February 14, 2018

Instructions Unclear, Lung Ejected At Escape Velocity

So while at work on Tuesday I swallowed a piece of crumbly coffee cake before I was quite ready to do so, and it made me cough.  Eh, it happens.  There was still a tickle in my throat a few minutes later, and a swig of Mountain Dew failed to make it go away.  Oh well, whatever.  Coff coff coff, no big deal.  I was still coughing when I left work, but nothing too bad.  Well, there's a cough burning its way through the office, I was like one of five or six people with one.


Once I got home I had something to eat, finished the Kizumonowhatsit post, then took a four-hour nap.  Keep that in mind later.  When I woke up, I hacked and hacked and coughed and groaned.  Whoopsie, I may have a problem here.  Oh, and a headache.  Once I went back to bed, I discovered something rather unfortunate... I couldn't sleep.  There wasn't a single position that allowed me to lie in place without coughing.  Somewhere around six in the morning one was found, finally... and then I was kinda cold. 

Which, considering Pond Central's furnace was kicking out enough heat to power a Colorado-class battleship, was a problem.  Oh, and I was wrapped in two down comforters.  By all rights, I should have been drenched with sweat.  Instead, I was getting cold shivers down my back.  I sorta shook and quivered for an hour or so until my alarm went off, at which point I realized the only real sleep I had gotten... was during that nap earlier.  Oh boy.  The shower was nice and warm, and the massage feature beat the hell out of my scalp, just what Momzerduck's little boy needed.  Or, at least it got me out to the car.  I was breathing a little heavy though, and my pulse was higher than normal.  Well that's weird.

Got to work, was out of breath again by the time I made it to my desk (to be fair, it's roughly six miles from the parking lot to my desk).  Got the computer booting up and began hacking and whooping again.  Oh jeez... this'll be a fun day.  Slammed down a gatorade (blue, the only type we have in the vending machine) and some tylenol and got crackin'.

Within two hours, I had an obvious fever, the coughs were just wracking my throat to no end, and my head was doing the whole "piledriver" thing.  And still I soldiered on.  I took an early lunch break which I stretched to 45 minutes.... hey, 15 minutes extra sleep... and went back to my desk, like a good little worker.

There at my desk, I was feeling cold again so I pulled on the fleece jacket I brought in for just that reason.  Shivers from my feet to my scalp.  This ain't good.  I draped my heavy winter jacket over my shoulders, cloak-style.  Nothing.  You could have set me on fire and I wouldn't have stopped shivering.

After 5h 20m, I gave up.  I knocked on the door to the acting boss' office (note: boss is currently in hospital for pneumonia) and said I had to go to the doctor.  Her reply was "took you long enough.  Let me know what they say."  So away I went to the medical clinic near Pond Central.  The Nurse Practitioner that saw me was cute as a button and looked like she was about 12.  I suspect she was older than that.  Anyway, after a few tests ("let me stick this cotton swab up your nose"), she gave me the news.

I don't have pneumonia, and I don't have the flu.  What I do have is officially listed as "unspecified respiratory infection."  More informally, she said there's a flu-like virus going around the area.  If my virus goes the way of the others she's seen, tomorrow should be the end of the worst of it (which I'm currently in now), and it'll ramp down from there.  I'm not allowed to return to work until I've been 24 hours without a fever though. 

Until then?  Fluids, tylenol, rest, and honey.  Gonna be a long couple of days.

UPDATE: It's 2am Thursday.  I laid down for a couple of hours... very little coughing, but very little sleep.  I sat up in bed and... discovered that my cough has changed.  Before, it was a sharp barking sound occasionally accompanied from strange gargling sound like I was throwing up as I coughed.  I wasn't, by the way.  NOW, though... now my cough is a moist walrus sound.  There is phlegm involved.  This is for the best, I know, but... ugh.  Fever is still there, but it's responding well to tylenol... in that the headache that comes with it is reduced.  How the f*ck can something as small as a stinkin' virus cause so many damn problems???

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:39 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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