Tag Archives: illness

Again with the Great Plague…

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Last week, I suffered through my second round of the Great Plague. This iteration of COVID wasn’t as awful as the one that knocked me on my ass last fall, but all the same it’s still not something I’d recommend for someone looking to have a good time.

The butchers bill for this round of sickness seems to have been the loss of two weekends and lots of hacking and wheezing and generally stuffiness. I did have an easier time getting my hands on antiviral meds, which means I got to start them on day 2 of symptoms instead of day 5. I assume that has something to do with how quickly the worst of the symptoms dissipated. 

I’m still a touch congested and I certainly get played out a lot faster than I did before getting sick (again). I’m happily testing negative now and otherwise seem to be on the mend. I can’t help but reflect that these bugs were a whole lot easier to avoid when I was allowed to embrace my inner hermit and everyone was legally required to stay at least six feet away from me. In my heart of hearts, I’ll always kind of miss those halcyon days of the early pandemic before we knew what we were up against and staying home was the order of the day. 

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Plumbing. My well’s pressure tank has had a slow drip for 18 months now. It’s one of those projects that I knew needed to be taken care of, but there was always something more pressing. Every couple of weeks I’d go down and empty the coffee can that was sufficient to contain the waters. A couple of times recently I found my coffee can full to running over after just a week. Since it’s the kind of thing that feels like it would inevitably let go during Christmas and facilitate a real crisis, I finally called out my usual plumbing outfit to make the fix – the ones who are good and fast, but absolutely not cheap. The thing about home ownership that no one tells you is that it feels like 90% spending money on stuff that’s entirely essential, but in no way is a joy to purchase. Anyway, I’ve got a brand new obscenely expensive pressure tank and associated couplings installed now so I guess that’s my Christmas present to myself.

2. Slack time. It’s not that I hate having slack time. Not really. Slack time through the week is very welcome, mostly. On telework days, there’s always more than enough alternatives to keep my attention until the next Thing To Do shows up in my inbox. When it falls on an “in office” day, though, it does make the time stuck in fluorescent hell drag on indefinitely. I suppose slack is just an occupational hazard this time of year… and with only two office days between now and the end of the year, the annual hazard will fix itself before long. Until then, I suppose the trick remains to look busy enough to avoid falling victim to anyone walking around with end-of-the-calendar-year good ideas.

3. Slowly unwinding. I know I should be happy it seems to be working, but I’m absolutely tired of the pace at which the anxiety causing metformin is slowly working its way out of my system. Six full days from my last dose and I continue to feel slightly less prone to panic as each of those days slips past. That’s not to say that there aren’t still a few bad minutes and hours in the mix. Still, we seem to have crossed some kind of threshold where there’s more good than bad… and that hasn’t been true in a number of weeks. You’ll forgive me, I hope, if I’m just a bit put out that it wasn’t the instantaneous relief I really would have liked to receive.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. New glasses. The fancy new glasses I picked up two weeks ago suck. Well, they halfway suck anyway. The distance vision is crisp and clear, but the close in view might as well be trying to read a book or newspaper through a liberal coating of petroleum jelly. So far, I’ve been back to the doctor to confirm the prescription and back to the retailer to try having things adjusted. What’s “perfect vision” on their fancy machine just doesn’t seem to be translating into what ends up in the frames. Today, I had another check with a different doctor who feels confident he’s cracked the code to why they’re turning out wrong. Now it’s just a matter of waiting another 7-10 business days to see if the new and improved fix comes back right or if this devolves further into a farcical pain in the ass in the great tradition of 2023 being my year of all manner of medical fuckery.

2. EZ Pass. The one bill I review closely every month is the EZ Pass. It’s a rare month that goes by that I don’t find something wrong with it. This month’s problem was being charged for a Mercedes sedan going through the Ft. McHenry Tunnel with a tag similar to but clearly not the same as the one I have on the Tundra. It’s the kind of thing that’s easy enough to spot if you do any kind of quality control and look at the picture versus relying on whatever computer generated “decision” the vast EZ Pass data farm makes when determining what account to charge a photo toll against. But as usual, it’s the responsibility of the taxpayer to correct the issue rather than expecting the State of Maryland to get it right.

3. China. There are reports of a new illness circulating in China. Not that I want to be the harbinger of bad news, but the coverage I’ve seen so far feels awfully similar to what was getting published around late fall of 2019. It’s probably not the end of the world, but the thought of going through another pandemic when 30-40% of the country is absolutely committed to ignoring public health guidance out of spite just doesn’t feel like good times in the making. The Chinese government insists it’s just run of the mill cold weather illness cropping up… but while I wait and see, I’ll once again be stocking up on canned goods.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Meds. One of the fun parts of being on the new blood pressure meds is that it puts most common decongestants on the embargoed list. If there was ever a motivation to get my weight down and off the prescription medication, it’s 100% so I can take a goddamned Sudafed and a shot of NyQuil instead of just raw dogging cold and flu season with hot beverages and an occasional spoonful of honey.

