You know you're having bad day when...

[Scooter]

[BoSoxGal]

I’ve been feeling that way for the past four days- suffering my first respiratory illness since before the pandemic and I JUST WANT TO DIE ALREADY.

Covid test was negative so who knows what the hell crud I have, I got my flu and covid shots in September so hopefully that’s helped keep me from getting really sick but if this isn’t really sick OMFG wtf is??

I got the flu once in law school, my first Xmas break home I spent sweating on the spare room sofa and just wanting to die already. I remember thinking how awful it must have been for cave people who got the flu and had no earthly idea what was wrong with them.

Just shoot me already!

[BoSoxGal]

I am seriously so sick I wish somebody would come to my house and shoot me.

Perhaps there is a downside to protecting oneself so diligently from viral infection for four years straight.

[Joe Guy]

Have you been to a doctor? There might be medication that would help. Depending on the diagnosis, antibiotics, for example, if you aren't allergic to them.

Trust me. I'm an online doctor.

[BoSoxGal]

I called my doctor’s office and discussed my symptoms - they advised I keep taking what I’m taking (severe cold/flu remedy) and keep checking my O2 saturation, and to go to the ER if it drops into unhealthy levels.

I’m a little stressed to be sure, given my age and other health issues. I haven’t been this sick since I got flu my first year of law school, but I was 27 then and much healthier.

Body aches, chills, incredibly painful sinus headache, sore throat like a raging inferno and snot coming out of me in rivers like they have in California right now. I’ve used up four megarolls of TP on snot and that doesn’t count what went straight down the sink and shower drain (yes that’s gross but whatever).

I can’t taste or smell and feel so lousy I can’t eat so I have lost a pound every day that I’ve been sick.

But the very worst thing is that I have a ticket in the fifth row orchestra for tonight’s performance of the touring production of To Kill a Mockingbird with Richard Thomas at the Providence performing arts center and I cannot use it because I’m so damned sick. I am so crushed about that, I have so desperately wanted to see the show since it started touring with Thomas in the lead role and was so excited to get this ticket two months ago - a birthday and Xmas gift to myself.

My life is cursed, that’s all there is to it.

[Joe Guy]

Those symptoms sound awful. You didn't mention a fever but it sounds likely.

Have you called to see if you might be able to exchange your theater ticket for a later date?

Drink plenty of fluids. Gargle with saltwater. Argue with somebody at Plan B......

[BoSoxGal]

Unfortunately no refunds or exchanges on the ticket. It’s only playing through Sunday anyway, and I doubt I will feel well enough by then to attend. I use a CPAP to sleep and with very bad congestion it basically doesn’t work (I have a nasal pillow mask), so I’m on the sixth day of basically not sleeping and feel like a zombie. Once I am well again it will be a few days of sleeping before I feel human.

[MajGenl.Meade]

That's awful. As a fellow CPAP user, you have my deepest sympathy. Lot of good that does but... you know

[BoSoxGal]

Just took the first dose of a Z-pak after having telehealth with my doc - my snot turned yellow and green overnight so she said it sounds like I’ve advanced to bronchial infection.

So I get to wipe out that bug and all the good ones in my gut, too! Oh joy.


Meanwhile I have been watching the trial of Adam Montgomery on CourtTV and I really, really wish I could beat him to death like he beat his five year old daughter to death for soiling her pants.

You all know I’m a notorious thug hugger, but I draw the line at child abusers. This piece of crap is such a motherfucker he is refusing to attend his own trial and hear the testimony about how he murdered his daughter, carried her decomposing body around for months in a duffel bag, then discarded her somewhere in the wilds of NH or MA. She was missing for years before anyone even knew it, thanks to colossal failures on the part of both MA and NH child protective services.

I normally abhor the calls for prison violence, but honestly I hope that Montgomery - who is already in prison for 30+ years on weapons charges he was convicted of last year - will meet his fate at the hands of his fellow prisoners on a very, very bad no good day.

[Big RR]

BSG--years ago, I had pneumonia (from overwork and traveling too much for the most part), I got rid of it by taking a Z-pak followed by 14 days of erythromycin--apparently, both are sometimes required to fully kill off the bacteria). However, it did make me realize how lucky we are to have antibiotics--I ended up with no lung damage and fully recovered--a few decades before I could well have died or become disabled. Sure, it can be overkill and kill off the natural gut flora, but considered against the alternative I know which is much better; take it and you're quite likely likely to get better.

