For those of you who know me on the arthritis support newsgroup, this
may be a bit new.  My arthritis has been fairly well under control
since I went on Arthrotec, though it will flare if I'm on my feet too
much.  

Last December, I started coughing - a semi productive cough, bringing
up a small bit of clear phlegm.  It got quite bad in January, enough
so that an endoscopy was done since I do have reflux and I was having
extreme hoarseness with the cough.  A lot of the hoarseness went away,
but I am still coughing.  After checking and finding no postnasal
drip, my GP put me on Tessalon (a cough suppressant) as I had had the
problem previously.  It's helping some.  I think most of it is stress.
LOL

For those of you who don't know me, I will recap my history briefly.
I have had arthritis (mostly OA) for quite a few years.  I was working
as a tooling design engineer at a machine gun factory on CAD.  The job
really needed three people, but only one budgeted - yep, been there,
done that.  When my retirement was approaching - I had decided to
retire last November after I had completed my 25 years there, they had
hired a young man for me to train.  In January of last year, I had
some seizures.  I believe they were from stress, mostly, since on top
of the job stress, my dog was needing expensive surgery, my youngest
son had been sent to Kuwait the week before Christmas, and my middle
son was the victim of an armed robbery where they hijacked his car and
left him out in the woods, naked and shoeless.  No stress, right?
Anyhow, the replacement was working out quite well, so after three
months on medical leave (in South Carolina, you can't drive for six
months after a seizure and my job was out in the country without a
sharing ride available), I decided to retire on the first of May.  In
July, my replacement moved to Florida, and they asked me if I could
come back part time, under contract, until they could hire some one I
could train, and keep the paperwork under control.  I said make me an
offer, and my boss said I could work four hours a day, any hours, any
day, three days a week at $30 an hour.  I did love my job.  So, I went
back to work, and they found some one else for me to train. He's been
there a couple of months and will probably need to learn the job the
way I did originally.

My boss told me it was completely up to me whether I wanted to work
one day or more a month, or every other month, or not at all!  I'm
thinking it would be better if I just severed the connection
completely.  I know, it's one of those things - I know what I should
do and just need some moral support to do it.  Currently, my mom lives
with me and she does the grocery shopping and cooks five nights a
week.  I do still have the dog, the surgery worked wonders and she is
back to what she was before the big bill.  This past week, I also
finally got hearing aids and discovered what I had been missing sound
wise - it's not bad but it is very difficult for me to hear a soft
speaker at any distance.  I guess I'm missing some frequencies, too.
At this time, finances are not really a problem as I have been keeping
an eye on them.  I think everything is pretty much under control.

I guess I just need somebody(s) to tell me to "Quit, girl!!!"  Thanks
in advance.

Loujean
Retired and love it.
Throw that FISH out and
put in an S to email me.