Voices In My Head

I did not get breakfast eaten at home this morning (I know).  Too much time coughing, trying to hack up a hairball or something.  Every couple of minutes while getting ready this morning I was stopped by a major coughing fit.  Damn cold.  Left me running late to get out the door although I still managed to get to work only a five minutes after 8am.  No, I don't know how I did it either. 

Luckily it was an easy morning and breakfast was eaten in peace.  Today was lighter on the meetings than a normal day as well - an hour and a half white board design meeting (think three people around a conference table taking notes while I stand, draw, and talk out what is in my head) and an hour project core team meeting.  Leaving me lots and lots of desk time.  I'm still woefully behind on pretty much every one of my tasks - most of which are due either Monday or Thursday of next week - but I did make some progress today.  So Yay Me!

The coughing has only made me miserable about a dozen times today.  Sadly that is not an exaggeration.  And yet it represents a slight improvement over yesterday!  I still feel pretty much like crap but improved crap if there is such a thing.  

Now, despite the fact that I have far too much to do, I am going to call it a day so I can go home and collapse.  I have housekeeping/life things to take care of - like paying bills, cleaning the bathrooms, vacation prep stuff, etc.  I think most of that will wait for the weekend though as I expect to completely fall out on the couch and be a slug once I get home.  I will eat because the cold meds make me loopy if I don't (although I'm not hungry, at all).  Then sleep.  As much of it as I can get before it's time to get up and do this again tomorrow.  

I'm at work.  I still feel kind of crappy but I kept down dinner last night (rice with some crumbled up turkey burger) so I decided to take the chance.  I also ate breakfast this morning (dry cereal) which so far has stayed with me.  I still feel a little nauseous and my gag reflex is on a short trigger (strong smells especially are making me gag) so we'll just have to see how the day goes. 

I can't afford to be sick though - I have too much to do here at work plus I need to get the grass cut! 

Better now although still under the weather.  Missed work Tuesday and Wednesday - Tuesday with a nice little fever and Wednesday basically feeling like crapola.  Seriously, I've been sick since last Thursday when the sore throat started.  Can has new body now? 

I had my yearly physical at the doc's yesterday anyway so I asked her about the plague.  She did a quick check of symptoms, throat and ears and pronounced it the upper respitory virus they've been seeing a lot of lately.  Seems you get sick like you are getting cold, have a few days with clear everything but lots of it then start to feel a little better (This was Thursday through Monday for me).  Then you get worse again, this time with a higher fever, colored gunk and a crappy cough (Tuesday & Wednesday).  After that you start to feel better so long as you keep fever free.  Runs ten days to two weeks.  Its like a roller coaster while you have it though - feel bad, get a little better, feel really bad, get better, maybe feel bad again, get better, etc. 

I'm supposed to watch my temp and stay home from work if the fever goes back up (it hasn't, thankfully) and come back if it moves to my chest.  Not many but a few peeps have had it turn into nasty bronchitis or pnuemonia.  I seem to be on the mend but I'm not going to chance it.  Other than a haircut tomorrow and maybe a trip to the grocery store my plan is to stay home this weekend curled up on the couch reading Discount Armegeddon by Seanan McGuire. 

Later!

Well, the Christmas holiday season here in the US is over.  Now we are in the week of Manic Shopping the precedes everyone's favorite drinking holiday known as New Year's Eve. 

OK, maybe not everyone gets drunk on December 31st but I know a lot of people that do (I am not one of them, thank you). 

For Christmas this year I did...absolutely nothing.  No travel.  No gift giving except for the care package from Mom & Dad (Thanks again!), no cooking.  I thought about going to the movies but that's as far as I got, just thinking about it.  I did leave the house for about ten minutes - that's how long it took to go pick up the Chinese food I had for dinner.  I went with the tradition of doing nothing partly because I don't celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday and no one in my immediate family really celebrates it as a consumer or gift giving holiday anymore either.  Plus I've been a bit under the weather so I was far more interested in sleeping than celebrating.  

Yes, I'm sick again.  I swear we've been passing the plague back and forth here in the office since I got back in November.  I went to the clinic Friday before the long holiday weekend.  Massive sinus headache, lots of pressure, ears hurt, etc.  Dude would not give me an antibiotic because he thought it was either allergies or viral.  So I got flonase and told to take it and allegra, get lots of sleep, then come back today.  

