Weekly-related grumbles, and illness-related TMI
I've been out of school for more than a week now due to a nasty cold my oh-so-loving sister passed on to me. FUN! Of course this has to happen on my make-up semester, right? I'm just praying I can catch up on the stuff I missed.
(Our computer recently kicked the bucket too, so I haven't had a lot of opportunity to get online. Luckily, Nicole - that's my sis, for the uninitiated - has a new boytoy friend, Steven, who lent us a computer to use for a while. Which is how I'm online now.)
I managed to get into the school Friday to cover the Open House 2007 and Skills City I signed up to cover a few weeks back. Friday was also production day, so that's a bit of a crunch, but I figured I'd do better covering and writing a story on the same day it went into the paper than I would getting a week or so to dick around and NOT write a story.
Barkley says of managing ADHD - bring the task and the reward/consequences closer together. So that's what I did.
I MUSTA bin crazy!
I don't know if anything could have driven me more nuts than sitting in the Mac lab listening to my instructors/editors harp that they were waiting "for copy." Yes, I'm AWARE that you're waiting for copy! I'm WRITING the copy; nagging doesn't get it done faster, especially when you add MORE copy for me to write! (A hole on the back page ended up requiring them to ask me to write 100-120 words about the photos on the page...photos I didn't take, and knew next-to-nothing about, mind.)
The worst thing EVER for my working state of mind is people agitating in my ear that they would like my work done TEN MINUTES AGO, plzkthanx.
AAAARRRGGHH! *kills*
Then, over the weekend, I got sick, sicker, sickest!
I made it in to work both days, although I was annoyed at the necessity of being on till. Times when I REALLY wish I were a better kitchen worker... I adore being the one who is expected the handle the greatest load of customers when I'm hacking my lungs out, and my nose is running like Niagara Falls.
"This is the wet, snotty stage of this," I informed one of my coworkers, in the midst of a nose-blowing session. She thought that was gross for some reason. Hmm.
Sunday night, I crawled into bed while listening fearfully to the whistling of air through my passageways, particularly between coughs. I mean, it sounded like I had a leetle tiny person sitting inside my chest and trying to steal my air by breathing in at the same time I did, except that they gave themselves away by being half a breath off! Haha, can't fool me!
I couldn't find much useful in my copy of The Good Doctor's Guide to Colds and Flu, except for this note in the "Individual Needs, Individual Solutions" chapter:
Asthma often causes a severe cough, and an additional infection can make a bad situation worse. To provide relief, I often prescribe additional bronchodilators as well as cough suppressants that include dextromethorphan or codeine. It is occasionally necessary to use corticosteriod spray for several weeks to break the asthma/cough cycle.
...Which, while not immediately relevant to the wheezing, brought me to the thought that I should probably start up the QVAR for the next few weeks; and perhaps I ought to go grab a rescue inhaler - first to take a dose, and then to keep beside me in bed.
Which is about the point I passed out.
Typical.
I didn't go to school Monday - in fact, my recollections of Monday mostly include:
-My mother briefly trying to wake me and asking if I was going to class, which I think got some sort of, "Hell, NO," response.
-My mother letting me know that she needs some extra time to repair the rip in the knee of my work pants, and don't I have another pair? I do.
I woke up for real around 9:30 pm on Monday, and managed to:
1) Have a shower.
2) Eat half a bowl of chicken-and-rice soup and drink half a cup of hot chocolate.
3) VOMIT MY BRAINS OUT.
4) Eat the rest of said soup, and drink the rest of the hot chocolate.
Activity 3) was the most fun, preceded by non-stop, escalating coughing. I knew what was coming, so I got into the bathroom and hung my sorry head over the bowl. The first stream was clear and easy...the second a little more work...I had time in between to rinse my mouth and contemplate my reflection. DAMN, do I need a haircut.
