I think maybe I pushed myself too hard yesterday.
I stayed home from church today, and spent most of the day in bed. I think I was up for an hour between 9am and 10am. I know I was out of bed for a couple of hours between 2pm and 4pm. It’s 5:45 now, and I’m in front of the computer, out of bed. That sounds like almost eight hours of daylight spent flat on my back. At 4pm I took three Advil (Vitamin I!) and 8oz of Diet Vanilla Pepsi (25mg of my favorite anti-hemikranial methylxanthine alkaloid) in hopes of perking up a bit. I laid down and waited for it to take hold. 90 minutes later I woke up and realized I’d just had another nap, and the sun was well on its way below the horizon.
I feel like roadkill.
My voice is well and truly gone. I can bark and growl. I can wheeze. I can whisper. None of these are quite the same as “speech,” and four-year-old Gleek put it best when I tried to bellow at her and end up quacking and squeeking: “Daddy, why are you making a different sound?”
It sure is hard to bellow at your kid while you’re doubled over laughing…
I got sick Wednesday, and still am, although not quite as bad as a couple days ago. No laryngitis, but coughing, runny nose, headache, dizzy if I stand up too long, and out of breath going up stairs. Worst of all, when I attempt to really focus my attention on something, _nothing_happens_. (Which is disconcerting for a real geek, I can tell you. I have all sorts of ideas for things I want to do, but haven’t been able to get anything done.)
My fiance Fade got sick a day before I did, and her sore throat hit new highs today and she’s making a doctor’s appointment for possible bronchitis tomorrow.
My friend Mark got sick a week before either of us, he was basicaly out of commission for a week and although he’s better now, he’s still coughing.
Cathy (Eric Raymond’s wife) got her cold at confusion, and finally considers herself over it this weekend (which is, I believe, three weeks later).
Aren’t you glad you got the buffer up when you did?
Kids and not speaking
When I was about 5 or so, my mom lost her voice for a month and had to communicate wiht a little chalk board. She was (is) a single parent, so picture this, angry parent wanting stubbern 5yr old to do something… waving a chalkboard with some words written on it (probably “QUIET!!!!, and GO TO BED!!!”) at a kid who was just learning to read. It probably should ahve been an incentive to learn to read, but I am afraid that I probably played up the “sorry mom, I can’t read that, but I will be sure to turn the volume up on Tom & Jerry right away!!!”
Somehow we both lived through it… although I am not sure how I survived being strangled (I know I deserved it!)
Dan