Tutti Frutti

Fear is corrosive. I had a full-fledged panic attack and then relived it the day following, because the scene was the same, I had a cough, and I was constipated. Not much to panic about. (Does anyone remember Dyan Cannon in Heaven Can Wait scream after she thinks that the husband who has been murdered has apparently not been murdered? Charles Grodin, the husband’s lackey and Dyan Cannon’s lover, is quick on the take? He says, “She just saw a mouse.” Warren Beatty is looking around quizzically for said mouse. Grodin thinks quickly, She relived it.”)

Well I relived the “The Coughs From Hell” that I described all too vividly in my last post. Oh my god, I can’t breathe. Just heading back to the john where the initial panic occurred was more than enough to send me into a tailspin. Like a soldier on his first stint back in Kandahar where his buddy was blown to bits. Well, now he’s back in Kandahar again. This time, no one gets blown to kingdom come, buddy or otherwise, but that poor soldier might as have lost his best friend. He suffers as if were happening again. In real time.

Fear eats you alive.

No more playing with oxycodone. Not that was ever my intention though it had become tempting of late. Fuzz the fear. Now who can find fault with that? Everyone, that’s who. If I made oxy my new best friend tempting though it might be. So far, no evil reactions to the huge increase in Effexor. And I must live through whatever panic attacks come my way. And trust me, this is not like the nauseating butterflies before a major exam. (Yeah, I never had any perspective whatsoever. So I would always worry excessively (and needlessly) before exams. Using the tired joke yet again, when I hear the whirring helicopters, I’m back in ‘Nam.)

I inadvertently discovered why mucous was clinging, glue-like, to my throat, causing what I now know were bronchial spasms. I hit a big, fat emotional wall at around eleven last night. I’d had enough. I had to sleep. That’s my only means of escape. Fuck brave, strong Franny. No, she doesn’t exist. C’mon, I’ve been telling y’all I’m a wuss for months. Please believe me. I am a coward. Hey, if I weren’t, I’d probably be dead, so I suppose wussiness has its benefits. (Glass half full again. What am I thinking?)

In my hurry to get to bed and snuggle down with my Lunesta. (Don’t you just love those gentle butterflies? The ad agency should get a bonus for them. I buy into the whole butterfly/tinkerbell concept completely. And that was even before I started taking it. Now, hands off my fucking butterflies, or I’ll break your face.)

I went to bed without medication that dries me out. (Since ARDS, I’ve produced way too much mucous. Spiriva solved that one.) But I found, on waking up this morning, there was no more glue in my throat. When I coughed, the damned things were productive. Say what? Spoke to my allergist (who seems to know more than all the damned pulmonologists combined). He put me on a nebulizer containing Albuterol and Pulmicort. Fuck if I know anything about this shit except it will stop the spasms that have, until now, caused me to cough uncontrollably…

I love this man.

So I sit here listening to Little Richard’s Tutti Frutti wishing it had been recorded with his original lyrics:

Tutti Frutti, good booty

If it don’t fit, don’t force it

You can grease it, make it easy

Fucking awesome.