Then the heaving started in earnest. Crap, it's a good thing that I puke so rarely. I was eager at the beginning of this illness to get to the puking stage and get it all over and done with, but if I'd had a clear memory of the foul-tasting expulsions of brown liquid and yellow clumps of guck, I think I might have felt differently.
I went back to bed after finishing my soup. (Hey, why waste it, y'know?) Got up briefly this morning to call my boss, Diane, and let her know I wouldn't be in. She wasn't thrilled, to say the least, especially since my aunt Krista is having issues with kidney stones. ("Krista already called in; you guys are leaving me with nobody!") I pointed out that she most likely did NOT want me to come in, because I was throwing up, and that's something I think the Health Board would frown on. I got a very load sigh in a tone I can't quite describe - angry and exasperated and frustrated and something else all at once. It was that tone which prompted me to say, "Sorry," immediately after, "'Bye," which bugs me, because really, what do I have to say sorry for?! This bitch has overworked me for MONTHS.
Tried to eat some breakfast (eggs, waffles, salted peas...what?), which was shortly thereafter followed by MORE PUKING, yeehaw.
More hanging over the bowl and wondering about the strange and amazing noises we make when we yawn in technicolor. More contemplation of rigid stomach muscles, painfully bent neck and the crazy sensation of being frozen in one endless, endless second in time with every cell locked in a position of supplication to angry, vengeful gods.
And lots more brown and yellow gunk. Sigh. The best part was blowing my nose afterward, and blowing PEAS out of my NOSE. I mean, what?!
After all that, I was fearful to try eating dinner this evening, but the fish I had seems to be staying down, and the wheezing seems to be gone, or at least has quieted way down. On the "boo" side, my ears are very plugged. Boo. But, failing a developing ear infection, I seem to be mostly over this.
Oh, and since I'm NOT at work, I at least get to watch House, M.D. in person tonight; this is the first Tuesday I've been scheduled in a LONG while, and I was sad that I would have to tape it and possibly even risk missing it if the tape malfunctioned. But I'm home, so...
Oooooh, American Idol just started!
HOUSE IN AN HOUR, HOUSE IN AN HOUR, HOUSE IN AN HOUR!
(Our computer recently kicked the bucket too, so I haven't had a lot of opportunity to get online. Luckily, Nicole - that's my sis, for the uninitiated - has a new boytoy friend, Steven, who lent us a computer to use for a while. Which is how I'm online now.)
I managed to get into the school Friday to cover the Open House 2007 and Skills City I signed up to cover a few weeks back. Friday was also production day, so that's a bit of a crunch, but I figured I'd do better covering and writing a story on the same day it went into the paper than I would getting a week or so to dick around and NOT write a story.
Barkley says of managing ADHD - bring the task and the reward/consequences closer together. So that's what I did.
I MUSTA bin crazy!
I don't know if anything could have driven me more nuts than sitting in the Mac lab listening to my instructors/editors harp that they were waiting "for copy." Yes, I'm AWARE that you're waiting for copy! I'm WRITING the copy; nagging doesn't get it done faster, especially when you add MORE copy for me to write! (A hole on the back page ended up requiring them to ask me to write 100-120 words about the photos on the page...photos I didn't take, and knew next-to-nothing about, mind.)
The worst thing EVER for my working state of mind is people agitating in my ear that they would like my work done TEN MINUTES AGO, plzkthanx.
AAAARRRGGHH! *kills*
Then, over the weekend, I got sick, sicker, sickest!
I made it in to work both days, although I was annoyed at the necessity of being on till. Times when I REALLY wish I were a better kitchen worker... I adore being the one who is expected the handle the greatest load of customers when I'm hacking my lungs out, and my nose is running like Niagara Falls.
"This is the wet, snotty stage of this," I informed one of my coworkers, in the midst of a nose-blowing session. She thought that was gross for some reason. Hmm.
