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.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
On Being Ill
In the old days, there was a good side to being ill in that you got to miss the meetings. Here in this day and age, you don't have to miss the meetings because you can pick up the phone and join in a telecon, you can surf to the website and share someone's desktop, you can share in all the joy and exuberance that is a corporate meeting without leaving the comfort of your sickbed.
It's difficult for the body to heal when it gets no rest.
The virus made its presence known half-way through the day yesterday, adding an extra spice to the normal creaks and groans of the body, a little something that hadn't been there before but, boy, you sure can't miss it now. The aching got louder as the day progressed. By the time five o'clock rolled around, it was practically screaming, and no amount of over-the-counter medications - which are a miracle if they can be found at any normal corporate office in these days of frivolous lawsuits - could mask it. The head was pounding, the legs were feeling as though they'd been dragged across a carpet of splinters, and the breath was getting wheezy. It was time to go "camo". Grab the bags, head for the parking lot with your cap pulled down over your eyes, don't look at anyone and for goodness' sake, don't say a word, just bolt. Get in the car and head down the road toward home, crawl into bed with a generous dose of NyQuil (or TheraFlu), and wait to see what tomorrow brings.
Everyone has been sick lately, leastways everyone at work. The influenza has made its presence known, and there are some copycatters around as well, probably just some bacteriums on the hoof, looking for amusement in these antiseptic times. Those hardest hit elicit true sympathy, while the rest of us - those who are not spending hours hunched over porcelain bowls - are suspected of chicanery and lies. The truth is that we are sick; it is just a matter of detail that the work is what is making us sick, not the germs.
There was an entire town out here that shut the doors to the local schools for a time because there were so many teachers and students out with the flu. It was my fate to meet up with some of those folk at the last Scout campout. Spent nearly the whole day with them, in fact, helping to judge some of the Scout activities. And of course their favorite topic of conversation was the horrible indignities played upon their poor bodies by this latest plague (you know how men can be). It was a good thing that my lack of appetite restrained me from eating much the night before, else it might've been lost in the flood of descriptions which peppered the conversation of my fellow judges.
Thus it was no surprise that some viral entity managed to make it past my defenses and induce the immune system to maximum response. The only way to avoid such things in this season is to avoid any gathering of individuals, and as a father and Scout leader and Sunday School teacher and employee, this is obviously out of the question. I am surrounded by people all the time, them and their nasty, icky, disgusting bugs which swarm like angry bees, waiting for a chance to sting. I shake their hands, I breathe their air, I smell their vapor trails of sweat and effluence as they pass by. It is impossible to pass through this world unscathed; one can only hope that the past experiences of one's life are adequate preparation for the future.
Meanwhile, I'm going to have another dose of TheraFlu.
It's difficult for the body to heal when it gets no rest.
The virus made its presence known half-way through the day yesterday, adding an extra spice to the normal creaks and groans of the body, a little something that hadn't been there before but, boy, you sure can't miss it now. The aching got louder as the day progressed. By the time five o'clock rolled around, it was practically screaming, and no amount of over-the-counter medications - which are a miracle if they can be found at any normal corporate office in these days of frivolous lawsuits - could mask it. The head was pounding, the legs were feeling as though they'd been dragged across a carpet of splinters, and the breath was getting wheezy. It was time to go "camo". Grab the bags, head for the parking lot with your cap pulled down over your eyes, don't look at anyone and for goodness' sake, don't say a word, just bolt. Get in the car and head down the road toward home, crawl into bed with a generous dose of NyQuil (or TheraFlu), and wait to see what tomorrow brings.
Everyone has been sick lately, leastways everyone at work. The influenza has made its presence known, and there are some copycatters around as well, probably just some bacteriums on the hoof, looking for amusement in these antiseptic times. Those hardest hit elicit true sympathy, while the rest of us - those who are not spending hours hunched over porcelain bowls - are suspected of chicanery and lies. The truth is that we are sick; it is just a matter of detail that the work is what is making us sick, not the germs.
There was an entire town out here that shut the doors to the local schools for a time because there were so many teachers and students out with the flu. It was my fate to meet up with some of those folk at the last Scout campout. Spent nearly the whole day with them, in fact, helping to judge some of the Scout activities. And of course their favorite topic of conversation was the horrible indignities played upon their poor bodies by this latest plague (you know how men can be). It was a good thing that my lack of appetite restrained me from eating much the night before, else it might've been lost in the flood of descriptions which peppered the conversation of my fellow judges.
Thus it was no surprise that some viral entity managed to make it past my defenses and induce the immune system to maximum response. The only way to avoid such things in this season is to avoid any gathering of individuals, and as a father and Scout leader and Sunday School teacher and employee, this is obviously out of the question. I am surrounded by people all the time, them and their nasty, icky, disgusting bugs which swarm like angry bees, waiting for a chance to sting. I shake their hands, I breathe their air, I smell their vapor trails of sweat and effluence as they pass by. It is impossible to pass through this world unscathed; one can only hope that the past experiences of one's life are adequate preparation for the future.
