I woke up on Wednesday (a week ago) with a sore throat painful enough that I could not get back to sleep. I suffered through work and crashed early. It didn't clear up. I struggled through the rest of the week on TheraFlu and Sucrets.

I did the Dim Sum thing on Saturday, made it through the movie, a quick mission of mercy to the_malum and then crashed all day Sunday. At some point on Sunday, a cough decided to settle in.

Monday, I was still iffy about going to work, but decided I'd see how it went, and head home at noon if I felt awful. Well, I felt awful, but we were short-staffed, so I toughed it out, then went home and put myself straight to bed. Twelve hours of sleep later, I felt only marginally better, but didn't want to call in sick in case we were understaffed again. I wound up skipping lunch, and talked Boss into letting me leave an hour early so I could visit the doctor's office. The doc told me, yeah, there's some inflammation and gave me a scrip for azithromycin and told me to gargle with salt water. We'll see how that goes.

The results of salt water gargling this morning were too gross to describe in detail, but seemed productive. All week I've been incredibly hoarse (I sound like a lifetime smoker). I think I may start answering the phone as "Inga" and be horrible to everyone. Next week I can say we fired her.

Oh, hey, quickie PSA, if you felt the midwest earthquake today, you should go to the GSPS and report what you experienced.

In other news, the sore throat is slightly less painful, but otherwise my cold lingers on. Feh. I hate being sick.

Sometimes when I am not feeling well, I find that metabolic resources that would normally be allocated to, say, brainpower, get diverted to prop up my immune system.

So, a minute ago I looked out the kitchen window. The curb was on an angle relative to the window frame. And I felt dizzy. Like the world was tilting.

Because apparently my immune system boots up like Photoshop. I suppose I should be glad to know it's running...

First, the random:

Munchkinry is universal - It's one of those fake motivator posters, but the content is priceless.

dance of the flight attendant - just kind of pretty.

Skyrates - it's a web based trading game in beta. Kind of addictive actually. Furries flying planes!

Government Bureau of Superheroics - because.

Pan's Labrynth

Also, I'd like to see Pan's Labrynth this weekend. It got a 99% on Rotten Tomatoes.

It's mostly playing in NYC, which is fine, because I want to see it with my friend Y, who technically lives in Brooklyn now instead of Manhattan (the horror!).

I don't know what day we'll be doing this (see next section), but I do have other friends in that general direction who might be interested, and if folks are interested, maybe something could be coordinated.

Surgery and Mr. King conspire to give me a 4-day weekend.

I'll be going in at 8am tomorrow to have a rod of titanium drilled into my jaw. Hooray. This will incapacitate me for most of Friday, I expect. Saturday will be a harder sell. I might be up for stuff on Saturday, I might not.

Sunday is cool, though, and I have Monday off for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. I don't know if everyone else does, though.

ellindsey wanted to see Children of Men at some point.

It's playing in the area now.

Westfield, maybe? Given the parameters in the section above...

Seems fortunate that my oral surgeon has my work number. Their office called to ask if I could come in on Friday at 8am instead of 10am, and I was all "I have to what when now? What?" I made an appointment to have them pop an implant in a few months ago - usually I always drop these things right into my google calendar, and apparently I spaced.

It's not too bad. I told them to dispense with the general anesthesia, so I can drive myself to and from. (I don't know where I'd find someone to take a day off from work to drive me anyway). I had them put me under for previous work because they involved multiple implants or extractions, which I hate. I can stand to be awake for just one post.

I feel nine kinds of discombobulated now. I'll deal. And, I guess I kind of have a four day weekend coming up. Weird.

So, the reschedule is due to a death in the family for the surgeon. Is it weird to pick up a condolence card when you don't actually know who died?

As I was heading back to my car after work, I got a call from the doctor's office. It seems the doctor saw my x-rays, scrawled something in the corner about a cluster in the upper right quadrant, and wants to try a different antibiotic. So now I have ten days of Levaquin.

So apparently the theory now is that it is too bacterial, but a resistant strain.

Incidentally, I did a little web-research and found my favorite warning ever:

Avoid exposure to sunlight or artificial UV rays (sunlamps or tanning beds). Levaquin can make your skin more sensitive to sunlight ... Use a sunscreen (minimum SPF 15) and wear protective clothing if you must be out in the sun.

This stuff turns you into a vampire! How cool is that?

So, since the cough still hadn't gone away, I went back to see the doctor again today.