So today I marched my not so little butt back in to the clinic at 8:40 and saw a different doctor.  (I like the clinic, really I do.  It is great having a free clinic here in the building for employees.  But it does get old having to go over and over the same shit with a different doctor each time).  She decided that while it may be viral she thought it was likely more than allergies.  So I'm still on the flonase, now twice a day, still taking allegra, still doing mucinex, and she threw in a Z-Pack (azithromycin) for good measure, just in case its bacterial.  She was a little reluctant on the antibiotic since I don't tolerate them well - the one I was on in November made me queasy and killed my appetite.  But I seem to do OK on Z-Pack and my left cheek is still sore to the touch, indicating something is going on in that sinus cavity.

Now all I want to do is go back to bed.  I don't feel horrible, just not great.  And man, the fatigue!  You'd think I hadn't slept in a week over here.  Seriously, if I could just get comfy I'd be asleep at my desk.  

And that's the story with me.  Hopefully I'll start feeling better as the week progresses.  There's leftover chinese food for dinner as well as leftover homemade pizza (pepperoni, prosciutto and mushroom - yum!).  And there's a really good book waiting for me at home.  I'm reading Imhotep by Jerry Dubs, a self-published ebook I got on the Kindle.  I am really liking it.  I was a little nervous about it being self-published, and it is a tad overwritten but not terribly so, and it really is a good story.  So yay for Mr. Dubs.  I'm about half way through and can't wait to read the rest.  

Now I should get back to work.  Got to earn my keep, yo!      

I fell asleep again around 5 am after another dose (OK, dose and a half) of Nyquil.  This time I slept - about five hours worth although not all at one time.  I woke around 7:30 with a coughing fit that had me up for a while.  Adding yet another pillow to the stack seemed to help though and when I finally got back to sleep I managed to stay that way until 11:00. 

I've had breakfast, taken my antibiotics, had a very hot bath, been to CVS for 'moar drugs!'...and I'm exhausted.  Luckily CVS is just down the street as I really don't think I'm awake enough to be driving any further than that.  I intend to spend the rest of the day on the couch with my blankie and a hot cup of tea.  Normally I would worry that if I slept all day I wouldn't be able to sleep tonight but honestly I don't think that matters anymore.  I'm exhausted and the coughing keeps me from sleeping for very long at any one time anyway so at this point I'll take whatever I can get. 

According to the doc I have sinusitis and laryngitis.  According to Barb's husband it is the Mummy's Curse - probably because I didn't accept the offer of a thousand chickens for my person while in Egypt.  Ha Ha, very funny Will! 

Now if you'll excuse me my curse and I need a nap. 

Still no voice today.  Maybe a bit more croak than yesterday but still can't talk.  When I try it makes me giggle.  Giggles with no audio.  It is like living my own silent movie, man. 

The plan for today is to laze about on the couch, drink more hot tea with honey, play some Bejeweled, and pretty much ignore the world.  Its not like I can answer the phone, yo.  So email and text communication only for now.  Work tomorrow should be interesting. 

I doubt I'll be upright enough to do any work on the vacation pictures today.  I know, I'm a slacker.  But sick girl is sick so ya'll are just going to have to wait. 

But here's another teaser for ya:

I was hoping to start blogging more regularly but obviously that hasn't happened. 
The weekend sucked big time.  I did not get the metric shit-ton of work done that I needed to do as I ended up sick.  I took it easy on Saturday as planned, going to the bookstore and generally doing not much of anything.  After the bookstore I stopped at my favorite Thai place and had Pad Pak Rum Mitt (mild) as an early dinner.  The food was super fantastic as always.  Went home and finished a book then went to bed.  About 3:00 AM I woke up sick as a dog - gastrointestinal distress of all kinds.  I won't go in to TMI but suffice it to say that it lasted until six ayem and when the smoke cleared I was desperately dehydrated, had a sore throat, and had pulled a muscle in my back. 

So Sunday I recovered.  I shouldn't have done anything but I got kind of OCD about the house being dirtly so I cleaned the kitchen, both bathrooms, and vacuumed.  After that the dehydration headache was too bad to contnue so I made myself relax.  Called the parents to tell them I was sick and not really in the mood to talk - they were sympathetic and understanding.  No one likes being sick.  Then I slept on the couch for three hours.  I wasn't intending to sleep that long but hey, I guess I needed it.  Didn't keep me from sleeping Sunday night either. 

Even though I've recovered from the sickies I've been taking it easy on the food front this week, doing cereal, rice, soup and yogurt for the most part.  Now it is lunch time on Wednesday and I am starved.  I have soup with me but I may go get a sandwich or something as I think I need something more substantial. 

