Tag: Journal

Finally, after over a week of dealing with a sore throat, a cough, congestion, headaches, and sinus agony, finally I’m starting to feel like a normal human being again. I can breathe!

I’m feeling better but I’m not feeling well so I’m staying in and taking care of myself. I don’t want to have to miss even more work than I already have or have to going forward. This is a long weekend too so if I take advantage of the time and really rest, take my medication, hydrate, and eat right there’s a real chance I could kick this cold before the start of work Monday.

I’m continuing my break for to-do lists, obligations, and guilt. Stress has a major impact on my immune system and asking too much of myself or allowing anxiety over what I didn’t do to get a foothold will only prolong healing. All I have to do right now is rest.

I feel like absolute crap but I will not let this cold get in the way of celebrating with my wife. We’re trying out a new restaurant that she’s been wanting to go to, but that I had been avoidant and dismissive of every time she mentioned it. I’m not opposed to trying new things, quiet the opposite actually, but this is a Venezuelan restaurant and the menu is mostly in Spanish, and the idea of mispronouncing my order or of ordering food who’s description I cannot understand terrifies me.

I feel bad because I didn’t even realize I was doing it until she requested the place for Valentine’s date. I wondered what other things she’s interested in that I might be avoiding or dismissing. I want to be mindful of what I might be denying her in life without even realizing it and work hard to curb that tendency. My fears are no excuse for denying her new expieriences in life.

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Dinner was amazing. We had calamari to start with a couple of very tropical cocktails. For dinner I ordered a steak topped with roasted onions and tomatoes with fried plantains, rice, and a fried egg on the side. It was delicious. Dessert wasn’t as impressive. My wife’s tiramisu was still frozen and my rice pudding was a little runny, but all in all I’m happy and even willing to come back.

As for us, we feel as in love as we did yesterday, last year, and ever since we were naïve teenagers unsure of where we were headed and what we were doing but knowing we wanted to figure out together. A holiday doesn’t change that, bring us closer, or remind us of what we have. We never forgot. When every day is a day of love Valentine’s day becomes nothing but an excuse for a shared meal and a couple of drinks.

I feel like absolute crap today. The sinus pain is nearly unbearable and the speed at which it’s reached this severity is seriously concerning me. It doesn’t help that I barely slept last night too. I was up all night with throbbing pain in my sinuses, my jaw, and even my teeth hurt!

When I woke up this morning, my face was swollen in the weirdest places. It seems so strange (and scary) that just a few days ago I felt on the mend and now it seems like I’m worse off than I began!

I don’t think this is all down to this cold I’ve been fighting. I think a large part of this icky feeling is the infusion and the new medication I started on Tuesday. I think either this is a direct side effect, or it has indirectly made the cold/throat infection worse. My hope is for the latter. I certainly can’t deal with this after every infusion for the rest of my life (or until the medication fails me like all the others).

Productivity-wise I’m completely useless. I feel so bad my coworkers can see it on my face and are imploring me to go home but I can’t, or I won’t. I have missed too much work, and life, as it is lately. I’m going to tough it out through to the weekend.

I thought I was getting better but today I’m almost 100% worse off than I was yesterday. I had bragged that though I was sick at least it was confined to my throat and I wasn’t plagued with nasal congestion or a cough. Today both have shown up and I’m unable to breathe comfortably. The battle is exhausting and infuriating.

On top of the sickness it’s snowing again too and my mood is only further soured. I can’t find one reason to be happy or positive. If I hadn’t already taken off so much and if I didn’t already have so many days off coming up I would have spent another day on the couch.

Thank god for my coworkers who are taking up my slack and making sure all the things I normally do get done to the same standard that I would have completed them if I were well enough to do so on my own. It’s a big weight lifted off my chest and a chance for me to rest emotionally even if I can’t physically.

Today’s the day. I woke up feeling better but I don;t think I really am I think that my anxiety levels are so high that my symptoms have subsided while my body wrangles with a false fear. I’m not about to die. I’m only running a little late. I’m only a little nervous, a little worried, and more than a little tired. Every thing is going to be just fine.

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Everything went better than fine, everything went perfectly. I showed up to the clinic on time for my appointment and even heard from my doctor beforehand to remind her that I needed tests ordered at the lab. The infusion went fine, but it was not at all as comfortable as when I was on my last infusion medication.

This medication only takes 30 minutes where the last one was over 2 hours. When I was on the 2 hour medication I got to sit in the large open room with big windows and gorgeous mountain views but now that I’m on the 30 minute medication, I don’t get the big open room or the gorgeous mountain views anymore. I got the cramped “private infusion room” that was so small my wife opted to wait in the waiting room outside instead. It was pretty awful, but it was only 30 minutes.

When I got home, the sore throat and the nasty cold I’ve been fighting came roaring back and I ended up sleeping on the couch for over 3 hours. I have a feeling the infusion contributed. It’s tiring to have that much medication pumped into your body at once. It’s tiring to be so anxious and so aware of your body.

