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7.13.2010

Down (And Out) With The Sickness

I'm confined to my house until Friday. It's torture. I can't even go to the gym.

The reason is actually a pretty decent cautionary tale. To start, I haven't had a cold in almost four years. Before that time, I used to get 4-6 colds / flus a year. But once I started eating better, working out, and taking my vitamins, that stuff stopped.

About 2 days before I left for California last month, I got a cold. Nothing big, just a runny nose and a bit of a sore throat. I hopped on a plane with very little sleep, landed, gave my talk at Pixar (with a little bit of a scratchy voice) and had to work all weekend. By that Sunday, I'd lost my voice and couldn't breathe without coughing, which then tore my throat all apart. I crashed the entire day in a friend's bed and stared helplessly out at San Francisco Bay, wishing I could go running by it or something.

I chugged Day-Quil and Ny-Quil, took Muscinex D, drank orange juice, took my Zinc... Nothing really stopped this crap. It subsided just in time for some meetings, but didn't fully go away. It hung with me for the entire week. When Andrea showed up, I was still feeling pretty blah (this is now a week and a half of having a cold). She had half a bottle of Amoxicilin in her bag from when she had a cold a few months back, so I took it.

Within 2 days, I was feeling 100% better. I felt well, in fact. We hiked and climbed mountains and had a blast. When the half-bottle of antibiotics was gone, I figured I was fine. The day before we flew home, I woke up with a bit of a sore throat and a slight cough.

It's been with me ever since. I've had this cold for a month. It's been pissing me off. So yesterday, I went to the doctor and told her what went on.

What I found out is something I always knew, but I never honestly thought about. Because I took half a regemin of antibiotics, I basically trained these bacterial Pokemon to be stronger and more resistant. The cold I have is now living pretty much in harmony with my immune system -- without something powerful to kick its ass, it'll be here for pretty much forever.

She gave me a steroid and some more powerful antibiotics, and told me to stay home for the week. I'm basically a vector for disease - I can make others sick because of my stupidity in treating my dumb-ass cold.

So yeah, expect a lot of writing this week.
Posted by Joe Peacock at 12:46 PM

9 comments:

  1. I had one very similar to that last year. I had it for roughly 6 weeks. I wonder if it was that Swine Flu shit.
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  2. Bad Andrea for not finishing the antibiotic prescription that was written for her! Bad Joe for taking prescription that was written for someone else! Basically both of you did the same thing with having only half a course of antibiotics, but I guess luckily Andrea's immune system was strong enough to totally kick out the germs she'd had.

    Your stupidity is our gain,though. More Joe writings, yay!!

    I hope you feel better soon.
    ReplyDelete
  3. If only there was some process in place to prevent people from taking things like antibiotics without talking to someone knowledgeable first.
    ReplyDelete
  4. I've got a sore throat and runny nose right now, and I'm nowhere near CA. Viruses generally don't respond to antibiotics. I think you got two different mutations of a virus that your immune system hasn't met before, and you probably have a secondary bacterial infection from getting run down.

    I've come to understand that you're a generally lazy laid back type-B personality who would never try to juggle many huge projects at once. You probably are in bed by 8pm each night, and would never fly all over the country in germ moshpits known as planes. And you certainly wouldn't be on your deathbed one day and then decide to GO ON A FREAKIN HIKE.

    Dude.

    Out of curiosity, does Andrea have any of those shock collars for dogs that zap you if you leave a certain area? No reason.
    ReplyDelete
  5. Hey, try not to share :D

    Get well!
    ReplyDelete
  6. You have what I've been calling "the Plague." Basically everyone I know has had it this summer. It hangs around forever, and makes you feel bad, but not bad enough to see a doctor, and it doesn't respond to antibiotics, most likely because it's a virus.

    Also, it seems super-contagious. Since I'm currently the only healthy person in my home, I'm just waiting for round three.

    Good luck getting over the Plague, Mr. Peacock.
    ReplyDelete
  7. Gosh me too. I've felt sick on and off for over 4 months now, coughing is the worse part. It wakes me up at night. I bought an air cleaner plugged it in and feel a bit better in the mornings, now I hear using the ionizer can cause cancer.
    what to do what to do?
    And ya doc says get rest take vitamins yada yada and so on, so looking forward to feeling better soon. Hope you get over it quicker, you seem healthy generally speaking.
    ReplyDelete
  8. Sounds just like something I had a few months ago. I walked around for a month because it seemed like a cold. Sore throat leading to laryngitis, etc. I finally caved and went to the doc, got antibiotics, and was muchmuch better within 5 days.
    ReplyDelete
  9. You have what I've been calling "the Plague." Basically everyone I know has had it this summer. It hangs around forever, and makes you feel bad, but not bad enough to see a doctor, and it doesn't respond to antibiotics, most likely because it's a virus.

    Also, it seems super-contagious. Since I'm currently the only healthy person in my home, I'm just waiting for round three.

    Good luck getting over the Plague, Mr. Peacock.
    ReplyDelete

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