Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Shut in day #4 - Monday, Feb 15th, 2010

I’ve spent most of the weekend shut in.  I’ve had a sore throat since Wednesday, and it has gotten progressively worse.  In the wee hours of this morning, I awoke in such pain that I resorted to using lozenges.  They worked like magic, and I was able to fall back asleep quickly.  If not for the dehydration causing me to drink like a camel and pee every couple of hours all night long, I may have had a full night’s sleep that night.   I slept plenty Saturday night and yesterday morning, when the phlegm was coming out of my chest.  I braved a trip to the Super Longs, which is now a giant CVS, to exchange a biodegradable plant pot that had mysteriously burst overnight.  I had two coughing fits in the 20 minutes I spent there.  I came back home directly.  Once home, I was so bored that I cooked all the vegetables I’d been neglecting.  After that, I treated myself to a hot shower, cold medicine and cartoons in bed.  I almost got bored enough to go out to SF.  Thankfully, I did not.  I can’t imagine how much worse I’d feel today.
Whatever this illness is, I believe it has come to its precipice.  I feel worn down.  I pity myself.  I’m hoping that this is not another bout of recurring strep throat like the one I had last year.  I have been taking good care to get enough rest, take my vitamins and exercise regularly, so it really wouldn’t make sense.  However, this was the same time of year that I got it last year – right around Super Bowl weekend.  It would be an eerie coincidence.  I’m going to schedule an urgent appointment tomorrow to get swabbed just in case.  However, I hope this is just a bug that finally begins to clear up over the course of the next 24-48 hours.  I’ve suffered with it long enough, and I am so tired of disinfecting every damn thing around here.
Although I have never been a big fan of running, I do miss the endorphins.  I ran on Thursday and Friday as scheduled.  I would have run yesterday too if it wasn’t for the excruciating coughing.  Saturday was my official day off from working out, but I probably would have gone to 24 Hour if I felt better.  Today is also a day off from running, but I would normally be doing Zumba.  I can’t wait to get back in the gym.  I miss the good sweat.  To hell with this sickly fevered sweat!  I am soooo done with being sick.  I wonder if you can overdose on vitamin C.
The few trips I’ve had out of the apartment haven’t been much more than the normal errands.  I treated myself to a houseplant shopping trip with the money I would have spent at the clubs.  It isn’t much on the bar scale, but it buys a fair amount of plants and plant care supplies.  I got this one hanging plant that has these furry red blooms - a chenille plant. 
I freaked myself out a few times with it already, mistaking the blooms that had fallen to the floor for caterpillars when I stepped lightly on them.  My skin crawled for hours afterwards.  I snickered about it a little at the time, but it’s so much funnier now.  I also went on “gnat watch” for several hours during my shut in time.  If one of those little bastards makes a home in one of my plant pots, there’ll be hundreds of them in a week’s time.  I’ve been to places where the insects are blood-thirsty, enormous, poisonous and in overwhelming numbers, but I can’t stand to have them in the house.  An ant or two foraging in vain is one thing, a billion gnats procreating in my plant pot is an entirely different matter.  That used to happen to my plants at work all the time.  It’s absolutely disgusting.
I retrieved a bunch of vacant pots from mom’s yard on Friday.  They’re nice pots – I purchased them for my last apartment.  When I moved back home, most of my indoor plants died; Mom’s house isn’t exactly a haven for plants.  It’s dark, dry and dusty.  I rescued two of the survivors when I brought the pots over.  They seem to be doing well now.  One of them is a money tree that was barely surviving.  I’ll have to wait and see how well it recovers.   I dare say that all the new guys appear very pleased.  This apartment has great light.
It is so boring.  I haven’t journaled so much since high school.  What I need to do is grab that guitar out of the closet, but I feel so damned terrible.  I just want to lie down and sleep until I’m not sick anymore.

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