The nurse opined it's something viral. The doctor ordered bloodwork (taken in office) and a chest x-ray (which I got done after work) and a methylprednisolone dosepak (which I filled after I hit the x-ray place). I also picked up some guaifenesin on general principles. The Medrol pak is a card with some of the most convoluted instructions. But we'll see how it goes. The doc should have my xray and bloodwork results early next week.

Part of me thinks this is a total overreaction. On the other hand, a month is way too long to have clogged lungs.

Last Friday I went to see the doctor and he gave me a scrip for those antibiotics that come on a little card and that if that didn't work I could come back for xrays.

They didn't work. So I have an appointment to see the doc again tomorrow.

When I was little, I had the croup, which is about as sick as I ever remember being as a kid. Always after that I associated deep coughs with that. I remember worrying as a kid anytime I had a full-lung cough. What I have now is coming from the lower lobes of the lungs, which is lower than where croup resides, but the whole-chest-vibrating thing still reminds me of that time as a kid.

Except of course for there being nothing really wrong with me except the cough. Between spasms I feel fine. It's more annoying than incapacitating, really. It's just been going on way too long.

Clearly Mom should have kept the receipt for these lungs, cause they need to be exchanged for a pair that aren't defective! Oh, who am I kidding? I probably voided the warrantee in there somewhere. At least I can be one of those rambly old people who goes on about minor ailments.

Remember how I went home sick a couple of weeks ago. Well, I'm still coughing. Which, given I wasn't feeling well that whole week, puts me at three weeks of this. It's not horribly incapacitating, but it's also not getting any better.

My health plan has a free nurseline, so I tried the IM interface yesterday, on account of not wanting the whole office to listen to me describe my symptoms, thankyouverymuch. It turns out all the "real live nurse" on the chat can only (a) give general informational links (yes, I know what a cough is!) and (b) tell you to call the toll-free number to talk to a real live nurse. So I waited until the nearest cubicle inhabitants went home and called the nice lady at the line, who ran me down a whole huge list of alarming symptoms I don't have (no shortness of breath, no vomiting, no strange brown sputum, no blackouts where you wake up over a dead body wondering how it got there, etc.) but agreed that three weeks of a cough is a bit much and I should see an actual in-person doctor.

So I made an appointment and nipped over to see the nice doc over lunch. He also agreed three weeks of a cough is a bit much, did the stethoscope-on-the-back thing and told me I have goop in the lower lungs. He gave me a scrip for an anti-biotic, and said if it's not better after that to come back and he'll send me out for x-rays.

So, in summation, *Hack!* *cough*.

• A beautiful little cartoon about a kiwi bird. (Quicktime)
  (Alternate Youtube link. )

No, really. This is adorable.

In other news, I feel mildly like crap. I am considering going home. I really only feel mildly like crap, but it's clear that I am not just tired, but having the first edge of something. Right now, it's just watery eyes, achey/tiredness, and an intermittent dry cough. It's really nowhere near the "too sick to work" level. Really. And it might go away without worsening. (Or it might get worse - no way to tell.)

Poll #868183 Should I Go Home?
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

If So, When Should I Go Home?

For one thing, I am feeling a little better, but I also just clocked my temperature at 99.7. It's a new record!

That's not really why I am going to hell, though.

It's because I just saw an ad for this on tv:

In case you cannot see the image, it's a commemorative coin where you can make a little 'twin towers' popup.

All I could think is that you need to take a catapult and fire this quarter:

to see if it can knock over the popup.

I am now officially going to hell.

So, last night, I threw one of my caps (fake teeth). It was positioned such that I was not willing to go to work without a reglue.

So, I called the dentist this morning and realized he does not work most Wednesdays. I called the emergency number, but pretty much resigned myself to waiting for the 7:30am appointment I had tomorrow anyway. I emailed work to say I was going to be out sick.

Turns out my dentist was going to be in town for errands of his own and had me come in. All is stable again. So, I got lunch and made it in at noon.

Then I had to go to all the folks I emailed to tell them it was just a fake-out. My boss had already logged me a sick day (we do not have fractional sick days), so we are going to count my surgery next Tuesday against it. Which means I don't need to use up a personal day for my surgery.

I'm not sure whether to file this under "You could have taken the rest of the day off, you fool" or "Alls well that ends well."

DexCon kind of tanked for me this year, but all for things that were pretty much my fault, so there's not much to complain about. Mostly it was a combination of being sick, having one of my rare episodes of really bad menstrual cramps. None of my games actually ran, mostly making me feel guilty that I didn't recruit harder. If I'd felt better, I could probably have dragooned passers by.

I did put together a quickie livejournal account for thejennychannel so I'll have a place to drop programming when I have it ready (and, of course, have the equipment and place to broadcast to officially in character.

