August 23 - Well, things have gone downhill pretty fast this week.
- Waking up with a mouthful of mucus and gagging - Check
- Severely sore throat making swallowing extremely difficult - Check
- Voice going hoarse - Check
- Food tasting like dirt - Check
- Neck and face turning red and sunburnt looking - Check

What they don't tell you is that the gagging is not just limited to the morning. I've been gagging throughout the day as well. I finally stopped at Wegman's today to buy that mouthwash the doctor told me about. I'll try it after lunch and see if it helps at all.

They also don't tell you that not only does food taste like crap and your throat (and tongue!) hurt too much to eat anyway, but because you're not really producing saliva, when you eat, chewing (or whatever passes for chewing nowadays) the food releases all moisture and then you have a dried out glob of something that's stuck to the roof of your mouth and couldn't swallow if your life depended on it!

And yes, as you can probably tell, this is going to be a grumpy post rather than a good humored one. My apologies. Thank goodness Patilda is coming to visit me this weekend. I have never needed a hug so bad in my life.

Anywho, I've decided that I'm back on a full liquid diet. I made myself what I can only assume was a yummy fruit smoothie this morning with some protein powder. Damned if I'm going to risk having to get a feeding tube inserted in my stomach!

And I need to submit a correction. I complained in the last post that my POS humidifier wasn't doing anything. Well, I forgot to turn it on Tuesday night and it turns out it HAS been helping somewhat! Just wanted to give kudos where they were deserved. Meanwhile, I still haven't seen my new humidifier. I need to hop on-line and track that baby.

That's all I have on the health front issue but I do have one funny today. I burned a CD with some top 40 pop songs and brought it with me on Tuesday. The tech team (2 gals, 2 guys, all young) popped it in and as soon as they heard the first song they totally cranked it and at least 2, possibly 3 of them were singing along with it and dancing while they were clamping me to the table. It was so hard not to laugh! I felt like I was suddenly transported into a really strange music video! I'm bringing them cookies tomorrow. Anyone that can make me laugh right now deserves to be rewarded.