Cold, Cold, Art

15 titles Crisis Chronicles has published so far in 2015

I first started feeling like I was getting sick on November 5th.  The next day, though Geri and I had tickets to see Sun Ra Arkestra, I was coughing so badly we decided to stay home.  On the morning of the 7th, feeling slightly better, thinking it was just a quickie cold, and not wanting to cancel on another poetry event this year, I medicated myself, loaded my pockets with cough drops, and somehow made it through Meet the Presses in Toledo and the Ultimate Artist Extravaganza in Detroit.  I got home at 3 a.m. after that and within 24 hours was feeling much worse.

Two weeks later, my cough was still going, more intense, and Geri was concerned I had pneumonia, so I let myself get talked into going to the doctor on the 18th.  The doc said it didn't sound like pneumonia and was most likely bronchitis.  She started me on a 10-day course of antibiotics and some codeine-infused cough syrup to help me sleep without coughing.  Between those and Mucinex I began to cough up so much stuff that I couldn't believe there was that much down there.  I felt like it was working, and I was assured that by this point I probably wasn't contagious anymore, so I medicated myself and went ahead and performed during Soul Speak at the Lorain Arts Council.  But I only shared three poems because I was sure if I read another I'd go off on another hard-to-stop coughing jag.

By the end of November I had completed my antibiotics and thought the worst was behind me though I was still coughing constantly.  I'd wake up every morning and feel improved.  But by each afternoon, I'd be coughing away again.  Then I developed an excruciating pain in my side.  It felt like kidney stones, but wasn't in the same place my last case of stones was.  After a few days it didn't get better, and I could hardly concentrate on work because of the pain, and we still weren't sure I didn't have pneumonia, so I went back to the doctor on December 2nd.  She wasn't sure what the cause was.  Pneumonia was a possibility.  Or maybe I cracked a rib or pulled something coughing, or it was my liver.  She sent me for a chest x-ray and abdominal ultrasound.

Good news: the x-ray and ultrasound are normal, so the doctor believes it's just a muscular issue caused by the coughing.  When I quit coughing it should soon go away.  Meanwhile, I'm still coughing, but not as intensely and uncontrollably as I was.  My nose is still plugged up and I can only sit in my office chair for so long before the pain in my side becomes unbearable again (it eases up a bit when I stand or lie down).  Meanwhile, December 5th will mark exactly one month since this started.

However, though I'm working in slow motion I did get two Crisis Chronicles Press chapbooks published in November.  It wasn't the four I intended.  But I expect to get at least two more published in December. Wish me luck. 

P.S.  From now until Christmas you can get a sweet deal on all 15 books pictured above. $75 for the lot.  They are:

CC058 - Poems for Explosion by John G Hall
CC059 - Ohio Triangle by Alex Gildzen
CC063 - #ThisIsCLE: An Anthology of the 2014 Best Cleveland Poem Competition
CC064 - Be Closer for My Burn by Robin Wyatt Dunn
CC065 - Cutting the Möbius by Jonathan Thorn
CC066 - Thunderclap Amen by Dianne Borsenik
CC067 - Bookmobile: From the Library of Jesus Crisis by David S Pointer
CC068 - Balefire by Susan Sheppard
CC069 - 2015 Hessler Street Fair Poetry Anthology
CC070 - Matilda's Battle Waltz by Tracie Morell
CC071 - Readings / The Road: Two Poems from Euclid Creek Book Three by Michael Ceraolo
CC072 - Ghost on the Inside by John Dorsey
CC073 - Contents Under Pressure by Kevin Ridgeway
CC074 - Drink Drank Drunk by Bradford Middleton
CC075 - This Frankenstein Union by Esteban Colon