| THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016). |
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i am frustrated trying to write this. i'm hot and then cold and then hot and then cold, so i get distracted with running back and forth to change my clothes. now i'm layered. i'm sitting in my slightly air conditioned apartment alone on a friday night and i need to wear layers. i'm inside for chrissakes. it's not like i'm out camping or whatever. late sunday afternoon it hit me - i started feeling really, really bad, after waking up late, going to the gym, coming home and scarfing down a lot of food, and then sitting here waiting for something that i can't remember now. i had been feeling a little out of it for a few days, but just chalked it up to PMS and tried to get on with it. but while i was sitting here waiting for something, i got really cold. it was 85 degrees outside, i had all the windows open, and i was dressed, and there i was shivering. i put on some sweats, fleece, and fuzzy slippers, and laid on the couch under a quilt. i called ashby in hawaii to take my mind off of it, while the sky got dark and i continued to wait. then the headache hit. i've never had migranes and typically i'm not prone to headaches even when i'm sick, but holy fucking god, i have never had a headache like that before in my life. it literally felt like someone had lodged an slowly vibrating axe in my skull. i took 2 tylenol and 45 minutes later it hadn't made a bit of difference. and i felt nauseated. so i packed a bag and drove myself up to kevin's house. i quickly became unfunctional and wondered the next day how i had managed to steer a vehicle. k went out and rented movies. we laid on the couch, me under 3 heavy blankets, and i sort of half watched them. by the end of memento, i had sweated through the slip cover and two of the blankets. that's when k took my temperature. 102.5 monday was no better. i slept the whole day in kevin's bed, while he ran around town fetching things for me like soup and water and TheraFlu and Vernors. he checked on me ever so often and helped me get up to go to the bathroom. the TheraFlu only eased my symptoms enough to make some of the pain go away, and only as long as each dose was effective. as soon as it wore off, the hell of my sickness returned full force. miraculously tuesday morning i felt a little better when i woke up. i went home, did some chores. FINALLY the temp agency called me in to start some crappy 10 dollar an hour job the next day, which i agreed to take because i'm desperate and i've been bugging them to place me. i think i had time to apply for a job listing somewhere, but by mid afternoon i was really ill again. so back i went to kevin's. i continued to run a fever of 100-103. it had only been 48 hours or so and we assumed it was a nasty flu. fever, chills, awful back and side aches, prickly skin, nausea, no apetite, etc. wednesday morning i woke up really, really sick. i was up all night, delusional with fever and chills. i dreamt that i was a passenger on the plane that crashed in pennsylvania and that i called kevin and my mother and father on my cell phone, and then started handing the cell phone so other people could make calls. as if that wasn't horrifying enough, i also dreamt that i had sort of the same total short term memory loss as that guy in memento. bizaree and scary. by wed night i was so sick and my fever nearly hit 105. it finally occured to me that this probably wasn't the flu. by that time i felt so bad that i seriously thought i was on my death bed. not only did my skull feel like it was about to crack in half, i couldn't think or move or even talk. kevin would ask me questions and i couldn't formulate an answer and i couldn't get my mouth to move. all i could do was stare and nod. he had to help me up off the bed or couch so i could go to the bathroom. and eating was not happening. all very weird and very scary. kevin took me to the doctor yesterday morning and it turns out i have two very unhappy kidneys. (?!?) never would have guessed that one. in my delerium, i thought it was AIDS or cancer or the bubonic plague. i thought it was the result of stealthy chemical warfare from afghanistan. i thought it was parasitic infection from eating undercooked steak. i had all kinds of theories, but never suspected the kidneys. so, they gave me a shot in the ass, sent me home with antibiotics and my new best friend Darvocet (yay!) because they could see how bad i was suffering. at the doctor i could barely speak or move or communicate with the nurse or doctor. the rest of yesterday i spent the day in a drug induced haze, trying to get my wits about me. today i'm back at my apartment and able to type this out and think and talk and feel my body. so i must be getting better, but i still have blurred vision and dizziness and little appetite. my back still kills and my kidneys throb every now and then, and periodically the axe strikes different areas of my skull unexpectedly. i made it through this post! the last thing you need when you're sick is your