jaunthie | Whomped

Ooof.

I was doing all right. Really. Crazy-busy with work and life and other things, but managing. And then, Tuesday night, I noticed my sinuses were getting tight, my throat was kind of scratchy, and I was starting to get a headache. Plus I was feeling rather tired - moreso than I usually do at that hour of the evening.

Onset of seasonal allergies? (I do have a pattern of being affected for about a week in the spring, and again for a few days in the fall.) Or was it the onset of office-crud-season, and I was fighting off a bug? I wasn't sure. I took some decongestants and went to bed.

Wednesday morning the alarm clock went off, and my head exploded. Or maybe my head was already exploding, but I wasn't awake to notice until my alarm clock went off. Anyway, I quickly realized that I has a serious headache, my eyes and throat were scratchy as all-get-out, and my energy levels were only quantifiable by negative numbers. In other words, I was in no shape to go into the office. I staggered out of bed, took some painkillers, sent email to the team that I wouldn't be in that day, and checked email and put out the worst of the work-fires while I waited for the painkillers to take effect. About an hour and a half later, I realized that a) the painkillers had long since had all the effect they were going to (not much), b) I'd taken care of all of the really urgent work-emails that I could, and c) I was completely knackered. I went back to bed. The rest of the day alternated between sleeping, doing what work and chores I could manage when I wasn't asleep, and being a vegetable. I am not at my best when I have a massive headache, and this one was a doozy. I couldn't watch TV or work on the computer (both made the headache worse), and I could barely summon the concentration required to knit. Yeesh.

Thursday morning the alarm clock went off, and my head did *not* explode, but it grumbled a whole lot. Still, this was a VAST improvement from Wednesday, and I dared to hope that I'd managed to shake off whatever-it-was that had laid me low on Wednesday. I was tired, but not completely knocked down the way I was on Wednesday. I got going with my usual Thursday routine...

...and quickly realized that while I was indeed feeling much better than I had on Wednesday, and had more energy, I was by no means actually "recovered" to my usual state. By 10:00 a.m., I was completely exhausted again, and the headache had increased from grumbling-but-functional to really-annoying-but-not-entirely-incapacitating. I did get some work done (from home; thankfully I can work from home), but I was mostly not terribly useful. Fortunately I had the sick time to use, even though the time-to-deadline made this a not-great-time to be out sick.

And then there was the Thursday farmers' market. Normally I would not have gone, given the way that I felt. But this was the last one of the season that I could go to (next week is the final one of the season, but I have schedule conflicts that day), AND a friend of mine whom I don't get to see very often in person was going to be working her market stand personally (usually this market is worked by one of the other family members instead). I had told her I would be there. I wanted to see her. So I went. And I survived, and I was and am glad that I went, but I definitely paid for it in terms of energy and headache.

Finally, FINALLY, the headache went away around 11 p.m. last night. Hurrah! And while I was more tired than usual when I woke up this morning, I did not have a headache. Double hurrah! I came into work as usual. I've been to several meetings already this morning, and I'm making my way through email, and generally being a productive human being again.

...and the darn headache is nibbling at me again. Not much, but it's definitely there, lurking in the shadows. And I'm still distinctly more tired than normal.

Oooof. Whatever this is, could it please go away RIGHT NOW and not come back? Really, it's not at all welcome to stay, visit, or even drop in.