I feel good now though. I just needed to rest. I’m happy to report there have been no adverse effects or reactions and I’ll be ready to head back to work, back into the world, and back to my old self by tomorrow morning…I hope.

I was right, there’s no way I can make it into work today and no reason that I should. This sore throat has gotten really bad and if I don’t get better tomorrow there is a real chance I won’t get to start my new medication tomorrow.

I’m still hopeful since I don’t have a fever but, like I said, this medication is new and I don’t know exactly how it works. I also don’t know how it’ll make me feel. I’m worried even if I do go ahead with the infusion I’ll only compound my pain.

But I can;t worry about that right now. I can’t do anything at all right now, but rest. Eat, sleep, take medication, drink water, and sleep some more, that’s all I have on my to-do list for today, and for the foreseeable future.

It’s snowing, again. I wish I were spending the day inside and cozy but after missing family day for two weekend’s in a row, I can’t handle the guilt of staying home for a third. So I’m drinking copious amounts of coffee, popping a couple of tylenol, and opening a fresh bag of cough drops to hopefully make it through the day without too much discomfort.

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The coffee and tylenol helped. I made it through with enthusiasm and energy but now that I am back home I have nothing left. I can’t fight the fatigue and I can’t fight this cold. I feel worse than even and have doubts about whether I’ll make it in to wirk tomorrow.

I have doubts about whether I’ll be able to go through with my infusion on Tuesday with this infection and I’m worried about what that will mean for the treatment going forward. There’s already a waiting list for this medication and I can’t risk coming off of the steroids without a adding something new to maintain the remission I’ve managed to recapture.

Of course worrying, at best, does no good, and at worse, causes only more harm. I have to focus on the choices I have and the things I control. I control my rest, my fluids, and my medication. That is the only path to getting well that I have.

I’m feeling a little better than yesterday, or pretending to even if I don’t because today we’re going out to brunch and the to the ballet. I’ve been looking forward to this for months now and there is no way I’m going to miss it or allow a little cold to get in the way of good food, a few glasses of mimosas, live music, or the anticipation of another wonderful performance from the Colorado Ballet.

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The whole day was absolutely perfect! Brunch was great as always. We’ve been to that place many, many times and the customer service, the food, and the music never disappoint.

The ballet was as good as I hoped it would be. There were a lot of kids there, of course, and I wondered if I might have enjoyed the performance even more if I’d a child of my own to share it with. I can’t know but I did remind myself that there is a child that still exists in me and I during the performance I allowed her to come forward to enjoy the story alongside this adult version of me. I allowed myself to relax into wonder and awe and joy.

I love that I can give that child all these things she never had a chance to experience in her time. I love that I can be a parent to myself now.

Well, I was 100% wrong about today. It snowed so much overnight and it’s forecasted to snow so much over the course of the day that every school district in the metro area is closed today. So I’m home for my 3rd snow day of the season and wondering if the year will have to be extended as we move further into February and March, our snowiest time of year and more and more and more snow days are called as the storms get worse and worse.

I was also wrong about this cold being all in my head. I woke up with a sore and swollen throat and a generally miserable feeling all over my body. I hope this will be the worst of it. I can deal with a sore throat but coping with a stuffy nose or a cough is so much harder. So, the snow day was a blessing on more than one front and I plan to spend it on the couch reading and resting up. This weekend is going to be an exciting one and I don’t want a second of it ruined over a something as small as a sore throat.

Today is not as warm as yesterday but from the looks of the forecast it is not near as miserable as tomorrow will be. We’re looking at snow again starting tonight though I doubt it will be of any significant amount. Usually if there is a chance of snow day I hear murmurings and rumors throughout the day, but this time there is nothing but silence. I expect bad roads and miserable coworkers first thing in the morning.

But today I feel good, or, mostly good anyway. I am sure I am coming down with a cold or at least the same nasty throat infection everyone else has had. I’m ignoring it for now with the hopes that it’s all in my head.

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Over the course of the last few months I have perfected the art of reading while watching T.V. My wife and I have been binge-watching Homeland on Showtime while I read Love in the Time of Cholera and I am very proud of being able to keep up with both. I can’t, and don’t even want to, try doing both during every show or with every book but these two seem easy enough to follow along that doing both helps rather than hinders.

In fact, I was able to finally finish Love in the Time of Cholera and pick up It by Stephen King which is so long that I will have to learn to do a lot of things while reading at the same time or I’ll never get through it. I’ll also be hitting the Little Black Classics even harder so I won’t fall too far behind my goal while working my way through the tome.

Looking ahead to what is I realize I need more contemporary fiction for my book shelves. All I have lying around are essay collections or Greek history and plays. I’ll need to do a little book shopping before I get bored of either!