Day three of stopping smoking

Ashley built two huge cupboards with her own fair hands from IKEA and her room looks great. Finally she has somewhere to store her knickers, tops and stuff…she is a happy girl.

I on the other hand am dying slowly from lung collapsing disease or something like that. Thank Fuck I stopped smoking as it’s not just my lungs cleaning out, I ran to the docs this morning for an emergency appointment and I have an infection in the two lungy brown bags in my chest. Last night as I tried to sleep the noise of at least five angry cats and one harmonica came blaring out of my mouth, there were notes that hadn’t been invented yet. The cacophony of sounds was mesmerising- had they been controllable.
I lay there in the dark with the squealy, blarey noises screeching in the darkness and I realised- had I gone to Oxford or once had a pony trekking lesson then I would have recorded that noise and made an Edinburgh fringe show around it, I would of course constantly quoted Hieronymus Bosch and Voltaire in between the melodies and that would have set me on the road to comedy intelligentsia. A BBC radio 4 show would have surely followed?

But instead of using my illness to elevate me in society, I just lay there sweating and breathing like a deranged tabby cat on crack, husband actually threatened to kill me with a pillow if I didn’t stop the racket.
I cried tears of frustration, and then I coughed the BIGGEST cough of my life; such was the force of this lung expulsion that I actually peed a bit, one eye went bloodshot, I farted loudly, my ears popped and my nose bled all at the same time.

I felt like one of those cylindrical cartons of croissant dough that you twist to pop open. Stuff just spilled out of me from all corners of my body as an explosion took place within, the cough must have been like a small atom bomb going off inside my skin. My eyes watered and saw flashes of light behind my eyes with the force of the coughing fit. I thought I was having a stroke.

The doc prescribed me an inhaler and pills to kill the infection.

The local chemist was almost empty for a change, it held just one drug addict who insisted in chatting incessantly about his cold sore –which to be honest was the very least of his problems, but he carried on nattering to the uninterested pharmacist woman. He started picking up bottles of various remedies and had her explain what they were for, and then he insisted she look up the price of bath slippers that he was never going to buy but “just might get them for his dad later”.

The pharmacist tried to make eye contact with me, in the hope chatty heroin boy would give up his repetitive monologue about what the doctor said about his cold sore and “Should I maybe get a blood test to see if that’s infected doll?” this made me stifle a giggle and breath like a ragged bellow.

Finally he headed for the door, it clanged the bell and we both sighed, just then the drug filled young man decided he actually had more to add to his cold sore conversation, but when he turned round to deliver it, his methadone dosage kicked in and he stood there motionless, with scabbed mouth agape – like a frozen statue – then he slumped backwards and headed back out of the door, like a stumbling zombie.
The world of bath slippers, teething powders, cold sores and blood tests were gone now, the day would just melt into a fuzzed haze until his blood diluted the drug enough, then it would be time to get dosed up all over again.

The frazzled looking woman behind the counter let out a big sigh of relief and said
“I really cant stand junkies, the shit they talk makes me insane, they get all excited and gibberish when they come in because they are about to get their methadone, then they stand there and rabbit on for ages about the most mundane shite you can ever imagine, they are the bane of every pharmacist’s life. Honestly, they really believe you are interested in their business, then they go round the shop asking questions about corn pads, talcum, ear wax remover, they don’t want to buy it, they just want to be euphoric with someone and it’s always got to be me, I can’t just tell them to shut up”

I felt sorry for her, I felt sorry for him and I felt sorry for me, I now had an inhaler.

Thank GOD I am no longer smoking; this would have been hell with fags on top of the chest pain!

I have gigs all week and am onstage twice on Saturday with two full one woman shows at The Tron Theatre 8pm and 10pm. I hope am feeling better soon, I have a gig tomorrow as well!

At least Psycho Bob has calmed down and giving my daughter a break, according to Ashley - Psycho Bob is on their last legs, so that’s good news!