mom calling you on the phone to verbally poke you for not having work yet and giving you job hunting advice via email and calling to follow up hours later and generally making you worry about having to give up your first job opportunity making 10 dollars an hour because god forbid your kidneys are cranky and you're running 103 temperature. ridiculous. the woman is crazy. so now i'm sitting in my apartment alone on a friday night typing this, and being sick is very lonely when you're in a place where you have no friends. kevin is out seeing music tonight - our favorite local act put he and i on his guest list, but obviously i couldn't make it. i encouraged kevin to go and have fun. he's been waiting on me hand and foot all week, sacrificing a lot of what would have been job hunting time and fun time to nurse me. typically i'd be happy to have time apart because he likes to spend more time together than i do, but when you're sick, being home alone with not VCR let alone no TV is lonely and not fun. one good thing about being this sick - if there is one - is that you forget about all the horrible things going on in the world. you are stuck in your own private hell of suffering. in any case, i have Darvocet. i'm trying to get through another 30 minutes before i take one and go to the happy place of loopy consciousness and then sleep. |
Glad you're coming home. |
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sick, i seem to have been blessed with an aggressive lymphatic system. knock wood. when i catch a flu, it hits me for a day or 2 where it hits everyone else for a week or more. i've also found that getting blind drunk when i'm coming down with something actually helps manage the bug. but, at this point, i'm pushing my luck. i feel guilty when i hear about people who work so hard for health getting sick while i seem to be able to shrug off illness without even trying. get well, dear. |
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thanks you guys. i was thinking the other day how it seems that i'm overly prone to weird ailments. not like colds and flu and stuff - but tumors, infections, thyroid malfunction, chronic gynecological malaise. yet i am one of the healthiest people i know, literally. i eat unrealistically healthy: no fast food or junk food whatsoever, [save a little high grade chocolate or ice cream around pms time], tons of fresh organic fruit and veggies, nuts, soy milk instead of cow's milk [duh]; i drink nearly too much water [hmmm, maybe overworking the kidneys? just thought of that], exercise manaically, take vitamins every day. i have lots of muscle, average or slightly less than average amount of body fat [except booty and thighs], low blood pressure, low heart rate... it seems i never got sick until i got so "healthy". wonder why that is?? makes little sense. well, shit. now i'm sitting here sweating my ass off. this sucks! |
Sarah, I hug you from afar and wish you the speediest recovery. |
Stay on top of your kidneys.They are important organs.They regulate your bloodpressure.With fever that high,it could go into pyleonephritis.Lots of time,you'll become photo sensative,so keep your lights dimmed.Lots of fluids,too. I hope you feel better soon! |
mental illness can be lonely too. |
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Turn off everything. And, go to bed. Alone. Sleep this thing off. That is probably the best thing you can do. Get better soon. |
not ketosis? you're not doing the high protien thing anymore, are you? |
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i assure you i am not doing the high protein thing anymore. i eat way more carbs these days than i should be, and i probably eat more protein than your average american, but i also exercise a hell of a lot more than your average american. ketosis does not damage your kidneys if you are drinking the recommended 8 glasses of water a day. and in any case, if eating too much protein damages your kidneys, why don't you see competing body builders lined up in the hospital on dialysis? they eat way a lot of protein and no or very little carbs, but their kidneys are just fine. |
i got a stern lecture from a fellow engineer who lost his kidneys to diabetes. (you can't eat bananas without your kidneys) |
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that's an excellent idea for suicide. now I'm half hoping that my kidneys will fail someday. |
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painful though. like having an eggbeater in your guts. |
Sour cream apple pie.Marie Calander's,yum,the best. |
all i can say is that the main advantage of you being so sick is that the only shit that comes out of you is the brown stuff from your ass and not the drivel that sprays out from your keyboard. you are stupid, pretentious, affected and spoilt. you deserve to be sick, may be it will teach needy bitches like you what its like for the rest of us who live with disablement every day of our lives. |
fuck you. |
no one deserves to be sick fuckmunch. |
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*ahem* |