2. Covid. There’s been a time or two I’ve felt worse, but my week with Covid is definitely ranked. From the raging sore throat, to rivers of sinus drainage, to sleep no longer being a thing I do in any appreciable block of time, it’s just unpleasant. Add in the 36 hour saga of trying to get some antiviral meds and this third week of October is going in the books as a shit week of what has already been a shit year.

3. Protestant guilt. I’ve hoarded sick leave since the day I started working for our wealthy uncle. Last time I looked I’m sure I had something like 1800 or more hours of it on the books. So far this week I’ve taken 23 hours from that total. So why the good old fashioned Protestant guilt? Despite having more than enough in the bank, I know that my being out this week means there’s mostly been one guy doing what three of us were doing a month ago. I hate knowing he’s getting dicked over because I finally walked into the viral buzz saw. Admittedly, even if I were there I wouldn’t be capable of doing more than warming a seat while trying not to hack up my left lung. I hate that when I get my feet back under me there’s going to be a hellacious backlog of whatever came pouring into my mailbox this week. I feel badly about all of it… but I’m keeping in mind that sick leave is one of the more valuable components of my total compensation package and I’d feel even worse for not using it.

Normal again…

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Being sick is, by popular consensus, not fun. The worst symptom of my recent crud was an achingly short attention span. I couldn’t focus on anything. As a result, TikTok became my best friend. Thirty to 60 second clips were manageable and, if not exactly entertaining, helped pass the time. I usually read away whatever down time I find, but getting through more than a page or two at a sitting was pure agony. Even when I forced it, I couldn’t remember what happened two paragraphs in the past.

The old reliable focus has slowly come back over the last few days. In fact, last night was the first time in two weeks that reading wasn’t misery. The words spooled out, pages turned, and whole chapters were swallowed up by the evening. This morning I was even able to remember that ground I covered. It’s a relief. 

Being able to comprehend complex ideas and story lines is a profoundly underappreciated skill. I didn’t realize how much I’d miss that until I couldn’t do it.

Hooray for being “normal” again.

Less than fine…

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There’s no way to put it that isn’t disgusting on some level, so I’ll just say it – I woke up puking my guts out on Sunday morning. By noon, I was feeling fine and even managed to have an egg and some toast for dinner with no ill effects.

Although I spent yesterday feeling more or less ok – no fever or chills, not really feeling sick in any way, my stomach was what you might describe as “in a delicate state.” A shot of Maalox every few hours and two antacid tablets an hour were managing to hold everything together.

By this morning I was feeling good enough that I dispensed with the Maalox and had some actual breakfast. Therein is where I made a terrible mistake – a detail that my body chose not to make central planning aware of until I was walking to my truck at lunchtime and promptly doubled over right there beside the back tire.

I remember a million years ago as a young student, nerves would occasionally get the better of me. As stress, whatever that was to a prepubescent Jeff, ramped up I could almost count on the arrival of an upset stomach – although back then it never showed itself as vomiting. I had the marvelous ability to worry myself sick. Maybe history is repeating itself and I’m headed for whatever the 41 year old equivalent for my childhood nemesis is. Then again, maybe I’ve just come down with the Great Chinese Flu of 2020. Either way, something is working on my digestive system at the moment.

If I’m perfectly honest, I’m not feeling great – not really feeling sick – just less than fine. I should probably be more concerned than I am, but right now it just seems like more of an occasional inconvenience than an existential threat. We’ll see what the morning looks like and go from there.

The slightly abridged story of another sick dog…

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Since I seem to be permanently destined to have at least one sick dog on the premises, I suppose it’s only fair that I throw out a little update on what we’ve been up to since late last Friday.

The short version is that over a span of about an hour on Friday night I watched my already sickly chocolate lab go from her normal self to drooling, vomiting, and blasting out unimaginably large quantities of liquefied, high pressure shit. I undertook the “40 minute” drive to the nearest emergency vet with great vigor and complete disregard for pesky details like traffic laws and personal safety. I was more or less convinced that by the time we got there, I’d be dropping her off for a necropsy rather than treatment. I never thought I’d be happy to hear a dog retching and hacking in the back seat. For Friday at least it was the sound of not being dead yet.

After 36 hours of treatment, blood tests, fists full of medication, an ultrasound, and round the clock monitoring, the official diagnosis is “we don’t really know.” The symptoms don’t really present as something directly related to her Cushing’s disease and the ultrasound didn’t show anything radically different than what we saw back in March. Inconclusive.

In the absence of a solid medical diagnosis, I’ve arrived at a speculative cause for all this last week’s problems. What I think happened is that sometime around 6:30 Friday night the dogs found something in the yard – perhaps a mushroom – and noshed on it. For Maggie, already compromised with Cushings and general old age, the result was sudden and violent illness.

