Coronavirus Diaries

The governor closes all schools in the state until March 31–starting immediately.

I.ve been telling my wife I think they will soon cancel the school year and begin all over in August. She hasn't voiced agreement. She could well be on a2k.

I get coughs easily, which usually have nothing to do with an illness. Whenever I cough for any reason whatever, it irritates my throat and makes me cough more. It's a vicious cycle. I had been fending the vague hint of a cough off for about a year when suddenly, it got much worse overnight. Since I get coughs a lot and am almost never actually sick, I didn't think much of it, but finally one recent Sunday morning when I dragged myself into an emergency room, it turned out to be influenza A and a trace of pneumonia. They admitted me and I was flat on my back for a week getting immense amounts of medicine both through an IV and orally. I have been home now for about two weeks. All I really have left is to cure the medicine I received. The hospital screwed up an IV and gave me a blood clot in my left arm, so I am on blood thinners for another few weeks to dissolve it. I don't feel the clot, but they say it's there and I believe them. The arm was also really beaten up by the bandage they put on when they removed the IV. The wounds from that are mostly healed. Also, first from my personal doctors and then from the hospital, I was on prednisone for a month to stop the coughing, which, near the end, caused my feet and ankles to swell (edema). My doctor has me on a diuretic and low sodium diet to make this go away. It's just starting to get better.

I hope that all of these effects will be completely gone before I get the coronavirus. I would hate to catch it while in recovery from something else. Unfortunately, my wife is an x-ray tech and interacts with sick people many times each day, so probably she'll get it that way and I'll get it from her. I think one of the main differences between my experience and the experience one would have with the coronvirus is that when I was sick, the hospital was not overwhelmed with thousands of cases.

My sympathies, Brandon.

Appreciated, Edgar.

That sounds terrible . I’m sorry you had to endure that—and hope you’re on your way to feeling much better.

My school says I have to work M and T. Planning eLearning. Half the kids don’t have WiFi; half of the rest wouldn’t work on school work in this situation if I held a gun to their heads, but whatever. I’ll take Clorox wipes.

keep checkin in . Attitude helps a lot . very time I get a chest Xray, the techs want me to stay so a high order conf with my doc and apleural specialist can convince me Im sick. My lungs are so fucked up from past pnumonia an bronchial crap Id caught in foreign countries. The things that save my ass is that I have all my records and rquire that my docs keep up with how the past lung damage can be seen on the present xray.

Boost your immune system (Lash was talking about drops of Vit D). I take caps of cod liver oil and eat lotsa citrus .

Brandon,

I am a fellow chronic cougher. This year has been worse then most. The doctors give me steroids and nasal sprays and told me that I wasn't contagious. My co-workers weren't too happy about my cough when the news started going crazy.

Luckily I can work from home.... but this is a bad time to have a cough.

Friday we had our first confirmed case of COVID19 here at the other end of Texas. Today they confirmed the second. Even before these cases were reported city, county, and district officials began preparations for it. All school district Spring breaks were extended to three weeks. Assisted living programs cancelled their regular, weekly visits to their facilities. My dad's a nonagenarian living his life to go beyond 100. I hope this pandemic doesn't derail those plans.

Thank you. The flu and pneumonia alone would have been bad enough, but I had to keep explaining to the doctors that my coughs don't behave like other peoples' coughs - that every time I cough, it makes my cough worse. The hospital was generally excellent, though.

The flu is completely gone, and the pneumonia is either gone or nearly so. They'll give me one more x-ray to confirm. The only things I have left to deal with are the side effects of treatment.

The way my coughs work is that if I cough for any reason whatsoever, even if I just swallow water the wrong way, it irritates my throat which makes me cough more. Then it just spirals down into doom. This started when I was about 15 and is gradually getting worse over the decades. I am no longer ever completely free of a cough. The most I can hope for these days is about 99%. I'm not allergic to anything. My ENT thinks that it's multi-factorial and likely involves cough variant asthma. I do not have conventional asthma.

I have had every cough medicine imaginable over the years, but in my entire life, only three medicines have ever reduced my coughs - codiene, steroids, and, when appropriate, antibiotics. My current doctor gives me a few other things as well, but I've seen no evidence they have an effect. How do your coughs work?