Sunday night, I crawled into bed while listening fearfully to the whistling of air through my passageways, particularly between coughs. I mean, it sounded like I had a leetle tiny person sitting inside my chest and trying to steal my air by breathing in at the same time I did, except that they gave themselves away by being half a breath off! Haha, can't fool me!
I couldn't find much useful in my copy of The Good Doctor's Guide to Colds and Flu, except for this note in the "Individual Needs, Individual Solutions" chapter:
Asthma often causes a severe cough, and an additional infection can make a bad situation worse. To provide relief, I often prescribe additional bronchodilators as well as cough suppressants that include dextromethorphan or codeine. It is occasionally necessary to use corticosteriod spray for several weeks to break the asthma/cough cycle.
...Which, while not immediately relevant to the wheezing, brought me to the thought that I should probably start up the QVAR for the next few weeks; and perhaps I ought to go grab a rescue inhaler - first to take a dose, and then to keep beside me in bed.
Which is about the point I passed out.
Typical.
I didn't go to school Monday - in fact, my recollections of Monday mostly include:
-My mother briefly trying to wake me and asking if I was going to class, which I think got some sort of, "Hell, NO," response.
-My mother letting me know that she needs some extra time to repair the rip in the knee of my work pants, and don't I have another pair? I do.
I woke up for real around 9:30 pm on Monday, and managed to:
1) Have a shower.
2) Eat half a bowl of chicken-and-rice soup and drink half a cup of hot chocolate.
3) VOMIT MY BRAINS OUT.
4) Eat the rest of said soup, and drink the rest of the hot chocolate.
Activity 3) was the most fun, preceded by non-stop, escalating coughing. I knew what was coming, so I got into the bathroom and hung my sorry head over the bowl. The first stream was clear and easy...the second a little more work...I had time in between to rinse my mouth and contemplate my reflection. DAMN, do I need a haircut.
Then the heaving started in earnest. Crap, it's a good thing that I puke so rarely. I was eager at the beginning of this illness to get to the puking stage and get it all over and done with, but if I'd had a clear memory of the foul-tasting expulsions of brown liquid and yellow clumps of guck, I think I might have felt differently.
I went back to bed after finishing my soup. (Hey, why waste it, y'know?) Got up briefly this morning to call my boss, Diane, and let her know I wouldn't be in. She wasn't thrilled, to say the least, especially since my aunt Krista is having issues with kidney stones. ("Krista already called in; you guys are leaving me with nobody!") I pointed out that she most likely did NOT want me to come in, because I was throwing up, and that's something I think the Health Board would frown on. I got a very load sigh in a tone I can't quite describe - angry and exasperated and frustrated and something else all at once. It was that tone which prompted me to say, "Sorry," immediately after, "'Bye," which bugs me, because really, what do I have to say sorry for?! This bitch has overworked me for MONTHS.
Tried to eat some breakfast (eggs, waffles, salted peas...what?), which was shortly thereafter followed by MORE PUKING, yeehaw.
More hanging over the bowl and wondering about the strange and amazing noises we make when we yawn in technicolor. More contemplation of rigid stomach muscles, painfully bent neck and the crazy sensation of being frozen in one endless, endless second in time with every cell locked in a position of supplication to angry, vengeful gods.
And lots more brown and yellow gunk. Sigh. The best part was blowing my nose afterward, and blowing PEAS out of my NOSE. I mean, what?!
After all that, I was fearful to try eating dinner this evening, but the fish I had seems to be staying down, and the wheezing seems to be gone, or at least has quieted way down. On the "boo" side, my ears are very plugged. Boo. But, failing a developing ear infection, I seem to be mostly over this.
Oh, and since I'm NOT at work, I at least get to watch House, M.D. in person tonight; this is the first Tuesday I've been scheduled in a LONG while, and I was sad that I would have to tape it and possibly even risk missing it if the tape malfunctioned. But I'm home, so...
Oooooh, American Idol just started!
HOUSE IN AN HOUR, HOUSE IN AN HOUR, HOUSE IN AN HOUR!