The key to my speculation doesn’t actually involve Maggie at all, though. When I got home from the emergency vet around midnight Friday, Jorah’s crate floor was spotted with drops of something. At first I attributed those drops to a reversion to peeing in his crate, but a closer look showed that he too was drooling prodigiously. In Jorah’s case, though, it lasted just a few hours and dissipated. He never showed any signs of feeling badly otherwise, which I know from sitting up through the small hours of Saturday morning waiting to see if I needed to drag another dog in for heroic measures of treatment at weekend rates.

I talked to our regular vet last night and laid out the timeline of events, went over the details from the file, and presented my own observation of the events. Without being led there, his first opinion was that it sounded like they had both eaten something and promptly got sick in proportion to the strength of their respective systems. It’s not exactly a confirmation of my logic, but I was glad to see that his analysis of the available evidence mirrored my own. Unless something is proven otherwise, “ate something” is going to be the official story of what caused this week’s series of unpleasant events at Fortress Jeff.

With leaves coming down and the ground covered it’s going to be horribly difficult if not outright impossible to verify any of this. It’s going to be harder still to comb the area for anything that could further agitate the situation. Part of me knows we’ll be relying on some level of luck in avoiding future problems. It’s not optimal, but we’ve lived here a fairly long time now without something in the yard causing mayhem and chaos. One bad day out of 1200+ isn’t necessarily a cause for panic, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking at the compound with a new level of unease.

The wrong sort of man…

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I’ve commented on it before, but every time I come down with some kind of bug, I can’t help but be reminded of all the commercials, social media posts, and general sense that there’s something called a “man cold,” some kind of received wisdom that says men are somehow unwilling or unable to function when laid low by a head full of congestion. I’m sure it follows from the contemporary school of thought that wants to “smash the patriarchy” and paint all things masculine as evil, bad, and wrong, but that should probably be a different post.

I find the whole “man cold” line of thinking particularly odious as I’ve gone through the last couple of days getting up, feeding and watering the critters, making meals, cleaning the homestead, handling the yard work, and schlepping into the office for a day’s work… all miraculously while simultaneously having a cold and being a man.

It occurs to me that for those of you out there who complain about the stereotypical “man cold” and the periodic uselessness of the man in your life, the problem might not be men in general… perhaps your taste in partner is problematic and you’ve simply hitched your individual wagon to the wrong sort of man. Food for thought, I’d think.

It’s harder and probably more politically incorrect to make a meme about that, though… so as usual, this post will surely reflect the minority opinion.

Old dogs…

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People will spend a lot of time telling you about the trials and tribulations of life with a new puppy. Poke around Google and the internet is littered with Twitter and Instagram accounts dedicated to the foibles of puppy ownership.

You’ve got to dig a little deeper to find the blogs and message boards that talk about what it’s like to live with an elderly or ailing dog. It’s not the wide-eyed adorableness and puppy breath side of having pets. It’s the astronomical vet bills, fists full of medications, and a body slowly wearing out even when the spirit is still more than willing.

Old pets are heartbreaking not just because we can sense that our time together is growing short, but also because their compressed life cycle points us inexorably towards our own fate at some point in the future. It’s one of the reasons I’m always a little bit perplexed by people who give up and give away their old pets. They have no sense of the broader context of life.

My dear sweet Maggie had a bad morning today. After years of perfect behavior, I knew she was embarrassed and upset. I could read it all over her face – and especially in her eyes. Climbing out of bed to scrub the bedroom carpet wasn’t exactly on my list of things to do today, but looking at those cloudy brown eyes I couldn’t even bring myself to scold her. Going on 11 years together she’s earned the benefit of a few hundred doubts.

Maybe this morning was a one off. Maybe it’s a warning sign of things to come. I’m trying not to let the first thoughts of my sleep addled brain read too much into it. I hope beyond measure this isn’t something that will become the new normal… but if it does, we’ll cope. Maggie is the grand dame of the family I got to pick for myself. She’s entitled to expect that level of effort in her golden years.

I wrote most of this before seeing the bloody urine this evening that set my alarm bells clanging – and before I took off to the local emergency vet to have my girl checked over. Maybe I’m paranoid or at least a bit too cautious. I’ve also seen how fast things can go bad and when warning signs start stacking up, it’s not the moment to prioritize time or money.

Man cold…

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Maybe it’s because I’ve lived on my own for most of my adult life, but when I see sitcoms or commercials making fun of the “man cold,” I really have no idea what they’re talking about. Sure, I stayed home from work, but given the shit ton of sick leave I’ve banked over the last 14 years I don’t exactly feel guilty about that.

My point here is that even if my breathing rattles like a steam locomotive, there’s mucus oozing out of every opening, and I sound like I’ve swallowed a bassoon, there are no enablers here. Meals needs prepped, dogs need tended, and there’s a household to run whether I feel great or not… so I do hope you’ll forgive me if I struggle to understand exactly how my gender is supposed to be debilitated by the average summer cold. Just color me confused.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to scavenge another box of tissues and another bottle of NyQuil.