For the past 20 years, every year or two I get a little sick, I spend a day in bed. That is followed by 6-8 months of a dry, hacking relentless cough. At times I have coughing attacks that leave me on the floor. Once I went to the ER for coughing (I felt like an idiot when they wheeled a kid past me with a knife wound).

Maybe we should compare medicines?

The Codeine laced Robitussin will let me sleep. This is a big deal... going weeks with 2 hours a sleep a night because you wake up coughing is hell. Doctors are a little wary about giving out narcotics ... and the past few years I end up with little tiny bottles that I need to ration.

I have had Prednisone tapers, albuterol, inhaled steroids (serveral type), nasal steroids. I have had lung tests and nasal biopsies. From my natural medicine friends I have tried aroma therapy (I had to, I was sleeping with a woman who swore by it), tumeric, neti pots, humidifiers and gargling honey.

Except for the codiene nothing really works. I just tough it out. My coworkers are never happy.

I used to go to a doctor only when my situation got worse, but a few years ago, I went to a good ENT and said that I wanted her to get to the bottom of my condition no matter how many tests had to be run, and that I should see her periodically, regardless of whether I had a cough or not.

I have kept going back to her and now she trusts me with enough codeine to control my situation and prednisone when it really flares up. I made one bottle of cough syrup with one refill last for 11 months. I would probably have made a full year, but for catching influenza A. My ENT understands exactly what I have and acts accordingly. I can tell you, though, that numerous tests, including CAT scans which I more or less demanded, have revealed very little wrong. As I said, her thinking is that it's multifactorial, but involves, cough variant asthma. Once or twice when it was really bad, they gave me an injection of steroid, which helped a lot.

Like you, I do get a very bad cough at the end of an illness, but I often get it without the illness too, if something makes me cough a a few times.

Reach out to my friend so see how they are coping - she has two sons one 18 and one 21 with medical issues which cause them to be at high risk. Her one son has bad tonsillitis - she cannot even bring him to the hospital because a fear of this virus - it would be devastating for his health.

Really tough for this family.

Faculty meeting today. I stood in the back, noticed about 8 other teachers, sprinkled around the periphery like me. I brought Clorox wipes in with me, wiped down surfaces in my room, door knobs.

One child thinks we’ll have military in the streets in about 48 hours with a trump announcement. One child is exhibiting mild symptoms, trying to finish a degree, and in a job that puts her in high contact with waaayy too many people a day.

I’m a bit stretched.

At school, my pregnant planning partner saw stars, flushed, and thought she was losing her baby. My students are emailing me about how to maintain Honors standards through a pandemic and also where can they get food to replace school lunch.

I want to fly to one child and curl up in the basement of another.

Neither will let me fly because at my age, I’m a liability to both of them.

Checked life insurance and emailing kids pertinent numbers and addresses.

My son, sending me admonishing emails about eating dinner in a restaurant.

How was your day?

My brother wants the military on the streets. He is a public health worker... he is on the front lines putting his life a risk. They are all digging in for a long struggle with hospitals everywhere getting overwhelmed. They see the barbarian horde is at the gates and the rest of us aren't listening.

It is upsetting to them that the rest of us aren't taking this as seriously as they are.

I am fortunate as a software engineer. Social isolation is kind of our thing. I feel bad for people who are being told they won't be able to work for at least two months.

I see the barbarian horde at the gates too.

I early voted a week before the Michigan primary and have been in self-imposed lockdown ever since.

I'll probably have to make a run to the grocery store in a few weeks, but I still have a ton of food right now.

It sounds rough. I wish you all the best. My wife is an x-ray tech and today some woman who is exhibiting cold-like symptoms and was just on a cruise, showed up at her office without the mask they require of anyone in that kind of risk category, because someone at the front desk wasn't paying attention. My wife handed her a mask. If my wife catches the disease, I will get I too. To quote Cheech and Chong, things are tough all over these days.

I went to the hospital a couple of weeks ago for a chronic cough that I am sure isn't the virus. They shoved a mask on my face the first time I breathed funny as I was entering the waiting room.