Meanwhile, I'm going to have another dose of TheraFlu.
Thursday, February 05, 2009
Missing My Watch
I miss my watch.
It disappeared about a week ago, vanishing into thin air like a wafting thread of smoke, leaving me adrift in Time and Space, boundless. It was set upon the bathroom counter alongside my other accoutrements, removed for the short span of time required to accomplish my evening ritual (toothbrush, razor, comb). My glasses lay beside it to keep it company. It gave no hint of departure. In the morning, when I rose to begin the day (in the dark, in the quiet, softly, tip-toeing across the carpet, sharp eyes open for obstacles), it was gone, vanished, invisible. My bare wrist, untanned and naked, mourned. My brain fizzled and popped in a vain attempt to invent some excuse for its inappropriate behavior. Searching the room brought no relief. I was distraught.
After a few days of this enforced Time Ignorance, realizing that the miscreant was not going to magically appear, it fell upon me to take the obvious step of replacing the MAPDA (Missing And Presumed Dead Appliance) with a fresh soldier; so to the store I went, cash in hand, thoughts blazing with what might be judged a strange thought: not to replace it with a copy of the original, but to supplement it with a completely different type, on the odd chance that it might one day reappear from its long sojourn into the ether. So it was that I purchased not a wristwatch, but a -- for lack of a better term -- belt-loop watch. It hangs upside down from the belt so that it can be flipped up to view the time. This type is especially useful for those who cannot burden their hands with time-based implements (due to needing their hands or wrists for other things). Many Scouts wear this type.
Now there is only the remaining problem of restraining the impulse to look at my wrist every time there is an urge to know what time it is. This is a close relative to the impulse which drives me to push my index finger into the spot between my eyes every hour or so to adjust my glasses, a habit which becomes extremely amusing when my glasses are not actually on my face at the time.
"Dad, why are you pushing your face?" ask my children.
"I'm having a Senior Moment, so I need to hit the Reset button," I reply.
Those moments are occurring more often these days.
Postscript
I haven't found the watch yet, but Cheryl posited an interesting idea: perhaps the cat took it. And she isn't joking. The female cat has been known on occasion to take things out of the childrens rooms -- little stuffed toys, mostly -- to play with. And she frequents our bathroom counter, utilizing it as a public fountain (which Cheryl encourages by leaving the taps on 'slow drip' some nights). So it is within the realm of probability that the cat took the watch to some secret hiding place (deep inside the closet, underneath the bed, or under a night-stand) for a bit of R&R. As Alice would say, Curiouser and Curiouser...
It disappeared about a week ago, vanishing into thin air like a wafting thread of smoke, leaving me adrift in Time and Space, boundless. It was set upon the bathroom counter alongside my other accoutrements, removed for the short span of time required to accomplish my evening ritual (toothbrush, razor, comb). My glasses lay beside it to keep it company. It gave no hint of departure. In the morning, when I rose to begin the day (in the dark, in the quiet, softly, tip-toeing across the carpet, sharp eyes open for obstacles), it was gone, vanished, invisible. My bare wrist, untanned and naked, mourned. My brain fizzled and popped in a vain attempt to invent some excuse for its inappropriate behavior. Searching the room brought no relief. I was distraught.
After a few days of this enforced Time Ignorance, realizing that the miscreant was not going to magically appear, it fell upon me to take the obvious step of replacing the MAPDA (Missing And Presumed Dead Appliance) with a fresh soldier; so to the store I went, cash in hand, thoughts blazing with what might be judged a strange thought: not to replace it with a copy of the original, but to supplement it with a completely different type, on the odd chance that it might one day reappear from its long sojourn into the ether. So it was that I purchased not a wristwatch, but a -- for lack of a better term -- belt-loop watch. It hangs upside down from the belt so that it can be flipped up to view the time. This type is especially useful for those who cannot burden their hands with time-based implements (due to needing their hands or wrists for other things). Many Scouts wear this type.
Now there is only the remaining problem of restraining the impulse to look at my wrist every time there is an urge to know what time it is. This is a close relative to the impulse which drives me to push my index finger into the spot between my eyes every hour or so to adjust my glasses, a habit which becomes extremely amusing when my glasses are not actually on my face at the time.
"Dad, why are you pushing your face?" ask my children.
"I'm having a Senior Moment, so I need to hit the Reset button," I reply.
Those moments are occurring more often these days.
Postscript
I haven't found the watch yet, but Cheryl posited an interesting idea: perhaps the cat took it. And she isn't joking. The female cat has been known on occasion to take things out of the childrens rooms -- little stuffed toys, mostly -- to play with. And she frequents our bathroom counter, utilizing it as a public fountain (which Cheryl encourages by leaving the taps on 'slow drip' some nights). So it is within the realm of probability that the cat took the watch to some secret hiding place (deep inside the closet, underneath the bed, or under a night-stand) for a bit of R&R. As Alice would say, Curiouser and Curiouser...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)