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Stop and start time on the information highway. As usual for my broadband- it always slows down on weekends.
One of the things I did on Wednesday, besides bicycling around in pouring rain to get my new contacts, was get my flu shot. The first time I did that seven years ago it left me feeling vaguely nauseated for a weekend, but I've had no trouble with it since. This time- ay caramba.
I've never been as sick in my (recollected) life. Even the nastiest stomach flu leaves your head relatively operational. This time there were all those things I've read about but never had, because I don't usually run fevers even when sick. But the deep-bone chills, the oddly superficial-feeling flushes, the unmoving aches, the not asleep but not awake confusion when you drift off, the-- I don't know what they are, fever dreams or semi-hallucinations or what, but I can live without them happily. This was a voice or maybe two having an indistinct low discussion just out of the range of my hearing, about some cipher code involving letters and numbers and small pictures, and the sheet full of the letters and numbers was there too in front of my eyes; and they wouldn't stop. Any attempt to think of anything else, or nothing at all, turned into those voices in another room, like a radio, talk-talk-talking away. I can't describe the soul-killing weariness of it. There's no word for the way the world looks in certain stages of sick, the low-grade grey horror and soul-sickness and nothing of it, but I know it exists.
I couldn't get comfortable in bed- pillows too high or too low, beanbag warmers never in the right place, and I had to keep turning from side to side because my neck and shoulders were frozen rigid, but when I tried to turn all the warmers shifted and disappeared among pillows and sheets and the duvet got clumped about my legs and dragged at them and the futon's inert weight made me feel as if I was trying to turn about in quicksand. Finally I took the warm duvet and the beanbag pillow and went into the side bedroom, threw all the clothes and stuff onto the floor, and curled up on the bed there with its blessed springs letting me thrash about as much as I pleased.
I must have gone through a litre or so of water through the night and had to keep getting up to pee, which involved some odd turnings between my darkened room and my disoriented half-awake self. Woke with my back aching- the usual effect of sleeping on the side-room mattress- and four pounds lighter. So go me, I suppose.
One of the things I did on Wednesday, besides bicycling around in pouring rain to get my new contacts, was get my flu shot. The first time I did that seven years ago it left me feeling vaguely nauseated for a weekend, but I've had no trouble with it since. This time- ay caramba.
I've never been as sick in my (recollected) life. Even the nastiest stomach flu leaves your head relatively operational. This time there were all those things I've read about but never had, because I don't usually run fevers even when sick. But the deep-bone chills, the oddly superficial-feeling flushes, the unmoving aches, the not asleep but not awake confusion when you drift off, the-- I don't know what they are, fever dreams or semi-hallucinations or what, but I can live without them happily. This was a voice or maybe two having an indistinct low discussion just out of the range of my hearing, about some cipher code involving letters and numbers and small pictures, and the sheet full of the letters and numbers was there too in front of my eyes; and they wouldn't stop. Any attempt to think of anything else, or nothing at all, turned into those voices in another room, like a radio, talk-talk-talking away. I can't describe the soul-killing weariness of it. There's no word for the way the world looks in certain stages of sick, the low-grade grey horror and soul-sickness and nothing of it, but I know it exists.
I couldn't get comfortable in bed- pillows too high or too low, beanbag warmers never in the right place, and I had to keep turning from side to side because my neck and shoulders were frozen rigid, but when I tried to turn all the warmers shifted and disappeared among pillows and sheets and the duvet got clumped about my legs and dragged at them and the futon's inert weight made me feel as if I was trying to turn about in quicksand. Finally I took the warm duvet and the beanbag pillow and went into the side bedroom, threw all the clothes and stuff onto the floor, and curled up on the bed there with its blessed springs letting me thrash about as much as I pleased.
I must have gone through a litre or so of water through the night and had to keep getting up to pee, which involved some odd turnings between my darkened room and my disoriented half-awake self. Woke with my back aching- the usual effect of sleeping on the side-room mattress- and four pounds lighter. So go me, I suppose.
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I hope you feel better soon. ;;hugs;; Rest up, keep warm, and keep drinking those liquids.
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::worries::
Get well soon, J.
