Dodging a Bullet

I usually post for New Year's but instead I’ve been incommunicado. Or rather, I’ve been sick. Sick and terrified that it would keep me out of the marathon, which is less than two weeks away. I figured if I didn't say it, it wouldn't be so.

It started when I spiked a fever Sunday night, completely out of the blue. The heat and chills, joint and sinus pain were bad, but what scared me was the cough. Once something settles into my lungs, I’m out of commission for up to a month, easy, and it wouldn't be the first or second time a bout with bronchitis kept me from the marathon at the last minute.

Holidays are a sucky time to be sick since the doctors are all on vacation, so for three days I fended for myself, dosing myself with every vitamin and herbal I had in my home arsenal and putting an extra clove of garlic into every bowl of soup. I ran a fever nearly the entire time, dripped and sneezed like mad, and am expecting my thank-you note from the Kleenex Corporation any day now for all the product I used.

Luckily the lung congestion turned out to be non-sticky in nature, and by today I was pretty sure it was only my sinuses that were the problem. And I do mean problem. It's no fun to wake up at 4 am feeling like your eyes and brain are about to pop out of your skull from your head being squeezed in a vise. It's the sort of pain that makes you want to cry, but since you know crying will make it worse, you don't. No bravery, just pure self-preservation.

I went to the doctor today and she confirmed I had a sinus infection and gave me meds. She also said my lungs were on the mend and to keep doing what I was doing. Yay! She gave me pain meds for the next couple days so I can sleep while the antibiotics get a handle on my sinuses, which is a relief-- no more waking up at 4 am and wishing someone would just beat my brains out and get it over with.

Since my temp has been normal since mid-morning today, I guess that means I can’t stay out another day from work. I would dearly like to and I think it would hasten my recovery, but I’ve only got one other person on my team this week because I let the other two have extended Christmas/New Year vacations. Dumb move in retrospect, but I was operating on the assumption that I would be there since I’m almost never sick, and even more rarely am I too sick to go to the office. I don’t believe in managing by exception, so. . .

At any rate, I’m feeling much better tonight and I might even go to the gym tomorrow after work and walk or do light elliptical work. It’s scary how you can get so used to being active that you feel bad when you’re not.

Here’s to dodging a bullet, and to a healthy 2008!

Grumpy and Paranoid

Dan is sick and I'm a nervous wreck. I cringe every time he coughs, I run around after him sterilizing light switches and doorknobs over and over. He kept rearranging things in the grocery cart tonight until I felt like screaming, "Quit TOUCHING everything!!!"

I'm four weeks from the marathon and if I get a chest cold now, it's a good possibility that it'll turn into bronchitis and I won't be over it on marathon day. It'll be $100 down the drain if I can't make the race.

This is the main reason why every year I say I'll never sign up for the Houston Marathon again. December and early January are inevitably a time when I'm surrounded by sick people at work and at home and I can't enjoy the season because I'm so busy avoiding people and trying not to touch anything.

Maybe I'll go be a hermit in my studio apartment for the next month.