Been a trying time health-wise; a sore throat from last week blossomed into a full-blown bronchial infection with fever, sinus congestion, and painful coughing. I took sick days off from work to recover but my condition worsened, and with an unavoidable travel deadline looming a trip to the doctor was needed.

Two days of clogged eustachian tubes and sinus congestion got me interested in this chart.

I was prescribed azithromycin, an antibiotic, on the chance that the infection was bacterial, and a bottle of antitussive syrup to soothe coughing through the course of the trip. By lunchtime I was feeling well enough just from general placebo effect to have lunch at Maneki Neko, a Japanese eatery in Falls Church. I sampled a couple of Kumamoto oysters and finished a bowl of Okinawa Soba noodle soup with roast pork, quite therapeutic for my tortured throat.

I write this the next day aboard a trans-Pacific flight to Manila, still a bit sniffly and phlegmy, but feeling otherwise comforted by a mild codeine-and-analgesic haze. The symptoms are subsiding more quickly with the antibiotics, which might mean that the bronchial infection was indeed bacterial — or if it was viral, has simply run its course. It’s the sickest I’ve been since my shingles experience: another illness that hit me on a trip to the Philippines, interestingly enough. Pre-travel stress does that, I guess.