Still ill.
Like a bad remake of "The Lost Weekend", much of it remains a blur. Between the headaches and the lack of ability to breathe, it was difficult to make one thought transition logically into another.
None of the drugs worked. Whatever it was that held sway in my system, it ruled with an iron fist and suffered no competition.
Yet I still managed to work ten hours a day. That's the problem with having a job that can be done remotely. You can do it from the comfort of your own home. In your robe.
This is not to say that the quality of my work was up to par. It suffered from the lack of ability to think in clear, concise, linear patterns of thought. But at least the work was done. And the voices weren't screaming from the other end of the phone. (You know the voices. The ones that scream about schedules and budgets and other pointless trivia.)
The old drugs didn't work. I had to switch to new drugs. Still over-the-counter, of course; we avoid prescriptions if at all possible. It was mainly the anthistamine portion of the concoction that wasn't working. Whatever Costco puts in their generic allergy/cold combination, it didn't touch this one. Started taking Benadryl instead, which normally doesn't have any affect on my seasonal allergies, and suddenly I could breathe again. Well, I'm not one to question success (much), so that's now the menu for the next few days. At least until its effectiveness subsides.
None of it touched the headache. That's been a constant element, sometimes approaching migraine level, sometimes causing a bit of nausea. The only solution for that is to hit the sack, sleep it off, wake up groggy and out-of-sorts, try to get up and move around until the brain kicks in again. Thinking hurts.
Only a few more days. Then I'll be back to normal again. Whatever that means.
5 comments:
first of all son, you need some fresh allergy testing and then get rid of whatever the cause is unless it is your wife or children.
Hope you soon feel better and will not be too sick for us to drop in for an overnight in a couple of weeks.
Yes, I probably do, but it's so much more fun just drugging myself up and seeing what happens! (The cause is probably cats, which is about the same as 'wife or children', so there's not much to do about it.)
We'll be ready whenever you get here.
May I (ever so lovingly) slap you across the miles?
You are doing your family no favors by teaching them that any member of the family is less important than-- or even equal in importance to-- a cat.
Case in point: A woman who occasionally attends our church had her child taken away from her just before Christmas and placed into foster care, with the understanding that the child could return when 1. the child had an actual bed to sleep in; 2. the apartment was cleaned up; and 3. all 16 cats were out of the apartment. The child remains in foster care because the mom just "can't" get rid of those last precious 8 cats. The clear message to the child? Mom's cats are more important than Mom's daughter.
And apparently, they are. To the mother of this child, an animal is just as valuable, if not more so, as a person.
And that is a lie. A big, fat, hairy, destructive message from the Father of Lies.
People, not animals, are made in the image of God. When you sacrifice your health on the altar of your family's attachment to an animal-- and I use those words deliberately-- you are throwing away the same God-given gift as the man who smokes, uses illegal drugs or drinks excessively.
Surely you would not allow any other member of your family to suffer for the sake of some animal. Most people would consider that abuse. Well, you also need to model good stewardship of your own health. If you honestly believe your wife and children can't "forgive" you for that, then apparently you doubt their love more than I do.
Interesting viewpoint. I hadn't quite thought of it like that.
I didn't mean to imply that my recent illness was caused directly by cats; perhaps they exacerbated the situation by continuing to shed dander on my bed while I was trying to rest. But the illness was definitely viral in nature, though. Those kinds of symptoms could not be replicated by cat allergies. My reply was facetious and borne of frustration rather than real conviction.
If I really believed that the cats were a serious threat to my health, or the health of anyone else in the family, they would be gone in a moment, out the door, to the pet placement center. I work with a woman whose passion is the care and placement of unwanted animals, and have had many conversations with her on this subject. It would be extremely easy to do, were it a case of health endangerment.
But I don't really think that's the issue.
To me, the key issue is teaching the children that having pets is a great responsibility, just like raising kids. Pets must be fed and cared for, even to the point of cleaning up their messes because they can't clean them up themselves. They are expensive and troublesome and worrisome, and always die before you are ready for them to go. They barf up hairballs and dump on carpet (or concrete) and bring in vermin and sometimes cause fleas to infest the house, and if you decide you want to have pets, you have to take the responsibility as well.
Part of that responsibility is ensuring that other people do not suffer because someone is not keeping up with their chores - vacuuming and dusting and other normal household duties (including changing the furnace filter, which is Dad's job). We joke around that Dad is suffering from cat allergies to remind the children that it is important to keep the house clean; it is a side-effect of a dirty house. And we've been in enough dirty houses to verify the truth of it, to call attention to it, and to use it as an example. Each of the chores we assign has a real reason behind it, a logic. We don't make them work to punish them. In the beginning, we make them do it because they are too young to understand why, and sometimes we give a half-explanation that won't make sense to them for years and years. Such is the cat allergy explanation.
It is true that I have allergies to cat hair. I'm convinced it is controllable without resorting to elimination of the cats -- assuming we can keep up with the cleaning activities. And my purpose is to train my children to do those things so that when they are older an in relationships with others, they will be aware of the responsibility that comes with introducing pets into the equation, whichever side they're on.
Oops! That "drholt" comment was mine (jeanne); that's what I get for using the wrong computer!
I get the pet responsibility thing, but I still think migraines and breathing problems *are* a serious health issue...they certainly interfere with the quality of life, your ability to do your job, your ability to enjoy your family, your family's ability to enjoy you. Not a good thing, bro!
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