Red Nose

Day to Day

This happiness business is hard work.

Part of it is knowing that no matter how much Wellbrutrin I ingest, the situation at work is not going to change. What can change is my reaction to it. I'm working on that; I am making slow, slow progress.

I catch myself slipping into the sad state, staring off into myself, stagnant.

But there are other times, too; times when I feel... lighter. Less stuck.

So there's that.

Anyway!

I went to Seattle last week. Flew out on Tuesday, did a presentation to the STC Puget Sound chapter, had a drink with my pal Kathy, slept, got up, and flew home. I didn't even get jet lagged.

The presentation went very well -- folks laughed in the right places, asked good questions, and thanked me profusely. I was absolutely delighted to see another friend at the meeting; we had a good yak while eating lasagna and salad.

But man, airline travel is so irritating these days! The trip out went just fine -- short lines at both check-in and security, space in the overhead compartment for my bag, non-offensive seat mates -- on both flights no less! I had to walk ten miles to get from gate to gate in Minneapolis, but that's a given.

The trip home was slightly more nerve wracking. There was no line at check-in, yay! But I saw that my seat assignment for the Minneapolis-to-Baltimore leg was a middle seat way in the back of the plane, ugh. And also, UGH. So I tapped the "Change Seat" button and saw that I could switch to a "preferred" seat -- window, much closer to the front -- for an extra charge. With fear and trepidation, I tapped the screen to exactly how much extra that charge would, and it was -- ta-da! -- $19.

Sold.

The security line was enormous; so enormous that I expected to see those signs telling you how long your wait was going to be. It was slow, too, and I got a little nervous about making my flight. But the flight was delayed, so whew.

And the best part of the trip? Seeing Joe at the end of the walkway at BWI, smiling his wonderful smile.

Now that made me happy.

And I got a present for speaking -- an Amazon gift card! So I immediately used it

The Haul

Okay! So this time around I have asthmatic bronchitis, whoopee! I am now taking antibiotics and puffing on two different inhalers.

But hey! Talking about sickness is no fun! Let's talk about what I got for Christmas instead. Woo! Braggity brag showing off!

Anyway.

Joe gave me the Igigi Phoebe cardigan and the Ashley Infinity Tunic, and a fun crossword puzzle book. SonnyeBoy gave me the Smitten Kitchen cookbook and the fourth season of Friday Night Lights. I love every single one.

The Igigi clothes fit perfectly and look great. I will admit to hinting heavily about the tunic, but the cardigan was a complete and wonderful surprise. Everyone will benefit from the cookbook, because I intend to spread that wealth. I may have to pace myself with the crossword puzzles, because I will be tempted to do all of them at once. And the FNL DVDs? That season contains the best episode of television that I have ever seen.

So yeah, I got some great gifts. Of course, the best gift of all was having SonnyeBoy home for actual, real live Christmas, even if he did get there just before dark and even if he did only get to stay one night. (And we had pie for breakfast!) I'm not at all sure how we did it, but we must have done something right.

 

 

One Day I Will Be Well For More Than A Week

I made it through the travel, the feasting, the cooking, the welcoming home-ing, the present giving and receiving, and the hugging; and now I can collapse for a few days.

Yes, I am sick AGAIN. This is my fourth bad bout of upper respiratory viral infection this year; the third in the last three months, for God's sake.

I don't know why I'm getting all these damn colds/flus/bronchitises. I've been exercising. I've been watching what I eat. I take my vitamins and meds. And yet my head is stuffed with snot and my lungs just wanna cough and cough and cough.

Yes, I'm calling the doctor tomorrow. I thought -- o, false hope! -- that this one would stay in my snoot and I could treat it with saline spray, Alka Seltzer Cold, and tissues. But now it has dropped right back into my chest, so back to the doctor I go.

This time, however, I trust it will be a regular old doctor appointment instead of a trip to the ER. I am pounding water and juice, believe you me.

