sickness

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I Have Been Sick

I have not been writing.  I have not been reading.  I have not been doing much of anything except lying in bed like a lump wishing I would feel better.  I try to do things.  I get up and go about for a bit, then I’m so sorry because of the overwhelming fatigue, nausea, and coughing.  It’s a travesty. I even got a fever, and that is extremely rare for me.  The last time I had a fever was fifteen years ago, and it put me in the hospital.  This time I just laid there like a dry stick, sucking on lozenges, popping Tylenol, dextromethorphan, and antihistamines, completely catatonic.  Yuck.

I’ve gotten some ideas.  Really, I have.  It’s possible to come up with some pretty interesting things to write about when one wakes up from coughing after the drugs have worn off at 3 in the morning.  But the thought of being upright to actually type some of these clever things into the computer is seriously more than I can manage.  I have to get up frequently to go to the bathroom because I’m trying to drown this thing (it’s not working).  Going to the bathroom is the extent of my energetic abilities.  It’s getting old, I can assure you.

I told Boyfriend today that I want him to buy some oranges because I’m going to try and kill it with vitamin C.  And some grapefruit.  Maybe if I eat a bunch of them every day I’ll kill the bad little viruses.  Plus I’ll eliminate any possibility of scurvy, and help keep the orange growers in business.  And grapefruit growers.  I’ll be doing my part.

I think it is evident from this post what my mind is capable of.  Today I took a couple dozen quizzes on facebook.  That also gives some indication of my potential mental capacity.  It’s like I’ve been working hard all week and my brain is fried.  I get the fried part, but it has not been because I have been working.  I did do some fun activities because Milla is home this week.  I went to the zoo, then came home and collapsed for 3 hours.  I went to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, then came home and collapsed for 4 hours.  I went to the Union Square Farmer’s Market and almost threw up right there in front of all of the farmers.  Not fun.  Maybe all that running around is kind of like hard work and that is why I feel like I’ve been busting my ass all week.  I don’t know.  In any case, I hope I get over this soon.  I am sick of being sick.

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Evil Guerrilla Virus

These can be addicting.  I sit here and have these random thoughts and want to write them here instead of my journal.  I carry around this notebook to write my strange random thoughts and to draw pictures.  Sometimes I’ll have a dream and write it in there thinking it’s profound and I should make a movie out of it.  Then I’ll go back and read the dream later and realize it WAS profound…profoundly dumb. Now I’m experimenting with background color.  Yes.  My time is well spent.  Well spent indeed.  (:I had a cold in early November.  A nasty wicked cold that kicked my ass and left me in bed for days.  It lasted about 3 1/2 weeks.  It started with a wretched, mind-blowing headache that just hurt no matter how much caffeine or ibuprofen I poured on it.  Then there were two days of sore throat that hurt so badly I could not speak and swallowing was pure hell and torture.  After that cleared, I suddenly had snot gushing from every available orifice in my head.  That started to clear and I began to feel the rumblings low in my lungs of a cough that rattled every joint in my body.  I attempted to stave off the cough, but to no avail.  I would lie there, feeling it humming in my chest.  I would breathe slowly. In. Out. In. Out.  Please god, don’t make me cough.  Then it would happen and it would hurt and it would not stop.  This went on for days.  I had to pile pillows high on my bed to prop myself up so I could sleep because anytime I was horizontal the cough would creep up and kick my ass.  I would be in that lovely place right before sleep, drowsily imagining flying or that I had three arms, when that cough would smash me right back into reality.  I remember lying there with my eyes dry feeling like I would never sleep again.  I finally succumbed and took four of Milla’s triaminic cough strips.  I don’t like taking those kinds of drugs because they drug me so completely I have a hangover for days, but even a hangover was preferable to that shit.  Only it was like the cough sat and waited for the exact SECOND the dextromethorphan wore off.  I love saying that word, dextromethorphan.  I would lie there and say it over and over to take myself into that sleepy place knowing the cough couldn’t get me.  ANYWAY.  The SECOND it wore off, the cough would return with a vengeance worse than anything prior to the attempted cough murder.  I finally started popping the dextromethorphan like some kind of an addict just to sleep.  After about a week of this, my head hurt constantly and I was a walking zombie from lack of non-drug-induced sleep.  That’s about when the tickle began.  I didn’t have any mucous left.  There was just that fucking tickle in the back of my throat.  I’d be sitting there on the computer or reading a book or trying to work and feel that wretched ass tickle.  Tickle.  Tickle.  And have to cough.  And then I could not stop coughing.  I even stuck my finger in the back of my throat in an attempt to stop the tickle.  It didn’t work.  I looked up the tickle on the internet and found many a distressed sufferer lamenting on various medical websites about the wretched ass tickle.  Some had suffered for years.  These were people with chronic conditions, asthma and the like.  Thank GOD I did not have that. I had the tickle for about four days.  I probably would have found a huge bridge from which to fling myself had the tickle continued much longer.  I pity those people who live their lives with the tickle.

ANYWAY.  What was my point? I had one.  The POINT is that I had this bitch of a cold that lasted nearly four weeks, then I began gradually to heal.  There was a period of about five days where I sneezed, but had no other symptoms, but that faded as well.  Even Milla’s aftercare teacher would say, You are doing better. Then the next day he would say, You seem 10 percent better today.  Finally one day he said, I think you are 98 percent better.  Does that mean the cold is all gone and you are well?  I would say, Yes!  I am so much better.  Thank you so much for thinking of me.

Well.  We were both wrong.  I woke up yesterday and the damn headache, lung ache, face snot, sneezing, sore throat, and cough are all back and all at once.  No more of that systematic one at a time shit for this cold.  No.  It’s all back and it’s all back at once.  And you know what is really strange?  My friend Britta had this same crap about the same time I did and in the same order.  And yesterday her shit came back exactly like mine!!  It’s like some miracle virus that tricks you into thinking you are well when you’re not!  It’s so cruel.

So this is what I’m contemplating as I sit here not doing much work because my head hurts and I’m tired and my lungs hurt and I’m WHINING.  Wah wah wah!  I guess I will see now if the pretty orange color stays when I actually post this thing.

DAMN!!  I just typed in Evil Guerrilla Virus and in the process sneezed the biggest grossest sneeze of ick I’ve sneezed in years!  Thank god for tissue and thank god more for soft tissue with lotion in it!  Yikes!