I was forced to think of this recently when a friend of mine began chemotherapy and has been having some bad reactions to it, but, and she does concede it, it's much better than the alternative (although, she also says, there may come a time when it is not). Few like taking medication, but we do what we need to do to survive.

[Jarlaxle]

If possible, try sleeping sitting up. That helps my stepfather (severe apnea) when he has trouble breathing through his nose.

[BoSoxGal]

I got about 5 hours of actual sleep last night, the first in 7 days. I woke up this morning feeling substantially better although it is remarkable how much snot is still being produced by my body- I’ve dropped 7 pounds over 7 days, it is difficult to eat much and while I’ve tried to keep up with fluids that is difficult as well. I’m thanking Dr. Fleming and all his contemporaries for their work and grateful that for all we’ve done to screw it up, the stuff still works for now - I expect I’ll be much better by early next week.

Jarl thanks for the tip, I did get some brief cat naps in over the week while sitting in my recliner, so elevation does help the apnea. My doc has suggested I obtain a full nose/mouth mask to have on hand for the next time I get sick and cannot breathe properly through my nose.

I just started a new gig working with kids last Monday, and woke up sick Friday - my first respiratory illness since 2018. Ha! No good deed goes unpunished! Nevertheless I am moving forward with the intent to join the trenches of the public schools next fall, where I will no doubt have annual experiences with communicable disease.

I have to call my doctor’s office for a note to excuse my absence from work this week. This is the first time I’ve been asked to do that since I was a teenager. I actually work with a bunch of teenagers and young adults and my boss is half my age, so I’m rolling my eyes inside but whatever. One must suffer some indignities in life I suppose, to form one’s character.

[Joe Guy]

I just checked in on this thread to get an update on the BSG snot level....

Glad to hear you're doing better but that's what you get for working around kids.

They make you sick!!....

[BoSoxGal]

So I went back to work with the kids last Wednesday after being down 11 days with the virus that morphed into bacterial infection. I wore a mask Wednesday and Thursday to protect others from any potential shed still happening, but Friday I took it off because I got hot playing with the kids and I could tell they were not connecting as well with me in a mask. Friday afternoon I was a huge hit with my kindergartners/1st graders, pretending to be a zombie and chasing them all around the gym during our free playtime. Kids LOVE zombies!! I got some sweet hugs from a couple of little girls in my class who also kindly coughed in my face - like, right into my face - while hugging me.

I woke up in the early hours of Saturday with intense joint pain. At first I thought, I must've overdone it with the zombie teacher play. But it kept getting worse and worse, really bad at night to the point I'm waking up and whimpering in my bed and wishing I was dead. I went back to work yesterday anyway, spent six straight hours on my feet and felt like I was going to pass out by the end of the day. Talked to my doctor's office and they said they could fit me in later in the week, or maybe I should consider going to the ER if I felt comfortable doing so - so I spent 4 hours this morning/early afternoon at the local ER, where I was diagnosed with COVID. It finally got me!!

ER doctor says she's sure my two negative tests during the first illness were accurate, that I likely had influenza or RSV the first time around but going back to work got exposed to covid and now I've got that. There is a downside, she confirmed, to being very careful and not having any exposure for years - my immune system got lazy. Anyway she put me on Paxlovid on account of my risk factors, so I guess I can look forward to my gut being torn up again when it was just starting to get normal after the Zpak. And I'm out of work again until at least Monday, depending on how my symptoms resolve.

Watching Court TV again, this time motions hearings on some piece of shit from Ohio who executed his three little sons - 7, 4 and 3 years old - in front of his estranged wife and stepdaughter in their front yard last summer. And I got to see the closing arguments in the other case; I felt sympathy for the defense attorney who had to represent that piece of garbage, but the prosecutor's closing made me cry - I want to send him a card expressing appreciation for the way he championed sweet little Harmony, and how he railed at the jury about how her killer doesn't deserve the honorific 'father'. I was so inspired I actually gave some fleeting thought to being back in the courtroom - but I think I would rather work 65-70 hours/week for 10 months of the year and have a couple leftover to unwind a little, even if it means I'm gonna be sick every year from the little germ vectors.