By the way, Christmas was stellar, wonderful, and the Best. Christmas. Ever.

Even if I was blowing my nose the whole time.

Better

Today is the first day that I have felt significantly better.

And a good thing too, because the doctor's note I got in the ER says I should be okay to go back to work tomorrow. I am planning on it. I tell ya, being home from work loses its charm when it is accompanied by fever, chills, coughing, aches, and fainting.

The cough is much improved and doesn't hurt. My nose is not stuffy. The fever is gone. The wheezing has lessened. The bruises are still quite sore, but do not get in the way of being awake and functional. I slept pretty well last night. I still get tired very easily and my back is still a mess, but I should be able to be productive at work the rest of the week.

I even made some peppermint bark for a potluck at work tomorrow. (It is ridiculously easy and takes no skill. Honest.)

I probably could have toughed it out at work today, but I thought that one more day would seal the deal. I do not want to go back to work only to get sick all over again. Also, I want to show off my bruises before they fade away.

I also have to be well to take care of Joe. He now has a bad cold, thanks to me.

The Flu Continues

Well, my bruises are blooming nicely. I have five at last count: one knee, two shoulder, one forearm, and one cheek (upper). The knee is the most impressive, but the shoulder hurts worse. The forearm is from the first try at the IV port. The cheek bruise looks like badly applied dark blusher.

My back evidently got torqued up too, because man oh man, it hurts to stand up or sit down or bend down or basically move.

Now I have a problem. Normally I sleep on my left side, but my left lung is the weaker, noisier lung and keeps me from sleeping with its wheezing ways. Okay then, I'll switch it up and sleep on my right side, except sleeping on bruises is not exactly conducive to restful snoozing. Not only that, but moving from left side to right side is full of OW! with the torqued-up back. Oh, and whenever I cough? Double OW.

However, Joe got my scrips filled today, so I am trusting that modern medicine will help -- the albuterol inhaler will lessen the wheezing, the benzonatate will calm the coughing, and the 600 mg ibuprophen will relieve the pain. It would be very nice to get a good, full night's sleep.

There is some improvement, though. My biggest accomplishment of the day has been to take a real, honest-to-God shower. The only thing that could have made that shower better would be if hundred dollar bills came out of the showerhead along with the hot water. A couple days without a good shower makes you appreciate running water and working plumbing, I tell you what. (I also managed to microwave a Stouffer frozen meal for lunch, but that does not involve much actual effort.)

Happy Hospital!

So, I spent most of today in the ER.

Don't panic; I have the flu. And no, I didn't get my flu shot yet this year, because everytime they offered them work I had a conflict, and I just never around to going to Kaiser for it.

That will never happen again, for flu is a holy goddamn bitch.

I spent most of yesterday alternately freezing and sweating, coughed enough that my sides ache, and slept the rest of the time.

Joe woke me with the promise of pancakes and coffee, so I got up. I thought I felt better. I drank most of a cup of coffee and ate half my pancakes when I started feeling quite woozy. "Woozy" - such a descriptive term! Then I had the overwhelming urge to go lie down. I got up, took two steps toward the sofa, and woke up on the floor.

Joe says I simply dropped, like marionnette whose strings were suddenly cut.

I have fainted before, but this was different because I bopped my head. Well, actually, my knee, shoulder, and face. Evidently I kept asking him the same three questions in rotation: Is it Saturday? Did I hit my knee? Do you have to work today? (Believe it or not, this is not my typical behavior.)

Joe put a pillow under my head. At this point I was quite comfortable and would have been perfectly happy to lie there and nap the day away, but Joe had other plans; specifically, calling 911.

I did manage -- with Joe's help -- to get to the sofa before the ambulance arrived. The EMTs were great. I walked -- again with help -- to the ambulance and once again had to lie down for the ride to the ER.

The great thing about going to the ER in an ambulance is you go right on in, yay. No sitting around a waiting room with a bunch of sick people.

