The Physician’s Assistant, Whitney, called me to talk about the blood work we took a week ago. Short version: Epstein-Barr, which is pretty common but usually latent. Mine acted up, and I had what amounts to a relapse of mononucleosis, or “mono.”

As I said on the Twitter feed, the diagnosis may have been mono, but it felt more like Dolby Surround Sound 5.1.

[rimshot]

Anyway, I’m fine now. As an added bonus, I’m not crazy. I really WAS sick. Also, I have yet another reason to eat nutritiously. A strong immune system is the best defense against another relapse. Okay, okay, fine. I’ll have another salad.

Today I:

– got up at 6:30 and helped make breakfast
– wrote three tricky scripts that had been stuck for more than a week
– outlined a week of comics (in my head, but that still counts)
– went shopping
– spent 90 minutes at the gym doing both resistance and cardio
– ate a salad
– took a power-nap (not a “can’t stand up anymore” nap)
– penciled two strips
– inked six rows of comics (four days’ worth)
– did assorted business tasks
– wrote this

And during all that time I didn’t once feel like I was going to fall down because I wasn’t getting enough air.

I will concede the following:
– maybe my determination to get better coincided with actually getting better
– maybe my illness was just laziness and depression
– maybe the improved air quality had something to do with it

You know what? I don’t care. That thing I’ve got on right now? It’s my game face. I have my boots on and a pen in my hand, so if things need kicked and names need taken, I’m up to the task.

It’s nice to be back.

Last Friday I decided to not be sick anymore. It didn’t work. Today I went to the doctor, and based on everything they were able to measure right away there’s no explanation for me being so continuously SOB (Short Of Breath. My mother was a lovely woman, thankyouverymuch.)

In a three-hour ordeal that was mostly waiting we poked, prodded, listened, discussed symptoms and medical history at great length, measured my blood oxygen several times, took some X-rays, and drew blood for further tests. Now I get to wait for results from that. There were no immediate red-flags on the X-rays, which, coupled with the healthy sounding lungs almost certainly means I’m not walking around with pneumonia. Sure, the radiologist still needs to look at the pictures, but at this point if there’s a smoking gun somewhere it’s going to be in the blood work.

I have to confess to being SERIOUSLY pissed. I’m angry enough at all the waiting around and not knowing that I’m ready to put on the “can-do, eff you” hat again and just man up to my regular schedule tomorrow. If I feel like I’m not getting enough air, well, I know that’s a lie so I’ll just keep going. And if I fall down and need to be hospitalized, well, at least there’ll be some proper symptoms for people to argue about.

I hate being sick, but what I REALLY hate is lying around and doing nothing for two weeks.

I’ve been mostly flat on my back for the better part of the last two weeks. I’ve complained about the air quality (it’s bad) and my asthma (it’s still around), I’ve pointed at a chest cold as a trigger event, but for the life of me this does NOT make sense. I’m in fine physical condition, I no longer feel sick, but the air around me is just too thin to support life.

I tried muscling through it with albuterol and a positive mental attitude on Friday. That didn’t go well. I walked to Church this morning. That was fine… up until 30 minutes later when I was quietly gasping for breath while doing nothing more demanding than sitting in the pew. So no, I guess that didn’t go well either. I’ve spent six waking hours today flat on my back.

Counting backwards, I think I’ve spent at least 100 waking hours laid out flat in the last two weeks. My workaholism is raging at this impotence.

Part of me knows that I need to be forced to take a vacation sometimes. Part of me thinks that this is all psychosomatic, and that if I can just find the right combination of “can-do” and “eff-you” I’ll be able to get some work done. That part of me was given a shot at things on Friday, and again this morning. He got the “eff-you” part down pat, but I ended up very “can’t-don’t” in the process.

So… I’m off to the doctor tomorrow. Let me tell you, if there isn’t a solid, measurable, medical reason for me to feel this way I’m going to be seriously pissed off. I don’t want to be told that I’ve developed a psychosis that enforces laziness. I want to be told I can’t get any work done because there’s a massive colony of intelligent bacteria slum-lording my lungs out to their unevolved brethren.

Real sick is better than fake sick because sane is better than crazy. (Though I’ve always had to settle for “high-functioning” instead of “sane.”)