Thursday, January 31, 2008

Like in a hospital room

Every evening, as he sits and watches his TV quite loudly, the semi-deaf guy next door makes this really weird noise like, every 10 seconds.

Sometimes he coughs, but mostly he does this "HUHHH-UH" halfway between a cough and a painful exhalation.

It has increased in frequency in just the past two weeks. Used to be I'd hear this sound every minute or two. Now I hear it all evening and after his TV is off and he falls asleep.

The sad thing is, he quit smoking for a couple of months and these noises stopped. But he claimed he gained 26 months and was so disgusted that he started smoking again. (To his credit, he also went on a diet and bought himself an exercise machine, and lost much of the weight.) He said he was only smoking 5 cigs a day and planned to cut back until he was down to zero. But from the sounds of it, he must be back up to a pack or more daily. You don't breathe like that on 5 smokes a day.

The walls being what they are here, we might as well be separated by a hospital curtain.

I'm thinking he must have advanced emphysema. I know the older dude upstairs has got it, but he just wheezes quietly. I don't hear him much except when he does his "morning cough" (smokers will know what that is) and I sometimes get to hear that at 4:30 a.m. when he arises.

Between those two and Miss Heavyfoot at 5:00 a.m. each day, it's no wonder I never get a decent night's sleep without resorting to a pill!

What a bunch we are!


3 comments:

Rox said...

You poor thing! I should send you some ear plugs so you can sleep!

Laura Brown said...

I was thinking the same, how about ear muffs? Any chance you could find a new place with thicker walls?

lattégirl said...

I can't do ear plugs because of my congenital lack of smell; I can't smell smoke, and therefore, with ear plugs, I might not hear the smoke detector.

No go.

I might just go tell them all to STFU, and that might solve the problem. After all, it worked for Miss Mew, she stopped wearing her shoes for the 15 minutes before she was ready to walk out the door to school/and/or work.

I might just have to tell them that they are seriously impeding on my life. I might.