Family health report, March 2017

Let’s back up.

Friday, March 10 – The Daughter was having some muscle pain, and I stayed with her, figuring she was dehydrated or something. But then she developed a fever, and felt lousy, as we tended to her with cold compresses and OTC medicine.

Saturday, March 11 – She seems better. Her fever is gone. She was helping the cleaning for my annual hearts party, which was a lovely event. But beware the two of diamonds! I theorized that she willed herself to be well, because she knew it was important to me.

Sunday, March 12- She’s feeling worse again, and her fever returned. The Wife stayed home with her, while I went to church.

Monday, March 13 – the Wife took the Daughter to the MD, who diagnosed her with strep throat AND either a cold or the flu.

Tuesday, March 14- you may have read how the snow forecast was overblown in the big cities such as Philadelphia and NYC. Well, it wasn’t overblown in much of upstate NY. My hometown of Binghamton got over 30 inches, about 3/4 of a meter, and Albany got a total of 20.5 inches, over half a meter. It was the first time in 36 years, I’m told, that the state closed down, allowing “non-essential” personnel to stay home without having to use a vacation day.

I shoveled the first six inches, no problem. But attacking the next nine was much harder than it should have been. It WAS windy and a near blizzard, but still, I should have been able to handle it. I was grateful for The Wife’s assistance to finish the job. I went to bed early, around 8:30 p.m.

Wednesday, March 15 – I was going to drag myself to work, which, in retrospect, would have been a mistake. But since the Daughter was still recovering, I tended to her. By the afternoon, though, I asked The Wife to take me to the urgent care place. After about three hours there, which included various tests and a chest x-ray, it was determined that I had BOTH pneumonia AND influenza, despite having gotten a flu shot back in November. My wife decided to sleep in the spare room, which I thought was wise.

Thursday, March 16 – Did not sleep well. I was so congested I thought I was suffocating. My attention for anything – the computer, TV – is about 15 minutes. I can’t read a book or anything that requires focus. Oh, my spouse made orange JELL-O with chunks of pineapple! You’d be amazed how for that 10 minutes, how almost happy I was. Being sick will do that.

Friday, March 17 – Tried to write a blog post, but I kept writing the wrong word – “committed” when I mean “commented,”, e.g. I DO know the difference MOST of the time. And it’s exhausting to sit up. We have seven movies (DVDs) we got in anticipation of the snowstorm, but can’t focus enough to watch any of them, but for one we all saw back on Tuesday.

Saturday, March 18 – Lots of strange dreams about aliens, Burger King, the Berman family (my great-aunt Charlotte’s people). The one thing I remember in a dream was that the dreams you have do represent a memory of your life, but it may be an event that has not yet taken place. I think the dreams are a direct result of being dehydrated, probably from some medicine finally kicking in.

This feels like drunk blogging. I’ve started about six posts this week, and, including this one, the number completed so far: one.