Two years ago today I was hammered with the start of the worst bronchitis event of my life (it was merged with the H-whatever N-whatever flu for extra fun), which nearly *ended* my life. The day started OK and by the time I realized what was happening the doctors had closed up for the day; the next day was Christmas and they weren’t there; the day after they were full up. So it was only the day after *that* that I got in to get treatment. In retrospect I probably shoulda sucked it up and paid the $600 or so for the emergency room, but when a 104 degree fever is rampaging through your brain, your lungs aren’t feeding you oxygen, and you don’t *have* $600, I guess it made sense to me to stay put and wait.
Since finally getting over that – sometime around March of 2014 – I haven’t had another case of bronchitis. It’s the longest I’ve gone without it for a long time… in 2013 alone I had it three times. You might think that being free of it for an extended time would make a feller dance a jig, but it mostly just keeps me kinda paranoid. Every last cough or headache? Clearly, it’s bronchitis coming back to finish the job.