Me and Barry Bonds

I usually love antibiotics. They're quick, they make you feel better, they kill all the oogy little bacteria in your sinuses (I'm prone to sinus infections).

But man, when they come up against an evil super bacterium, life gets ugly.

I've been fighting a cold since last weekend. I went to the doctor last Thursday, because of said propensity for sinus infections, and because I'm supposed to be travelling over Thanksgiving, and got Augmentin, the workhorse of antibiotics. Oh, yeah, it's not packaged in a cool cardboard sleeve like some, it doesn't have a cool nickname like Cipro or the Z-Pack (which always sounds like the rapper of the antibiotic world), but by golly Augmentin will get in there and clear up a sinus infection. Or ear. Works on men, women, children and small domestic animals.

So I had my Augmentin, and life was good. By Friday I was better, and by Saturday all that was left was a mild bit of hoarseness.

Then Sunday came along. I did the normal Sunday things, but by about 6 pm I was starting to fade, and fade quickly. I was also beginning to have trouble breathing. I frequently get "wheezy" when I'm sick, but usually a couple of puffs on my Albuterol inhaler a few times a day and I'm good to go. This time, though, I'd puff at 6 and by 7:30 or 8:00 I was so wheezy I couldn't get enough air to speak a complete sentence. Not fun.

So, this morning I was back at the doctors. The good news is that the Augmentin is in there battling away, and when she looked up my nose and down my throat, it looked better than it did on Thursday. The other good news is that there are no signs of pneumonia. The bad news is I'm a sick puppy. She put me on Prednisone, which I'm not fond of, and gave me a new kind of inhaler (Advair, which is a cortizone inhaler).

So, chances are both my A and my B samples will cause any World Records I set in the next 14 days to be thrown out.

After I got back from the doctor, I spent nearly an hour on the phone with American Express getting my airline tickets changed. I was able to get them changed, luckily (at a cost, of course), and will be flying at more or less the same time as Kathy. Even though we're taking different routes and flying different airlines, we'll each leave Raleigh at 7 am Thursday and will get into SF about noon. Very convenient all around.