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.