Flu Update

Hi Everyone. I still have the flu, of course it's only the next day, so who's surprised.

Symptoms: achey, sore throat, sneezing, stuffed up. Symptoms missing: fever, running nose, coughing.

I sound like I'm getting better, because I'm not violently coughing at great decibels, but I still feel terrible. Last night, I was laying in bed, trying to figure out which position made my sinuses feel a little less like exploding, and I realized I had been doing this for an hour. I couldn't fall asleep! And then it happened. The one thing that always means "long crappy feeling of not sleeping coming", whether it's an illness or being totally hung over: I could feel myself digest. We're talking transverse colon (middle of your colon, stretches across the middle of your abdomen), audibly grumbling food stuffs across your midsection in a way that feels like 5 small cousins just punched you in the gut from right to left.

I first recognized this when laying on a friends couch after a great party. I was hung over and unable to sleep after waking up at 6 am, the moment when my body shifted from still drunk to hungover. Thanks body. The hosts came to check on me: "Helen sweetie, how are you feeling" asked Sherri; "That couch sucks for sleeping. You couldn't have slept well" said Matt. Without opening my eyes I slowly opened my mouth and paused. They leaned in to hear my whisper, and I said "I can feel my transverse colon digesting" upon which Matt laughed uncontrollably and walked away, and Cherri sat on the floor giggling next to me. Once in a while they remind me of this, in public, and those of us who were there have a good laugh, and those who weren't feel awkward about what they're witnessing. At any rate, here I am in bed, with nothing to do but think about the duties of my colon. And then the faux Nyquil must have kicked in, cuz I don't remember a thing until the alarm went off. Lucky for me!

Still sick on Wednesday the 23rd! I think there are other illnesses happening, but I'll save those for another entry. Only so much complaining per post!

(Entries are posted days later, so the post date and date of entry may not match.)

The FLU!

I have the flu. I know I do. And my boyfriend has it. I got it first, and gave it to him. We live together.

Symptoms: achey, coughing, sore throat, sneezing, stuffed up. Symptoms missing: fever, running nose.

I had to teach tonight. I teach undergrads at a university. I was really worried about the coughing and sore throat. Having to lecture for 2 and a half hours was going to feel terrible and I would sound all scratchy. Amazingly, my throat didn't hurt at all, even after the entire lecture. The only problem I found was that all my glottal stops (the sound from the hyphen in uh-oh) resonated through my stuffed up skull and sounded like nose grunts! But the students seemed to pick everything up.

As for sleeping, I've been waking up to cough a little every three hours, as if at the end of every REM cycle my throat needed attention. So I started taking Walgreen's brand Nyquil cherry flavor, which tastes worst than the nasty shots guyfriends buy you so they can laugh at your retching afterwards. I ran out of that after a couple days, and had to buy more, this time from Hy-Vee Supermarket. This stuff also tastes nasty, but tastes a bit better than the Walgreen's stuff. That is my advise of the day: Hy-Vee brand faux Nyquil cherry flavor.

Waiting out the flu: it showed up on Saturday September 19th, and I still feel terrible on Monday the 21st. Lots of working in bed for me this week.