(Cough, cough)

A friend of mine summed it up succinctly in an e-mail yesterday: "Neither one of us is really good at not feeling good."

So true.

My friend, who was e-mailing me from Hong Kong on the way to a vacation in Thailand, is recovering from a case of Bell's palsy. I know how he feels: I had the same thing about 30 years ago.

This time, though, my problem is acute bronchitis. That's why it's been so long since I've updated the blog. I'm feeling lousy, and I'm not very good at feeling lousy. I tend to blow my symptoms out of proportion -- in my own mind, at least -- and I tend to imagine the worst. Probably that's a result of having been a medic at the 36th Tactical Hospital in the Air Force. By the time I saw a patient, the situation was ipso facto worse than if he or she hadn't needed to be hospitalized.

Instead, I should be following the old medical-school warning: When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras. I am not hospitalized, and my bronchitis is just that and nothing more. It's a horse, plain and without stripes of any sort.

I am taking an antibiotic that my doctor prescribed. That and the cough syrup he gave me seem to be getting things under control. (The antibiotic makes me feel queasy sometimes, but life is not without its trade-offs.)

I'm looking forward to tomorrow and the days to come optimistically: I will feel better. I will stop coughing.

In the meantime, my friend hit the nail on the head. I'm not good at not feeling good. But I know that, so I'm enjoying the unexpected chance to catch up on a backlog of good books. And I really am enjoying the chicken soup.