The End?

The older I get the more often my brain thinks about Life coming to an end. Morbid, I know, and I don't know if this is normal nor do I care, actually. It's just me and that's all. My eldest son was here for a visit a few months ago and then son number three stopped in for a visit while he was in California a few weeks back. My son number two is coming in a few days for a visit and the youngest son wants to come and visit later this year when he is done taking his college classes. I am always happy to see my sons, happier that they still see their stefather now that they are all grown up and older. They live close enough to their father to visit him often and I hope that they do. But, I cannot help but ponder if the end is drawing nearer. All of my kids will have seen me, will I survive for a long time after that last visit or not? Like I said, morbid I know...

Speedy Delivery

If you have ever done any sort of handyman work or even some do it yourself home projects you know that there is nothing more frustrating than needing a certain part and your local hardware store has none and won't have any for a good amount of time. You want the parts now or at least quickly. Spring loaded devices for example look like they might be hard to come by at the local store. The man behind the counter would probably scratch his head thinking before telling you they could "special order" those things and have them in a few weeks or so. That will never do, you want them ASAP! You need them shipped quickly, the faster the better. Projects that sit around unfinished are not good, especially if you are doing them to make a living. Go to the website and see what they have that can be bought at a good price and delivered to you quickly so that whatever you are working on can be completed and you can start on the next project.

Looking Good

It has now been what looks like a success story with my breathing/coughing problems. I still have trouble breathing, still need the oxygen, that is never going to change. But I have minimalized the coughing fits so that is a very big plus. I take the muscle relaxer and the Mucinex DM pills in the evenings around 8 p.m. or so. I take the Tylenol PM much later so that I can fall asleep easier. I wake up less times during the night and when I do have to get up for a bathroom trip I am able to go and get back to bed without much coughing or trouble. I hardly disturb my lovely wife at all :) In the mornings when I am up and facing the day I do cough and have a runny nose at times but that is so much better than what it was before. I would describe the past week as seven days of mild flareups and for that I am very happy. I hope it continues like this :)

Self Medication

In the past I would not have advised anyone to do what I have been doing the past few months. I have been buying medicine online that require no prescription. Dangerous I know but it was something that had to be done and had to be done quickly so I did it. I did have some help though, a fellow COPD sufferer gave me a link to a website that was cheaper than the one I used initially which was nice. What I pad for one inhaler from a Canadian website I got three of from this one. So I have been using these inhalers for a while now and they are helpful with breathing troubles. Had to be thankful for that. That plus the information I got about them from online searches of medical drug companies was helpful also. Then a few weeks back my muscle spasms came back to haunt me. Feels like a mule kicking me in the back and I don't like it at all. So, back to where I bought the inhalers and, yes, there was muscle relaxers! They aren't as potent as the ones I took years ago but they do help me relax a bit so I wasn't complaining the first day or two. Then something else happened that makes me very happy I got them. Between the muscle relaxers and the inhalers I have now had four, count them, four, days of mild episodes of my COPD flare ups. Sure, I still cough up phlegm in the mornings and occasionally late at night but not nearly as awful as they were before. So, all in all things are fairly good, health wise and I am happy. I still would not advise people to do what I have done unless they are (a) desperate and (b) have done a lot of research about the drugs they want to buy.