Tag: colds

The vacation cold

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The Little Man has been sick with an ear infection, which entails fevers and some whining, but otherwise, he is a very good sick little boy. In fact, looking at him, you couldn’t tell that he’s even sick. He’s cheerful, happy, playful. All the things I am not when I am sick.

I have managed to contract a vacation cold. It’s not a terrible cold, but it’s mildly annoying and I am not a very good sick person. When I am sick, I want to be alone, locked in a room somewhere until I recover. I’m trying to be better about this and this cold that I have isn’t a particularly bad one (yet!). But when I have a few sniffles and the Little Man is dealing with fevers and aching ears and running noses, the contrast in our behaviors really stands out and I feel somewhat ashamed of myself.

I spend the night on the couch last night to avoid transferring the cold to Kelly and I feel okay this morning, but I am trying to take a page out of the Little Man’s book and remain cheerful, happy, and playful, despite my malaise.

Sick day

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I was sick on Friday and forced myself to stick it out at work because my boss was in town and I had two meetings that I absolutely had to attend. I felt pretty lousy for much of the weekend, and although I felt somewhat better this morning, I think one more day would help to get over this thing as quickly as possible. So I took a sick day, but I’ve still been up since 5:30 AM trying to get various little things done here and there.

I’m about 4,000 words behind the curve on NaNoWriMo and I’m going to use some of the day today to make that up, get back on track, or even a little bit ahead of the curve if I can. 4,000 words is something that is reasonably do-able within a day. We’ll see how it goes.

I’m about 40 or so pages into Startide Rising. It’s holding my interest so far, but I’m not blown away by it yet. Still, I’m giving it a chance, particularly since stubiebrother recommended it after the fact.

I did a short video chat with he11o_sunshine this morning. She hadn’t yet gone to work and I was still in bed.

Early to bed…

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I left work around 3 PM, was home before 4 PM, took some NyQuil, and crawled into bed before 6 PM. I figured I nap for a few hours and then wake up, do a little writing, watch some TV, etc. Well, I just woke up–at 11:45 PM, 6 hours later. I’m not sure I can really get any decent amount of writing done at this point, but that’s okay, because I did manage to get a decent amount of rest. I just took some more NyQuil and hope to be back asleep again shortly. Maybe tomorrow the nasty portion of this cold will have passed.

I have to be up around 8 AM so that I can take my car into Saturn for routine servicing. But seeing has how I’ve already gotten 6 hours of sleep, and 8 AM is still more than 8 hours away, I think I’ll be fine.

Still sick

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I woke up this morning in the full throes of a cold, with all of the associated appurtenances. The NyQuil helped to mute some of them last night, but I didn’t take it during the day. I struggled along through two meetings that I had to be in the office for, but now that they are over, I’m wrapping things up and going to try and head home soon.

I haven’t done any writing today, but hope to get some done this evening. I’m jumping out of chronological order and writing scenes that I think will be fun to write first, giving my brain some time to work on the other scenes in the meantime.

Thanks go out to Linky Lisa (kruppenheimer) for texting me one of the funniest lines from last night’s The Office–at 12:44 AM my time. I shouldn’t complain. She was getting me back for the time I texted her very early in the morning, when I was at Stratford On Avon.

And I had an amusing iChat with the Vicky half of vickyandnorm this morning.

I got paid today, which means November is a 3-paycheck month. (It was that insight that made me decide to buy my new laptop this month because about 1-1/3 paychecks would have gone toward savings this month anyway.)

I’m not sure how I have failed to mention that Joe Torre is now that manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, a team I hated with a passion back when I lived in L.A. It will be interesting. If the Yankees don’t make it to the playoffs this year but the Dodgers do, what does that say about Joe Torre is a manager. I think he’s terrific and it’s very difficult to see him managing for another team after 12 years with the Yankees. But I wish him the best of luck. (And there is a further rumor that Don Mattingly will be his bench coach.)

That’s all. I ramble.

Yes, I’ve definitely come down with something

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You know that feeling you get, a kind of rawness in the back of your throat, that bloated feeling in your gut, a stuffed up head, a glassy hot feeling to your eyes. You know what I’m talking about . Well, it’s happening to me right now. I hate it.

After work today I had dinner with Kelly and her friend at Thaiphoon, which is, obviously, Thai food. I’d never had Thai before, but I purposefully chose something spicy from the menu so that I could taste my food through this cold that I’ve got. I ended up ordering the Pik Kaur, which was actually quite tasty, even though I couldn’t finish it. After dinner, Kelly and her friend went shopping and I headed home.

For the first time ever, I did a little writing on the train ride home. Pulled out my laptop, fired up Scrievner, and did a little work on the novel for NaNoWriMo. Incidentally Scrivener is working beautifully for this project. It’s the first time I’ve really given it a chance and I really like it. I ended up doing a total of 2,300 words today. Some re-writing was involved and I know I should avoid that in first draft. I’m trying. I’m dropping notes in Scrivener’s notes field to remind myself what I want to fix or change later on.

I applied for an EZ Pass today. I drive up to New York just often enough to make it worthwhile, if for nothing else than to speed up the drive a bit and avoid the long lines at the non EZ Pass toll booths. It says I should receive my transponder in 5-7 business days. Maybe, just maybe I’ll have it in time for the trip next weekend.

Watched Smallville and The Office this evening.

I’m chock full of NyQuil and off to bed!

Sick?

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Over the past couple of days, I’ve had a dull ache in my shoulders and neck. It wasn’t all that pronounced, but I did notice it and I attributed it, naturally, to stress. (Although it’s weird that I should do that, considering that my shoulders and neck have never before ached from stress.) In the back of my mind, I considered that perhaps I was getting sick.

