So it continues . . .

All week I've been out of school. I've been gone so much that to return I now need a note from my doctor saying I'm healthy enough to return.

And the doctor has weighed in after I finally gave in WENT to the emergency clinic. (Truth: Hubby dragged me to the clinic under my fierce protest!)

It's viral, not bacterial. This means there's really nothing much any medication can do to cure me. (I knew this going in -- which is why I resisted going to the emergency clinic). It's just requires time and sleep and lots of fluid.

I can't take antihistamines because they wire me to the point where I can't sleep. I can take very intensive cough syrup filled with codeine -- and though I always believed codeine made me sick to my stomach, in cough syrup it gives just enough soothing relief to put me to sleep for 45 minutes or so. I love my new cough syrup! I also now have a prescription nasal spray, which really does next to nothing. I also have my "Cold and Cough" over the counter meds but like the nasal spray doesn't seem to bring much relief.

And I have pink eye -- in both eyes. I look really "cute." I haven't washed my hair in over a week -- and because me head has hurt so badly, I've been pulling on the top of my head so that my hair stands up by itself into a Mohawk. It can't be combed down at this stage. (To go to the clinic I had to find a hat).

However, today, I actually managed to have a coherent thought -- maybe even two. I fixed Hubby a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch along with some heated up stew I'd made last week -- and tried one for myself but the dogs got it when I found swallowing still to much of an effort. I honestly haven't had anything other than Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup in a week. The Diet 7-Up and I keep each other company everywhere I go.

I even managed to recharge the Kindle because it occurred to me I might be able to read tomorrow. So far, for the last two weeks, I've done nothing but watch weird TV -- and since sleeping has been very problematic, I can tell you that at 3:45 a.m. all 287-DISH network channels have nothing on worth watching.

The clinic says they'd seen a lot of cases like mine. Be careful out there -- this "virus" is vicious.

Unbelievable

At the start of this week I was finally beginning to make a real recovery from the head / chest / congestion / virus that afflicted me all during December and into the start of the new year. However, Hubby came down with it -- something I was dreading due to his congestive heart failure.

He's been sick -- but only as sick as the rest of us who have had it. He had better days than some. He spends every other day mostly sleeping through the day until he can't stand being in the house any longer. Then he ventures forth with the doggies, usually to return bathed in sweat in a couple of hours.

On Monday, I actually felt nearly normal. Tuesday was pretty good, too -- but Tuesday night I felt my throat begin to tighten.

We figure Hubby coughed / sneezed into my tuna salad sandwich and sure enough, I got up on Wednesday with a croaking voice and a miserable sore throat.

I've been telling everyone that this round is not nearly as bad as the one in December. But last night the virus proved me a big fat liar. Today my temperature went just over 101. Last night was so bad, I actually prayed that I could make it through the night. Food will not go down. Even swallowing my favorite diet soda is an effort.

I took Thursday and Friday off from school -- and we have Monday as the Martin Luther holiday, but honestly, I'm beginning to be bereft of any hope that I will be healthy before spring rolls around.

One round was really bad. This round just isn't fair. I only got three days of feeling near normal! (whine) But I don't have the energy to complain much. I just want my head to clear out, my throat to stop hurting, my chest to un-congest, and the sweats to go away.

This is about as bad as anything I can ever remember. Sick. Sick. Sick. Sick. Sick.

We're not getting better . . .

It's the flu -- the same one that nearly killed me late last winter.

We have the frickin' flu! in July / August!

We are both running temperatures of 101.8. We have aches, pains, chills, sweats, and worst of all -- our faces are full of snot in every single cavity (ears, eyes, noses, sinus, glands). We can neither lay down -- nor sit up! We are simply balls of complete and utter misery.

We are soooo sick

And we've had this damn flu already! How did we get it in mid-summer AGAIN?

However, a huge shout-out to my friend Fran. Last Sunday Hubby avoided church because he was too sick to go (this has happened three times? in our 10 years there -- and one of those was because of the aneurysm) but we knew that no one was going to show up today to sing -- or play for the service. So . . . Hubby dragged out of bed and I managed to go with him. Let me tell you, we were not exactly appreciated by anybody. One look at me and everyone said things like, "Oh my god you need to go home . . . you are so pale . . . you look terrible . . . nobody wants to see you like this . . ."

But I played through the hymns for practice and was sitting in my choir chair when I looked up and say my friend, and our old accompanist, Fran, settling into her pew. By the time I got to her, she didn't say anything to me -- just looked at me -- and stood up to hug me -- the only person to touch me all day. I cried. Well, the bad right eye wept more than it had before (another symptom of the facial misery) and the left eye had real tears.

So Fran played the service. Will didn't need to sing -- he couldn't actually -- and Fran, without complaining or telling us how "stupid" we were, simply supported and showed love and gave of herself. And played like an angel.

It's so good to have a friend who will come through for you -- and hug you at the same time. Thank you, Fran.

Bad Back

Last Monday while doing research for Tuesday's curriculum workshop, I sat for four hours in at my computer in my favorite, and very comfortable, computer chair. When I went to stand up, my back rebelled.

In the late 1980's I collapsed the last two vertebrae in my spine and have suffered a lot of back pain since. This pain wasn't as awful as that, but darned close.

I spent Tuesday in utter misery until I found the oxyocodone in the medicine cabinet -- left over from the gouty big toe. By Wednesday I was throwing up every meal but that was better than the back pain which had, by then spread down my right leg to my knee.

Friday I had the annual physical with the doctor to get all the meds renewed for the year and she thought I was having back spasms. She prescribed a lovely muscle relaxer that replaced the oxyocodone and at least allowed me to eat.

From Tuesday afternoon until today I have been in bed, trying my best not to move at all so that damn pain would not eat me alive. Today I'm finally marginally better. This sucks.