glitches

We just saw Julie and Julia and had a great talk afterwards about sweets' role in my blog. Apparently, he hated it. If you want to know what it's like to be the spouse of a blogger, go see the movie. In fact, it was after the peanut was born and my life got more complicated, I stopped regularly posting. The lack of posts wasn't so much about lack of inspiration, but more about being head-full but blog-empty, and how all of a sudden I needed more privacy than I had before.

But I'm still here, thinking of you, my friends. My journaling life has always ebbed and flow(n?), and right now we're in an eddy. I'll be back someday, with lots of interesting stuff to say.

the long november

The shitty thing about this whole pneumonia business is the long recovery.  Last night I ended up on the phone with the telenurse because I wasn't sure if I was having a recurrence.  My chest has been tight, I'm exhausted, and I feel like crap.  Is that normal long term recovery?  an anxiety attack because a recurrence would mean another six weeks of misery or even a possible trip to the ICU?  Or my body just telling me to cool my jets for awhile and get back on the couch?

The telenurse told me to go get a chest xray.  I decided to have some tea and try to relax.  At the end of the evening I'm glad I didn't go to urgent care- I feel the same as I did yesterday (meaning, not worse) and life goes on.  If things get worse today I'll go to urgent care but for now I'm just going to keep a very low profile and try to focus on things other than my tight lungs.  Personally, I think it's nerves.

But what I really want to do is exercise.  And play with the kids.  And go to work.  And do the grocery shopping and the holiday shopping and the staying up late making gifts kind of activity.  Instead I'm relying on sweets for so much, and we're just not getting anything done.  At the end of the day all I want is to relax on the couch for a few minutes with the television, then go to bed.  Not at all productive.

It could be worse.  It could be worse.  It could be soooo much worse.

wuh wait a minute

Wow.  Typepad went and mixed things up a little and I'm just now finding out?  I think I need to blog again.

So I started working, and I was all ready to commit to a weekly blog entry, but then things got sort of out of control.  Out of control as in I got really sick and couldn't function for awhile.

Six weeks ago today I got sick.  I didn't think it was much- just the swine flu.  I knew that the flu was something to take seriously, especially this particular flu, but I didn't feel like I was THAT sick.  I had a fever for two days, a terrible sore throat, and just general ickiness.  After a week I was ready for it to be over.  Halloween was coming up, so I tried to take it easy while simultaneously busting my ass to finish my halloween costume.  Then of course it was halloween and we had to go out for that.  Of course, I'd just spent weeks working on this damn costume, you know I was going to out and show it off.  I had a terrible cough by then, but I thought that I was getting better.  I thought I was just feeling residual fatigue from the flu, and that the best way to get over it was to just go through it and pretend I wasn't sick.

Big mistake.

That week I felt miserable.  On Thursday of that week (I think, it's sort of a blur), I woke up feeling markedly worse.  I went to work anyway, but by the time I got to campus I knew I was a mess.  Off to the flu clinic right next to my office (yeah, big surprise I got the flu, huh.)  My pesky flu had turned into pneumonia and I was sick.  sick sick.  antibiotics, sent home, not happy.  I can't believe how sick I was, without being super sick.  I didn't end up in the ICU, I recovered from the pneumonia relatively quickly, and I still felt awful.  It was weird- I knew I was sick, but I never really thought of it as that bad.  A lot of people are dying from this, I didn't feel like I was all that sick, in comparison.

I think that was about three weeks ago?  four weeks?  I'm not sure.  Since then it's been this boring, dreary, depressing slog back to wellness.  I seem to have good days and bad days.  Some days I feel pretty normal, then others I'm back on the couch with lead weights in my arms.  Today is an in-between day.  I just hate that I feel so sick on the bad days that I don't want to have anything to do with childcare.  On those days, the best thing I can do is sit on the couch with a child on my lap while I watch Ellen on TiVo.  Such a freaking drag.

So yeah, that's all I got today.  Maybe tomorrow will be better.