Anyone who has ever been to an ER knows that most of the time you spend there -- if you are not in imminent danger of death -- is spent waiting. The nurse got me hooked up to all of the monitors pretty quickly, took a shitpile of blood out of me, and handed me the most important piece of equipment, the TV remote.

But man oh man, that ER room was hot. I was sweatin' up a storm and about as parched as I have ever been. Luckily, my sister came (Joe had called her on the way to the ER) and she had a bottle of water with her. So I sneaked several refreshing gulps of the lifegiving beverage. And I borrowed her chapstick too.

The doc appeared and I fell in love. He listened to my wheezes, he asked great questions, he examined all my bruises (did I mention? -- knee, shoulder, face!), he ordered a CAT scan and a chest x-ray and a nebulizer treatment and an IV.

The CAT scan room, unlike the ER room, was freezing. It felt great. I would have been perfectly happy lying on the CAT scan bed for the rest of the day and night because I was finally cool, delightfully, deliciously cool.

Alas, back to the ER I went, where I had the speedy-uppy nebulizer treatment while a bag of saline solution dripped into my arm.

Dr. Cutestuff came back to tell that my chest x-ray was fine, my CAT scan was fine, my bloodwork was fine, and I had the flu. He gave me scrips for painkiller (knee, shoulder, face), cough medicine, and an inhaler; and wrote out work notes for both Joe (caregiver) and me (sick person).  Score! (Not really.)

So now I'm home and hydrated. And I'm also exhausted, so I am finally going to go lie down.

I Want A Lozenge, Not A Pep Talk

I have been known to read self-help books, to listen to inspirational talks, and even to give a motivational speech.

Right now I have a cold. I'm achey and stuffed up. My head feels like a blivet. I felt it coming on yesterday evening, so I unwrapped a lozenge to soothe my sore throat.

And then I looked at the wrapper.

Yes. My lozenge wants to motivate me. I just want to sleep.

Let Me Sum Up

Since I last updated, I have continued this absurd fixation with taking care of myself. I have walked every single day -- one day I even got off the subway one stop early and took the longer walk up the hill to my office. I also started walking to the subway after work instead of catching the work shuttle.

I know!

I have also lost a smidgeon more weight.

So now that it actually seems like I might keep this nonsense up, I spent the whopping sum of $2.99 on an iPhone Pedometer app that is pretty cool. It maps your route and tells you how far you walked, in steps and miles, and even shows your route on a map. I really like that feature because it showed our route around the lakes in our neighborhood, something I have not been able to do until now.

You can also track your weight, your measurements, and a whole host of other crap that people who are into that sort of thing like to track. I am tracking my weight, but that's it so far.

Lest you think I am going nuts, I will tell you that I baked an apple pie this afternoon. It is cooling even as I type, and I am planning on eating a nice generous slice of it later on.There is no reason to go berzerk on this stuff. (I did use a Splenda/sugar mix instead of all sugar, so I got that goin' for me.)

Last Sunday, on a complete whim, Joe and I went to a Nats game. We had a great time, even though the Nats lost. I sat next to a quite lively little guy -- maybe 8 years old -- and we had a lovely time conversing about the game.

Baseball is fun this year in Washington! My Pop used to take my sister and me to Senators games back in the 60s -- we got one Coke and a bag of peanuts each while he drank beers through the whole game. Sometimes, when we went to double headers, we got a hot dog! Anyway, even then the Nats (they were nicknamed the Nats back then too -- SeNATors, you see) never made the playoffs. When these present day Nats did, I found out that this is the first time since 1933! My parents were married in 1933!

Also reminding me of the 60s -- okay, the late 60s -- was the demonstration outside my office late last week. Yeah. About a hundred people gathered to protest foreclosures, bailouts, homelessness, and various other issues. There was chanting, there were banners and signs, there were even a couple of arrests. All it lacked was the National Guard and tear gas. I felt a wee twinge of nostalgia.

