2/11/2006 - Hack (wheeze)

I am supposed to blog about Port Colborne, my first stop in Canada, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. Today I have to blog to my health.

Both of my boys wrestled with croupe this week (that seal-like cough to which young children are sometimes prone). Inevitably, I fell victim to whatever they had. I, like most adults, am not prone to croupe, but I did have a lingering, hacking cough. Over the course of the week, I hit it with a combination of tea, cough drops, menthol and finally cough surpressants (bleah). The cough drops intermittantly deferred the cough and the nasty stuff made even less impact.

I finally found something that worked. Sometimes, I can be a charicature of myself. My magic bullet was a stopwatch. I made up my mind to time the intervals between coughs with the goal of increasing them. My first interval was barely over 1 minute. Then I managed 3 minutes. Quickly I got up to 1 hour. I have probably only coughed 4-5 times in the last 2 hours.

That which is not measured is not understood.

14,100 steps today. Cheers,