Tag Archives: poem about a cold

Those Time-killin’, Prescription-fillin’, Amoxicillin Blues


Judy and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day, #2
(Those Time-killin’, Prescription-f
illin’, Amoxicillin Blues)

For one long week, I wait and wait
for this cold to dissipate,
but such is not to be my fate.
Although it seems like it’s abating,
instead, it’s simply  incubating.
It’s only here to agitate.
It has me in a constant state
of paroxysm. At this rate,
I’ll cough myself to heaven’s gate!
By what means may I  eradicate
this uninvited guest I hate?
I steal its covers, palpitate,
disturb its sleep, excoriate
its surfaces and mentholate.
I leave doors open just to bait
its exit, and I educate
myself in methods to end this date–
wild to finally give the gate
to this unwelcome reprobate.

Unrested, shaking, light of head,
I pull myself out of my bed,
strip off my fevered dressing gown,
to make the long drive into town
to see my doctor for my check,
climb up the stairs, a wheezing wreck,
on time. But doctor’s one hour late!
As I sit and ruminate,
I fall into a sorry state,
thinking I need to educate
them on the way they operate.
I see the doc and hit the door.
As I drive to the Walmart store,
of energy, I have no more.
Fighting just to stay upright,
it feels like I’ll be here all night.
When one man cuts in front of me,
I’d like to give his back the knee,
but I resist and live with it.
Yet I admit i have a fit
when one more woman cuts the line.
I tell the druggist the turn is mine.

She bags my pills and I am off

with dripping nose and awful cough
due to my cold as well as strep,
shaking, dizzy, slow of step.
I make it to my car and drive
home through the traffic’s busy hive.
One hour, if I’m not mistaken,
it takes to drive what should have taken
twenty minutes. I’ve not been fed,
or medicated, yet take to bed
the very minute that I get
back home, fatigued and soaking wet.
Two hours later I awake 
to discover the mistake.
When that pharmaceutic villain
dosed out my amoxicillin,
she didn’t get the dosage right—
plus—I was 20 capsules light!
What’s more, she’d kept the damn prescription!
Yes.  I threw a small conniption
fit. I couldn’t order more
from any pharmaceutic store
without the script. And, as I’d supposed,
my doctor’s clinic was now closed!!!!!
That’s how, my friends, my day has gone
since I awakened with the dawn
after a few hours tossing sleep.
Read of it now and mourn and weep
over those pills sorely mis-boughten
by one who lies here feeling rotten!!

True story, un-exaggerated in terms of how utterly rotten I was feeling. Yes, it’s strep and the doctor is trying to ward off pneumonia, thus the second round of heartier antibiotics. which I’m going to have to put off taking at least another day until some kind friend (John?) goes into town and gets me a new prescription and the correct pills. The prompt today was incubate.

Upright Midnight

IMG_8971

Upright Midnight

Our night’s rest should meander, releasing us to dreams,
but my sleep took me on a trip down other sorts of streams
with rapids, eddies, waterfalls that jarred me rough awake.
I think that just one night like it is all that I could take.
Whenever I lay prone, I had another bout of coughing—
with one hack executed, another in the offing. 
I could not lay my head down to soothe myself to sleep.
Instead I slept bolt upright, my covers in a heap
around me on the sofa as a cough jarred me awake.
Sleeping upright on the sofa does not sweet dreaming make. 
I longed for my soft bed and former slumbering meanders
through crisp rows of wheat stalks and banks of oleanders
in search of something still unknown, a peaceful all-night search
for those soulful comforts I never found at church.
My mother’s laughter once again, my father’s joking ways
waiting just around the bend of this nightly maze.
Instead, I’ve barely three hours sleep in between my wheezes—
my dreams propelled by cyclones instead of gentle breezes.
The cold germ is not neighborly. It visits when it pleases
and brings unwanted hostess gifts of drips and coughs and sneezes.

As you may have guessed, I’ve come down with a miserable cold. Two poems in one night, one while I was still trying to stay in bed, then another after I moved to sit upright on the couch which at least furnished a half hour of sleep now and then between the coughing bouts.  The prompt today is meander.

The Spring Cold Blues

IMG_8970

The Spring Cold Blues

While I should be off-to-sleeping,
instead I’m coughing, sneezing, seeping.
My poor throat is scraped and raw
and herb tea sipped at through a straw
doesn’t seem to help at all.
Tissues rolled up in a ball
litter the table and the floor.
I cough, then blow, then cough some more.
I sweat and shiver and sweat in turn.
Sometimes I chill. Sometimes I burn.
I can’t lie down lest I should cough.
Propped up on pillows, I fall off,
knock tea to floor and break the cup.
No energy to mop it up.
So, with my head still in a fog,
I sit up straight and write this blog.
If I were horse or sheep or cow,
I’d know the secret of just how
I could sleep while still erect,
but since I’m not, I still elect
to sleep while prone whenever I can.
Tonight, it seems, that’s not the plan.

 

Hey!  Just realized this is my 4,000th posting!!!