In other news we had a meeting today for The Project From Hell where we went over the project plan for the next month.  Yeah, it won't work.  Not only because I'm leaving for vacation in three weeks so I won't be here for half of it but also because last time I checked I actually need to sleep occasionally.  The project plan is for 4 items that we haven't done requirements or design for yet and the vendor assumed 100% resource commitment to get it done.  Unfortunately I'm already at 100% for other tasks on The Project From Hell like ETL and Web Integration.  I'm good (if I do say so myself) but I can't commit 200% of my time.  At least not without going crazy.  Plus it isn't just me - the whole team was over-committed big time.  So the PM is going to have to redo the schedule and play some politics.  In the end we'll probably all still be over-committed and over-whelmed but maybe not as bad as it looks right now. 

Oh, who am I kidding?  We're going to be told to work overtime and do whatever it takes to get it done in the timeframe that the vendor set so that it doesn't cost us anymore money. 

Meanwhile I'm counting down to 2:00 PM on the 20th.  Freedom! 

Just days before I leave for Italy and I have a sinus infection.  I was pretty sure something was going on yesterday while I was working from home.  I woke up with the sinus pressure and headache, all on the left side of my head, per usual, and I was hoping it was just a reaction to the fact that it was raining for the first time in over a month.  No such luck.  The headache was followed by the sore throat was followed by the stuffed up ears was followed by waking up this morning with a head full of snot.  Ugh.  A nine hour flight at 35000 feet with a sinus infection is pretty much the ninth circle of hell so I took my sick butt down to Immediate Care earlier today.  Evidently everyone else in Indianapolis also has a sinus infection as the place was packed.  Right now I'm feeling okay - not great but I can function.  And I have drugs so I'm good. 

My practice packing is done and the new suitcase will do just fine.  I painted it to make it easier to recognize amongst all the other black 25'' wheeled jobbies.  No pictures of it yet but I'll post some after Mom & Dad see it.  My shopping is finished as well (I think) and my passport is in my travel purse so I can stop obsessing about leaving it behind.  I should be doing another couple hours of work today but I'm thinking about curling up on the couch instead.  I may end up skipping the gym this week in order to get my work done before I leave.  Plus the fact that I can't breathe to work out, that might be a reason to skip too. 

And now I need to take some OTC sinus meds and maybe take a short nap.  I'll be way busy the next few days and I don't know what kind of internet access I'll have in Italy so blogging may be sparse to non-existent for the next couple of weeks.  Play nice!

Sorry for the radio silence.  I'm still sick and posting has been about the furthest thing from my mind.  If I'm not at work I'm sleeping, or at least trying to. 

I'm feeling better overall - no sore throat now and I can almost breathe.  But the head is still full of copious amounts of snot and the coughing has actually gotten a bit worse.  Pretty much normal for the tail end of a cold/sinus infection.  The biggest problem is the lack of energy and how easily I wear myself out.  I'm still not going to the gym although I hope to get back into a routine starting next week.  As long as I can breathe, of course.

Still, it could be worse.  My brother-in-law as avascular necrosis in one of his hips and will be having a full hip replacement in June - at the ripe old age of 45!  Right now he's on drugs to manage the pain as his hip joint has pretty much disintegrated.  So yeah, a head cold is nothing.  I can deal. 

The last two weeks have sucked big time in the health department.  Two weekends ago I was uber productive with the yard work, planting flowers, yanking out a yucca, pruning, all that shit.  Couple days later a muscle in my back goes ape-shit and I spend two days at home, mostly flat on my back, dealing with spasms. 

Fast forward to Monday morning this week where the back is sore but no longer trying to kill me (back spasm + driving = bad idea).  Instead I wake up with a sore throat.  Uh Oh.  Yes, the pollen count is currently through the roof so it is possible the sore throat is just due to being unable to breathe and sleeping with my mouth open.  But 9 times out of 10 it is the harbinger of doom, telling me to prepare for a week of hell as a head cold/sinus infection is headed my way.  By noon on Tuesday I was running a low fever of 99.6 F and feeling pretty crappy.  By Wednesday morning the fever had broken - and so had the dam in my head that was holding back all the snot. 

Oh, god, the snot. 

In the last two days I have produced more mucus than should ever come from a single human being.  

I am back at work today, amusing my co-workers with my croaky voice and going through a metric ton of tissues.  Thank goodness for cold medicine as I doubt I'd be functional without it.  Although "functional" is probably a relative term right now.  All in all I feel like the last two weeks have been a complete washout as far as my life is concerned.  I've missed some work so I'm trying to catch up there.  The yard work and gardens are behind as well.  I may be dumb some days but I'm not stupid enough to deal with bags of mulch when I have a pulled muscle in my back.  And until this head cold thingy passes the only non-work engagement I have is with either my couch or my bed. 

Right now, if I were a car I'd be a lemon.