Well, there's always Southern Exposure. I had enough Avatar players interested in reprising the Hellenback games (just not at the same sessions!) it's likely to be worth it. Now I just need to decide how much, if any, time off I'll be taking for SE. Cherry Hill is too far for me do do the Thursday evening commute.

The tag end of this cold thing is still hanging on, but really only by a thread. It really needs to be done already.

I picked up Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on my way back from the con and finished it early Tuesday. I rather liked it. At least, I liked it better than book 6. Rowling still needs to edit down and tighten a bit, but I've never seen a popular book series that didn't have that problem at this stage. When there's deadline and marketing pressure, and a certain level of sales are guaranteed, it's extra hard to go back and do that last traumatic edit where you butcher your dearest darling down to a smoother pace and svelter profile.

I have no trauma from the Big Character Death, but then, I didn't last book either. I had a little fun watching the fannish trauma via Fandom Wank though.

Sky High comes out next Firday, the 29th. Any takers on an expedition?

I've been far too busy to post updates, so here's an aggregate.

I'm still a little sick, although this time 95% better. I was at 80% friday night, and then woke up Saturday coughing up phlegm bunnies, darnit. That killed the weekend and wednesday night plans. Sorry to those who expected to see me at DexCon last night.

I have to be at DexCon tonight, though - I have a game on the schedule! And then I go home and go to work tomorrow.

Speaking of work, my boss put in her two weeks notice yesterday. This is good for her, but means a lot of crap is going to roll farther downhill. We'll see.

Oh, also, White Wolf seems to have retracted their new LARP policy.

Feh. Braaaiiins.

ETA: I actually kind of feel like crap. I don't think it's primarily the lack of sleep thing. I think it's the combo of the fact that I just started a multivitamin with Iron in it and had a big cup of coffee this morning. It's making me queasy. Plus I have the leading edge of that flu that's been decimating the office. I am generally too responsible to ditch, especially for something totally voluntary like staying out late (I'm the sort of person who wouldn't take a sick day for a hangover either, if I were the sort of person who drank enough to really ever get hangovers). That's why I am here rather than taking the sleep-in-day so many of my friends did. The quaesy will probably go away if I get more food in my stomach over lunch (I had breakfast with the vitamin, but maybe it was not enough). I have casually mentioned to my cubicle neighbor and boss that I feel queasy and that it might be "food poisoning" (well, it is, kind of...). So, here's a poll for you all:

Do I ditch?

The cold making the rounds of the office is of the head-cold-becomes-chest cold variety. As we know from my last post, my cubicle neighbor is a carrier.

This afternoon, I started coughing a little - just some dry throat. And I feel kind of tired and achey.

The thing is, by the pattern of things, I should be sniffly *before* coughing, and I don't really feel congested, and, thanks to schedule and stress, I'm tired all the time lately.

So the big question is, am I or am I not coming down with this thing...

The scene, this morning: My cubicle neighbor, M, was out sick monday and yesterday and today has been snorting like a bull thanks to nasal congenstion. As I worked, I heard snuffling and snorting. And then more snorting. I looked around my desk and took a paper towel off of the stack I keep there for small spills and toss it over the wall. There's a moment of silence, and then... "Thank you."

Later in the day, as I perambulated on an errand, I stopped to chat and he mentioned how scratchy those things are (not a complaint aimed at me, just conversational.

So, I hit the grocery store at lunch to pick up more water, and picked up a cube of "anti-viral Kleenex" using my store cupon. M tried not to accept them because he's uncomfortable with generosity or something. I pointed out that by giving those to him I was (a) going to have to listen to less snorting and (b) hopefully make him less contageous. Let's hear it for enlightened self-interest!

Throughout the trip to New Mexico, by father's wife was suffering through a nasty chest cold that had turned to bronchitis. I boarded the plane on Saturday, falsely confident in the fact that I was showing no symptoms.

I should be so lucky. My chest feels like it is lined with wet felt and I've been noticing the fatigue/lightheadedness that says that metabolic energy is being diverted to the immune system. I also started coughing a little at lunch.

It's not so bad, yet. I'm more woozy than feeling much actual discomfort. But phooey, phooey, phooey!!! I don't wanna be sick!!

Other than the stealth attack of the germs, the visit to New Mexico was quite nice. I don't get to see my Dad so much anymore, so it was nice to get some time together. Thanksgiving was nice. Dad and R hosted several area friends, with whom I got along adequately, for strangers. My primary culinary contribution was stirring pan gravy (mmm... pan gravy!).