LAID LOW

The crud (a technical term for illness-NOT) has crept through my family.  It has been my turn and I have been laid low for over a week now.  This explains why the blog posts became so erratic.  The crud for me resulted in bronchitis (bronchiole irritation), fever/chills, and exhaustion.  The bronchioles are part of your respiratory system.  When you bring air into your body, the air moves through a “largish” tube called the trachea.  The trachea is held open by a series of cartilage rings.  You can feel these by rubbing the front of your neck.  The trachea branches off into the main bronchi which branch even more into smaller tubes called bronchioles which carry air to the alveoli of your lungs.  This is equivalent to on oxygen-carrying road system from an interstate to highways to main roads…  Bronchitis occurs when you have inflammation of the lining of those tubes.  Your body keeps the bronchioles moist with mucus.  With bronchitis, more mucus may be made to try and trap whatever is irritating you.  Mucus, aka “snot” is the multipurpose tool of the body (Refer to Ode to Snot Parts I, II, and III).