Will You Feel Better, Better, Better

.....Or will you feel nothing at all? - Regina Spektor

As Joe and I were taking our walk yesterday I realized that I finally feel better. These things happen so gradually that sometimes they're barely perceptible from day to day and it's only a week or two later that I'm aware.."oh, hey! I can walk up this hill again without feeling like I have a 50 ton boulder on my chest and a ball and chain around each ankle!"

I'm assuming this means that the Proteus I was hosting over the holidays has been evicted; well, if not evicted, at least it's on what will hopefully be a long vacation -with no sublet. Once a new organism moves in there isn't much hope of eradicating it entirely, but the goal is to keep it at bay and knock it back every now and again with a good dose of drugs. I have an appointment in Boston tomorrow with my pulmonologist so will bring a culture and see what that shows. I'm hoping my PFTs won't be too horrible, which would be discouraging.

Getting sick and well both happen gradually and when I'm on the down-slide I usually go into denial mode. Things usually start out with a virus and then I never truly bounce back afterwards. This fall I think I had a few little viruses and they wore me down so that by Thanksgiving I wasn't feeling that well. Oh sure, I'm able to function, but like a car that is running on only 3 cylinders; I'm definitely not at peak performance. Everything requires more effort and the couch starts lookin' really good most of the time.

Being on the upswing after starting some antibiotics is an equally slow process. The nurse practitioner said, when she started me on the antibiotics, "you should notice a difference in 3-5 days", which I knew was hogwash. I've never responded that quickly to antibiotics. It's usually a week to 10 days, and in this case it was 2 weeks. Just when I'm thinking "OK, I'm not going to feel any better, this is a new baseline, blah, blah blah..." I have a bit more energy. I'm ready to exercise again. I can make it up the stairs without panting like a dog on a 90 degree summer day. And finally, I can make it up the BIG hill to our house -Cedar Hill Terrace- at more than a snail's pace.

Yep, I'm finally feeling better and I'm more thankful than I can say. Augmentin, I love you.