Category: …and everything else

I can dose myself with enough medications that I stop coughing – a useful trick. Except then I get worried and stressed about not coughing, and end up being too afraid to sleep. My logic (I use the term somewhat loosely) runs like this: when we’re sick, we cough to clear our throats/lungs. In my specific case right now, it’s to clear the trachea of phlegm and attempt to increase breathing space (as the tissue is badly inflamed). The combination of phlegm and inflammation means I don’t have a lot of free space for air to pass, and I’m afraid – the root of being hesitant to sleep – that I’ve sedated my coughing reflex well enough that I won’t cough when I need to, and I’ll suffocate.

Aren’t I cheerful when I’m sick and medicated?

So, basically, upper respiratory led into an inflamed/infected trachea, and being me, it progressed to the most severe stage rather rapidly, stridor (which, if you ask me, sounds like a He-Man villain). However, I do want points for getting medical treatment before it got really bad – I am making progress, albeit slow progress.

I had another two nebulizer doses while at the office, in an effort to decrease the swelling in my trachea, and have two new drugs, symbicort in the massive dosage (because, as my doc put it, she couldn’t practically mainline a corticosteroid into me, so this was the next best option), and doxycycline, which is a tetracycline I haven’t been on before. Has all the typical ‘cycline warnings: don’t consume with calcium (of course, since pudding is the only thing I can swallow), stay out of sunlight (convenient it’s the middle of winter and busy snowing), etc etc etc. Fun trivia about doxy: it’s a first line defense against anthrax and bubonic plague, amongst other things.

Oh, and I’m supposedly confined to bed and not allowed to do anything remotely resembling effort, work, etc. As if that’s likely… If I’m still coughing and miserable tomorrow, it’s back from another neb treatment or two.

Ah, life.

Dear other people residing in my apartment complex,
Apartments are for living in. Not for starting fires in. And while I do both acknowledge that this was an unintentional cooking fire, and appreciate that you did not mace the building common areas prior to starting the fire, the end result – me standing in the cold (and while already sick and miserable) with two pissed off cats, and inhaling smoke (did I mention the already sick and miserable thing? Let’s add in being asthmatic, too) – is the same, as is the lingering and insistent smell of smoke that makes me feel as though I’ve been teleported to the middle of a camp fire someone is just putting out.

With love,
– the cranky, cold, sick asthmatic in #17
and her two pissy cats

This day and age on the internet, it’s always nice to find things that surprise you. For example, caffeine tights. A “people are desperate to do anything but actually exercise” ploy to tone skin, in theory your

body temperature causes the release of caffeine microcapsules into the skin increasing the metabolic rate and the burning of fat. This can reduce the circumference of thighs, cellulite and the “orange peel” effect.

And in other “things so strange I couldn’t make up if I tried” news of the weird, BioLume wants to make bioluminescent food additives and makeup.

“BioLumeTM’s” purpose is to use naturally occurring bioluminescence (found in fireflies, and glowing fish, squid, jellyfish, and other marine creatures) to make foods, beverages, and cosmetics that emit their own light. Since all the chemistry that makes these products possible derives from fish and shrimp, it is probably is very safe to use as a new type of food colorant. We do not have FDA approval for use in food, beverages or cosmetics but we are working on it.

An example of a glowing food product would be a birthday cake decoration that glows “Happy Birthday” after the candles are blown out. Another example would be a glowing beverage such as Pepsi Light or Bud Light that would actually give off its own light. It will be possible to develop a beverage that will start glowing blue, change to green, than orange, than red, than have little sparkles go off. Of course this would take some effort. At present, we can make glowing whipping creams, beverages.

BioLumeTM’s subliminal glow cosmetics that would enable women to have their own radiance. Using natural product chemistry, it is possible to make luminous theatrical as well as daily facial makeup. We are currently working on Food and Drug Administration approval of our chemistry for these applications.

Isn’t the cautionary probably very safe a nice touch?