not swallow” and that seems like the sort of advice it would be foolish to ignore.
So I probably derived no real medical benefit from the second puff but I am not sure I want to re-try it right away.
I can definitely feel something going on in my lungs, and it feels pretty nice. Feels like things have really opened up in there and I am breathing easier.
So, so far so good.
My tongue is all tingly now, though.
Oh, and we didn’t discuss my joint stiffness at all.
Once more in my life, I have gone to the doctor, presented them with my list of symptoms, they have run some tests, and then looked at me and said “I have no idea, because according to these, you are healthy. ”
So I have to ask myself, am I imagining things, or are they incompetent?
It’s probably both.
More after the break.
The puffer definitely has me feeling better.
But part of that is that I now feel quite sleepy. Which is a bit of a bother because I am to be at Subway in two hours, at 8 pm, which means being ready by 7:45 pm, which means being in the shower by 7:30 PM, and I have to finish my blogging before then, and that does not leave a lot of time for napping.
An hours tops. If I am lucky.
It doesn’t help that the heat just kicked in, so I am experiencing The Melt too.
All I really want to do right now is sleep for a couple of years. I am honestly pondering begging off of Subway, and I love Subway.
But I could really use some sleep right now. I guess getting my blood oxygen up has made my brain declare it to be napping time and I don’t get a freaking vote.
Meanwhile, in the real world…. ooh, that should be the name of something I do.
Anyhow. Meanwhile, in the real world, the USA is on the brink of war with Iran. Personally, I don’t think it will happen. Neither the House nor the Senate want it, most of the population doesn’t want it, even Trump-heads don’t want it, and the US military sure as fuck don’t want it.
What I think will end up happening is that someone will finally successfully challenge that blank check for war that Dubya got after 9/11 and it will go down in flames.
The Founders made it pretty clear that they did not want the President to be able to declare war (or whatever they call it on paper) on his or her own.
Plus Nancy Pelosi and some other person are sponsoring a bill to defund the war even before it happens.
But hey, Dumb Donnie. You can still have your war.
You just have to pay for it yourself.
After all, you ARE a billionaire…. right?
Of course, anything the House does has to get past Mitch the Bitch Mcconell, historicl villain and enemy of democracy, first.
But he is not totally immune to political pressure, and if he ends up being the only one who can stop a hugely unpopular, expensive, and ill-advised war, he might just defy his terrapin nature and stand up for himself for a change, and vote nay.
Meanwhile, Australia is burning. Half a billion animals dead already, and some of them weren’t even venomous.
I see your entrenched evil, Koch Brothers, and raise you dead koalas.
Your move, you evil motherfuckers. Try to deny your part in this catastrophe. My hope is that soon, being a climate change denier will be roughly akin to being a drug-dealing pedophile Nazi in terms of social consequences.
And rest assured that when the rest of the world starts to burn, we the people will be coming for everyone we can blame it on and heads will roll.
And the first ones to roll will be yours.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.