Skip to main content

The squeaky cough

Jacob has been sick all week fighting a nasty cold. He missed several days of school, but went on Friday when he seemed to turn a corner. Waiting around that corner seems to have been a wall. Yesterday and today he has had a squeaky cough that keeps him hacking all day long and into the night. Not sure how he's getting any sleep. Right now I can hear him coughing away. He complains that his chest hurts and I can only imagine how it must feel. When I get sick with a cold I actually get nauseous from the pain in my chest when there's nothing left to spit up, yet my body keeps fighting and making me cough.



"Everybody gets a cold," Julie reminded me the other day, but I still worry. Hearing him like this makes me feel useless, the worst feeling any parent can have.  I just want to wrap him up and squeeze the germs out of him. I wish I had super powers to do that. Jake would really get a kick out of that.



Last year Jacob seemed to be fighting the same damn cold for half the year, He never could shake some virus he got in the summer.  Around Christmas, after a heavy dose of antibiotics, he finally seemed to kick that SOB. I pray that this isn't the start of another long battle. Of course his body has been battling since the day his way born. He has been strong and his lungs have remained healthy. Damn it, if I could just... do something other than watch Justice League Unlimited with him to make him feel better.



I'll use my frustration to seque into my ple for donations. GREAT STRIDES is two weeks away. If any of you reading this can make a donation to the CF Foundation we would greatly appreciate it. As I say all of the time, there is no right amount. Every little bit helps!



We are about halfway to our goal. Please click on this link and consider helping.



If you are stopping here for the first time, you may be wondering why I'm writing about Cystic Fibrosis when this is a website dedicated to my Basement Songs book. If you read the book, you will discover that CF plays an important part in the story I tell. Thank you for coming to the website.



Aloha

Comments

Unknown said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

Popular posts from this blog

MARATHON FOOTNOTES (for those who didn't think I would really footnote a stream of consciousness thought): Footnote #1 Academy Award Winning Best Picture Films from 1969 to the Present: Midnight Cowboy, Patton, The French Connection, The Godfather, The Sting, The Godfather II, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Rocky, Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter, Kramer Vs. Kramer, Ordinary People, Chariots of Fire, Gandhi, Terms of Endearment, Amadeus, Out of Africa, Platoon, The Last Emperor, Rain Man, Driving Miss Daisy, Dances With Wolves, The Silence of the Lambs, Unforgiven, Schindler’s List, Forrest Gump, Braveheart, The English Patient, Titanic, Shakespeare in Love, American Beauty, Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, Chicago, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Footnote #2 Members of the band YES, from 1969 to the present: In 1969, Yes is formed with Jon Anderson on vocals Peter Banks on guitar, Bill Bruford on drums, Tony Kaye on keyboards and Chris Squire playing bass. This group records...

100 and Counting: Introducing The Epic Playlist

It started as all playlists do, an occasion that justified music for entertainment. In this case, it was a couples weekend getaway back in February. Super Dave proposed that he and I provide the tunes and we started a Spotify playlist: three songs at a time, no song repeats, no artist repeats. Dave would add his three, then text me that it was my turn. I would then add my three text him back. This cycle repeated until three hundred songs were compiled, and we drove off to Mammoth with our wives. A funny thing happened, though, it turned out we both enjoyed the challenge of trying to surprise or outdo the other so much that we continued building the playlist. We made a new rule of just three songs each a day and still no artist repeats. Soon, we came up with amendments to allow duets (The Emmylou Exception), multiple songs by the same band if said band had multiple lead singers (The Beatles Exception), or if there was a lead singer replacement that changed the artistic direction of ...

A Short Tribute to Jacob on his 23rd Birthday

Jacob turns 23 today.  As I write this, he's in the other room watching Deadpool and Wolverine laughing his ass off. I love that he's held on to his affection for comic books and video games into adulthood and how he's able to quote a movie after seeing it only once.  What I love more is that he remains a caring and empathetic human being, despite the hardships he's faced in life, that he continues to be funny and creative, that he's passionate about the issues that are important to him, in particular LGBTQ rights, and that he's supportive of his friends, his sister, and all of his cousins. Is he perfect? I don't give a shit. He's my son and I'm so damn proud of him. He's a fighter and he inspires me almost every day. I started blogging 21 years ago, as I began training for a marathon to raise money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. If you dig around in the "Thunderbolt" archives, you'll find updates on his health, the many Basem...