can't cough no mo'

My lunch: breaded, baked fish with dill; sauteed zucchini in olive oil, minced garlic, and red pepper.

One of the great things about living alone is that when you get sick, you can hack and cough and make all sorts of disgusting sounds without grossing anyone out. You can walk around in your pajamas for days on end. You can take a three hour nap. You can watch the entire Deadliest Catch marathon, muting it only to sleep. You can stop cleaning your house. No one cares.

I have bronchitis, that joyous virus that makes your chest burst into flames with every breath, the kind that makes you double over in coughing fits and leaves you gasping for breath, ribcage screaming. Good times. After my three week herx from hell in February, followed by a depression "flare-up" through March and into April, and now this, I have to say I'm pretty run down.

Having a cold is awful, but it's not the same as soul-crushing Lyme disease, where you can feel the sickness permeating the deepest parts of you. A cold or flu is like an annoying little brother, poking and jabbing at you to make you miserable. It doesn't really mean any great harm, it just wears a joker hat and screws with you. But Lyme means it. It's sinister and deadly and tries to destroy you from the inside out, finding all your weak spots and setting up an evil camp. It wants you to give up.

So I'm am jabbing right back at the virus, doing everything I can to get better: hot epsom or Himalayan salt jacuzzi baths, vitamins, green juice, tons of water, and some light bouncing on the rebounder to get the lymph system to flush out the bad stuff. And lots of sleep, which I feel is the most healing thing of all.