I’ve been sick for two solid weeks. It was kind of a matter of time. I’d been burning the proverbial double-sided candle and ran out of wick. But I’ve never been this sick for this long. I’ve had solid 7-day head colds, flu, etc. But never this.
Exactly two weeks ago today was my last bike ride. That night, the 27th, I had a really bad fever and woke up Sunday feeling like shit, but with no other symptoms to speak of. Sunday night was identical; I took Monday off work to lay around shivering and sweating. Lots of ibuprofen was consumed. That was it, I thought. A weird 48-hour fever thing.
I worked Tuesday, Wednesday. I handed out Halloween candy Wednesday night. I worked on Thursday. The whole time I didn’t feel quite right and a minor cough was starting to develop. Usually, when I get sick I get the very standard cycle of a sore throat, nasal congestion and finally cough. A cough being the only symptom of my mystery illness was odd, but at least there was a symptom?
Thursday night the cough graduated. By Friday the 2nd I was coughing so much I felt it better to work from home than be the constant annoyance of my coworkers.
The constant coughing continued through the weekend. Monday I worked from home again and went to see the doctor. I had been taking over the counter cough medicine and that seemed to work ok. I was diagnosed with an upper respiratory viral infection and prescribed cough medicine, which has worked less effectively than its over the counter counterparts. I read on the internet I could combine my prescription medicine with a specific over the counter medicine and that’s what I’ve been doing, with limited results.
I went to work Tuesday, hoping the prescription medicine would work, coughing my way through a couple of meetings. I was coughing so much by late afternoon I just left. I took Wednesday and Thursday off.
Thursday the doctor was called and I was prescribed different cough medicine, which was even less effective than the previous prescription.
I had some important meetings again yesterday morning so I took a half day to work from home. Unfortunately, there was a severe edge case bug discovered in an important part of our system, so I ended up working a full day monitoring progress on the fix.
You learn a lot about how your organization communicates by taking a few days away, either sick or working from home. But that’s a different blog post.
Last night I had a spike in energy and a lull in the coughing from about 7-9pm and did some email, laundry, cleaning, and a couple more small work tasks as I attempted to close all the tabs I’d had open since Tuesday.
The cough seems slightly more “productive” today, but I’m very skeptical at this point in terms of holding out any hope for a rapid recovery. I feel old and afflicted. I better understand how people can die from stuff like this. Lung shit is no joke.
I’m missing my favorite season of the year, which is very short in Texas. My body feels like it’s withering away from lack of activity. (Except my abs which are sore as hell from all the coughing.) I’m taking so many pills every day. I’m quarantined from the rest of my family.
Blech.
I have caught up on some video watching, however, since my brain is rarely capable of much else. Some highlights have been Icarus and Ronnie Coleman: The King on Netflix, and Let’s make a synth (..in chrome..), Sailing a Superboat Across the Atlantic in Record Time, At Folsom Prison: Johnny Cash’s Career-Changing Show and Jonah Hill’s amazing SNL skits from last weekend. Still no Stranger Things or Game of Thrones or any of the other shows all you people with time talk about all the time.