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You'll note that Asian people who work with chickens in slaughterhouses/processing plants seem to be developing an immunity to the avian flu without ever contracting it; and most of the people who have contracted it have worked directly with birds who have died from the avian flu -- there's been no evidence of person-to-person contact. In the cases of people who seem to have contracted avian flu without direct contact with birds, it's likely that the flu virus was transmitted on contaminated belongings (in the right conditions the virus can live for days and possibly weeks), transmitted by bird migration, bird movement, movement of vehicles whose tires have been contaminated by driving over bird foeces...
So don't worry too much. Really.
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Thought you might like that bit. XD;;; That ProMED-mil blog (http://www.promedmail.org/pls/promed/f?p=2400:1000) is also a fun read in that "never want to leave my apartment again" sort of way.
It's not so much the flu that I'm worried about, it's the ensuing panic. The anthrax scare was bad enough and that only killed five people. And we missed out on the SARS panic by the skin of our teeth.
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I'm only mildly reassured that you get avian flu only from contact with contaminated belongings. The general sweep-up post-SARS revealed how lax even hospital workers are about washing and sterilizing what they touch. I don't want to think about the general population's tendency to keep things and themselves clean. And the usual chronic 'what if--?' mentality- What if SARS spreads into the general population? What if avian flu leaps into another species? It's the anxious nittering that wears down the morale, and makes you wish you were born one of those demented positive types that never gets sick because they and reality have only a nodding acquaintance. (Knew someone like that. She went to India, drank the water wherever she was- 'Bottled stuff costs'-- and came back healthy as a horse.)
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Okay, yeah, I've been known to do that sort of thing because I AM NUTS. You, on the other paw, do not have that particular excuse. Don't you know -anyone- with a car?
The rest sounds like a bad drug trip, doesn't it? Is so strange how some people get sick as dogs from those flu shots, others don't. (Same with parents: Father, sick. Mother, not sick.)
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in love with my surplus US Army rain ponchomacho when it comes to bicycles- Hardy Canadian Girl-- smart like moose, strong like streetcar! Dey go tru' rain, dey go tru' sleet, day--- take the subway when it snows, which is a comedown.Now if I could figure out what I did to send the muscles from my right ankle to the back of my knee into spasm, I'd be happy. Provinces taking the opportunity to revolt while the capital was in chaos, I assume.
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superhero capemacho pancho, O Hardy Canadian Girl. Today's linkie of joy: Fair Charlotte (http://www.smsu.edu/folksong/maxhunter/1498/)Re: spasms. No clue. Clueless. Sounds like a call for wonder-beanbags, though. Sister and self made at least one effort to locate examples of these, but no luck so far. The search continues.
Bean bags were my delight...
Re: Bean bags were my delight...
I will refer people who seek teh cheep present-like object in that direction. Gratzie.
Re: Bean bags were my delight...
Re: Bean bags were my delight...
I've got popcorn! Fill with popcorn, stuff in microwave, hooray! (Or, uh, maybe not. ^^;)
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Re: Bean bags were my delight...
rice (cheap, easily available, my preference)
buckwheat husks or other types of non-soluable bran (doesn't flow)
flax seeds (siiiilky smooth feel, hard to work with due to static, sometimes hard to find)
NO POPCORN! Unless you like it popped.
These things are so easy to make ... it seems crazy to me that people spend money on them. (Though that hot/cold dual purpose one is cool ...)
Re: Bean bags were my delight...
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Although the last one I had was about this bad, caught from the 16-month-old grandaughter of a friend's Reiki master we were babysitting. There's nothing worse than both of you getting sick at the same time because neither can take care of the other.
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The question being how weak and unhealthy do they make you for how long? Ordinarily I don't even register it- and the guy across the street, 80-something with two operations this year alone, said it just gave him a sore upper arm. If you're strong to start with the flu shot shouldn't debilitate you and if you aren't you probably *will* get the flu, only worse. Especially if you work in a germ pit as I do.
And as I was thinking desolately Thursday night 'I wish there was someone to heat my beanbags and rub my shoulders for me,' common sense said 'She'd probably have a migraine or a deadline or just not want to do it anyway.' Marriage is not at all what it's cracked up to be.
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You probably know this already, but as I understand it, the flu shot is composed of vaccines to what the scientists think are the three most likely strains of flu to hit this year. (Which is something of a gamble, in any case.) It may be that this year one of the strains in the mix was one which you had absolutely no immunity to, as opposed to previous years where you did have some immunity to the ones in the blend. In which case, I suppose, one hopes they got it right, so that your suffering was worth something.
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