In other news, SonnyeBoy won yet another traffic safety award. He does not consider this to be a big deal and did not even tell us about it! (He nevah writes; he nevah cawls....)

 

One Step At A Time

I started this here blog back in the olden days -- January 1, 2002. I was in the throes of a weight loss program and had already lost 20 pounds.

I'd started losing weight because I'd had a bout of viral meningitis. My blood pressure was sky high (like stroke level high), I had sleep apnea, and my blood sugar was nearing diabetes levels.

I stuck religiously to the diet. I exercised a lot too -- Curves, yoga, and lots and lots and lots of walking. I lost 76 pounds, all told. My blood pressure dropped like a rock, I stopped snoring, and my blood sugar was perfect.

Annnnd then I had hernia surgery. Annnnd then my mom started failing. Annnnd then I developed Meniere's disease. Annnd I stopped exercising and quit eating properly and gained most of weight back.

My blood pressure is high again, and I snore, and my blood sugar finally cracked through into diabetes territory. It's not scary high, but high enough to require pills, as is my blood pressure.

Then the weather turned perfect. I got off the subway one lovely morning last week and, rather than take the bus from the subway to the office, I decided to walk. It felt pretty good. I did that a couple more times last week.

Joe started walking around the little lakes in our neighborhood again. I joined him last weekend, on a whim. We walked Saturday and Sunday.

I started eating a little better. I can't say I'm on a diet, because I'm not. But I have stopped eating a daily candy bar. I've switched from Cokes to water. I'm eating more fruit. And, wonder of wonder miracle of miracles, I've cut back of salt (a little -- no sense going crazy). Just today, I stared down a Goldenberg's Peanut Chews in the vending machine and bought a pack of Juicy Fruit gum instead.

That, my friends, is an achievement. Well, it is for me.

I have walked to work from the subway every day this week. Granted, it's only a mile (if that) a day, but it's a start.

I have even lost a tiny bit of weight.

So... yeah. I've taken the first baby steps back toward reclaiming some level of healthiness. I worked it out -- I do this just about every 10 years, whether I need to or not. I know the fabulous weather won't last, but maybe I can get into this walking thing enough to keep it up. And maybe I can keep on chipping away at my eating habits and change them for the better.

One step at a time. One step at a time.

He May Be 30, But...

When I was in my 30s, married, a mother, and a grown-ass woman, I had appendicitis. After spending the day in the ER, I was admitted to the hospital for surgery that same night. Joe, having spent the whole day with me, went home to take care of SonnyeBoy. He called my Mom to tell her what was going on. She and my Pop were in Ocean City at the time, but as soon as she heard I was in the hospital, having surgery, she grabbed Pop and made him drive all the way to the hospital.

Visiting hours were over by the time they arrived, but that did not deter my mother. She and Pop couldn't find the ER entrance, so they waited at the front door until somebody left, then quickly slipped into the hospital. Somehow Mom bullied her way up to the OR and insisted on seeing me.

Meanwhile, I was lying on the gurney, floating on Demerol, when I heard a nurse say, "It's her parents!" And I knew immediately that it was MY parents she was talking about. Sure enough, Mom got in, made sure I was alive, talked to the surgeon, and then, satisfied that I would probably survive until morning, left.

But I told you all that so I could tell you how unlike my mother I am.

In practice.

In spirit, I am exactly like her.

So last night Joe and I were lounging around the living room watching The Thief of Bagdad on TCM when we both got a text and picture from SonnyeBoy. The text read: 

Guess who won't be going to work for awhile?

And here's the picture:

Well, as soon as I saw that, I grabbed Joe and...

No, I didn't. We did call immediately -- got voicemail, left a message -- and text furiously.

And he did call. He hurt his knee in the line of duty. It's in a soft cast until the swelling goes down, then an orthopedist will determine the actual extent of the damage.

He's got plenty of folks making sure he's okay. I'm sending him a care package shortly.

But I still kinda wanna jump in the car.