I think that’s the case.

Throughout the day today, it has become more pronounced, as have the symptoms associated with a head-cold of some kind. Nuts! Our flu shots aren’t scheduled until late this month, so hopefully it is just a cold, but I hate being sick at all. I was planning on getting back to the gym on Monday. Hopefully I can still do that.

Time off for good behavior

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I went through my draft self-appraisal with my boss today and I think it went pretty well. He had some good suggestions. He really surprised me, however, when he said, “Hey, since you put in all that time over the weekend, pick a day in the next week or two and take a day off.” That was really cool of him since I’m salaried and technically don’t get “comp” time. But I chose next Friday, March 9. I was going to have to leave early that day anyway in order to catch my flight up to NYC for the weekend. Now I get to have the whole day off!

I had a headache yesterday and I have another one now. However, it feels slightly different today, like the very first hint of what could possibly develop into a cold. Since a cold is the last thing I want or need, I’m fighting it. I’ve been taking my vitamins every day, but I could probably go for some more vitamin C. While it doesn’t prevent colds (nothing does, no matter what the labels say), it has been shown to shorted their duration.

Okay, time to hit the road and head home. This time, I am stopping at the grocery store on the way home.

An extra dose of vitamin C…

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Ugh! A little while ago, I started to get that feeling. You know, it starts behind your eyes and it’s usually a symptom of a fever or a cold. I’ve had my flu shots and I’ve been getting plenty of vitamin C. Maybe I need an extra dose?

Usually, when I get a cold, it starts in my throat, then moves to my sinuses, and finally my chest. This time, the only symptom is this feeling behind my eyes. Maybe it’s nothing. I hope so because there is no way I’m breaking my workout routine. I’ll workout when I’m sick if I have to, but I’m sticking with it.

Stay tuned…

Buyer beware! Cold medicine could turn you into a meth producer

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Okay, perhaps a little hyperbole in that statement. But reality caught up with me today as I went to purchase some cold medicine at Rite-Aid. To be honest, I don’t pay a whole lot of detailed attention to the news anymore. It’s just too depressing. I’ll skim the Yahoo! headlines a few times a day, clicking on mostly the science-related articles and ignoring completely the political ones. I know that makes me a poorly informed citizen, but I think I’d rather been poorly informed than chronically depressed.

I digress. Somewhere, in the last several months, I seemed to have missed the news that cold medicines containing pseudophedrine have been taken off the shelves and reformulated. I worked in a pharmacy in high school, and I know what I am looking for when I go into a drug store. When I couldn’t find a cold medicine with pseudophedrine, I grew mildly annoyed. Even the name brand product Pseudophed now uses a “new formula”. I rolled my eyes in dismay, and, looking up, saw that I could still get the originally formulated products if I took a card from the shelf and brought it to the pharmacy. Of course, the pharmacy was closed. So I picked up Tylenol Cold Head Congestion, which, instead of pseudophedrine, contains phenlephrine. Fine.

I brought it to the checkout counter for purchase and when I was checking out, the clerk asked to see my driver’s license so she could enter my birthdate. When I asked why she needed to do this, she explained it was because “people make drugs out of this.” I pointed out that this product does not contain pseudophedrine and she simply said she had to do it or she could get fined $500. Well, fine; she’s not responsible for this nonsense anyway.

After I got back home, I went back and read some news articles on this. From what I gather, pseudophedrine is used by some as a component of methamphetamines. Naturally, using the logic of the FDA, because a few people do this, the rest of us must do it. Yes, FDA, you’ve figured us all out. We are all buying up Pseudophed in droves, not because of the colds we have (for which we can’t get treatment because we don’t have medical insurance), but in order to produce meth.

Give me a break!

At the very least, make up your mind. Take pseudophedrine off the shelf and replace it with some other decongestant. But don’t make us have to provide ID for that (safer?) product. Isn’t that the point of removing the pseudo-meth from the shelves.

My real concern is: where does it stop? Pretty soon, we’ll have to show ID to purchase chewable Flintstones vitamins!

Or worse! Soon Big Brother will be banning the posting of How To Make Meth With Pseudophedrine online; and who knows what else! Well, in a Puckish, and somewhat rebellious moment, I looked up online just how meth is made with pseudophedrine. I have no interest in the least in even attempting to make meth. Nor do I endorse the making of the drug. But because I’m so annoyed with the stupidity of the whole thing, those interested in just how meth is made from Pseudophed can find that information here.

In the meantime, I sigh and revert to my mantra: “Against stupidity, the very gods themselves contend in vain.”

Back in the office

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I started out the day staying home because my cough had kept me up much of the night. But around 10 AM, I realized that I had quite a bit of work to do, so I got dressed, and headed into the office.

So here I am, trying to stay on top of these three projects I am working on. At least I’ve got some good music to listen to.

And I’m hungry now. I’ve got to go get something to eat!

On Through the Night

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With the help of NyQuil, I made it through the night without too much trouble. I woke up with a bit of a fever still, but some TheraFlu and a cold shower (I didn’t even touch the hot water spiogot) seemed to take care of it. That, plus three of Jen’s delicious cinnamon rolls. I have a craving for a tall cold glass of whole vitamin D milk, but Jen and Jason say milk is bad for you when you are sick. Pfui!, says I . Let me have my milk! But no, they say it causes increased mucus or something. Pfui, says I! Read myth #5 in this link to see what I am talking about. (I just made Jason read the text outloud.)

So I made it on through the night (can’t stop me now). We’re about ready to head out for a walk. More later.