17 Miles Like a (Crying) Boss

This past Saturday, Sarah and I went out to Ft. Wilderness to do our 17-mile marathon training run.  She's way faster than I am, and I was grateful she was willing to run at my slow-poke pace.  All in all, the run went really well.  The weather was great, so was the conversation, and I'm walking with no major leg issues.

So why bother with a blog post?

I made some stupid mistakes (not) planning for this run, and this is where I document stupid mistakes.  Except stupid relationship mistakes.  No one gets to learn from them but me.  But I digress...

I have to start by saying I started fighting off a cold last Tuesday, and was sick enough Thursday to take Nyquil before bed.  Friday, I made chicken soup for dinner.

Mistake 1: chicken soup and a chunk of bread isn't exactly enough fuel.  I had trouble at a 5K a few months back after a light dinner and not enough breakfast, and actually suspected Friday night that soup for dinner would come back to haunt me.

I also didn't really get a whole heck of a lot of sleep on Friday night, but I think it was plenty to get me through.

Saturday as soon as we set out, I could tell that my lungs weren't at 100%.  I thought I was doing a pretty good job of keeping a slow enough pace, but my first mile was under 13 minutes.  That's been my story in the past few half marathons too.

My plan was to have a Gu every 5 miles, but I only had 2 at the house so I switched that to a handful of Craisins at 3, 9, and 15 and Gu at 6 and 12.  I packed water and a water/gatorade blend.  I carried water in tiny bottles, and drank the gatorade when I got back to the car at 7 and 13.  Had I had a god enough dinner last night and maybe an extra granola bar in the morning, I think I would've been ok.

Our last 4-mile stint was pretty much where my wheels fell off.  By mile 14, I was getting pretty weepy and whiny.  Sarah was amazing about talking non-stop about whatever could get a reaction from me.  I managed to hit most of the intervals, and rallied a little bit in the last mile after she gave me one of her little energy chew things.

So, you know, fuel.  It's still an issue for me, but at least not as bad as the time I almost died in the gym training for the 10-miler!

Also, another "I thought we were past this" problem that came back to haunt me: squished toes!  I've been in "man shoes" for my past four pairs -- one Brooks Glycerin 10, two pairs of Glycerin 11, and I recently moved into a pair of Glycerin 12.  This pair actually a size smaller.  The gal who fitted me said that the smaller size was more appropriate for me, and plus they were out of the size I usually wear.  This is the first time I've run more than five miles straight in the new pair, and they definitely gave me some trouble.  I thought I was getting a "sock wedgie" after eight miles, so I stopped and readjusted.  Five miles later, I had to stop again.  Sarah told me to loosen the laces all the way down, and I did.  About a mile later, I realized my foot felt WAY better.

Sarah said she always ties her shoes looser for long runs, and I've heard that from other people before.  It's never been a concern for me before, because the last few pairs were apparently too big.  So I'm going to assume that loose laces will save me.  The Space Coast Half is two weeks away (minus a day), and I think I'll know after that whether it does the trick.  If not, I'll buy a pair one size bigger and keep these for shorter runs.  I love them - they are light, they hug my feet, and they are basically PSU blue - and I'm not ready to give up on them.

As my RunKeeper rolled over to 17.00 miles, I choked back a sob.  I was overwhelmed by exhaustion, pain, pride, and happiness and just couldn't process it all at once.  Despite the pain - or maybe because of it - I feel good about the marathon.  I pretty much went 10 miles on feet that hurt worse than they have in two years.  If I can mitigate that by half, and can somehow get it to hold off until mile 16 on race day, then I know I'll be able to last.

This marathon thing.  Wow, they weren't kidding when they said it's a mental game.  There's also a major reason this isn't a thing normal people EVER want to do.  I was running (and walking) for 4 hours and 9 minutes straight.  And that's just a training run!  I have 9.2 miles more to add!  And I only have one more long training run (plus a few half marathons) between now and then!

55 days to go...

This is Why I Have a Blog

I have a tiny bandage on my forehead, right at my hairline near my temple.  Under that bandage is a small but mighty head wound.  It's one of those random ouchies I occasionally get that starts out as a bug bite or a pimple, gets scratched, and bleeds like a gunshot wound.

I'm not the only one who gets these, right?

Anyway, after my seven-mile run* this morning, I took a long bath, dried off, put pajamas on, and wrapped my hair up in the towel.  And then I climbed into bed and passed out for 45 minutes.  When I woke up, I pulled off the towel, intending to roll over and fall back to sleep, when **rip**!

Apparently my shower popped the scab, which then healed over into the towel.  Eventually I got it to stop bleeding long enough to bandage it up, but by then my nap was ruined.  I've been awake and groggy ever since.

Good thing it's just about time for bed!

*yep, I did just casually drop a longer-than-10k run into a story about something else.  I'm pretty badass like that!

Running Milestone

Sometimes the sunrises are worth waking up
early and lacing up the sneakers 

Bless me, running gods, for I have slacked. It has been far too long since my last weekend run. After my new running shoes failed to magically make me run faster, and caused me blisters in a place I wasn't expecting, I fell into a state of apathy.  But this past week I had a few minor victories. 

My manager suckered me back into Walking League, and last Wednesday was my first time back.  They've started a separate path for running.  It's a one-mile course that goes around a few sports fields and I found myself running over hilly grass, gravel, and occasional sidewalk.  I only made three miles, but considering it had been about a month since the last time I even wore my running shoes, I put that experience in the 'win' column.  The duct tape on my heels (the shoes rub my Achilles tendons on both feet) gave out near the beginning of the second mile, so even though I had enough time to do another 1/2 mile I decided to stop.  When I got home that night, I brutally warped my shoes, repeatedly bending back the part that rubbed on my tendon.

Thursday morning, I had crazy-sore muscles in a brand new place: the outsides of my thighs, where they meet my hips.  I chalked this up to the uneven terrain from Wednesday.   After some stretching and ibuprofen, I was fine.  Then I spent all day Friday in the theme parks with family, and the left side got sore all over again.  The silver lining there was I wore my running shoes all day with no trouble.  Apparently the shoes have been beaten into submission!

This morning, I set the alarm for 6:15 and got up to run.  My goal was 5 or 6 miles.  For whatever reason, my pace was slow from the get-go, but as long as I was running the speed didn't matter.  The big loop around my neighborhood is 1.5 miles, and by the end of the first mile I had settled into my (slow) pace and didn't get winded, form blisters, or otherwise lose my motivation.  Right when I hit mile 5, I realized that my sore hip muscle had come back with a vengeance, and it was cramping up.  It felt like a Charlie horse in the WAY wrong place.  Since my initial goal was 5 or 6, I considered turning right and heading back toward the house.  But I turned left.  I actually committed myself to the last mile.

That's right, I voluntarily ran a mile in pain, albeit loping a little like someone whose legs were different lengths.  I walked funny to stretch the muscle, ran my intervals as scheduled (because running actually hurt less), and made it to my goal and then some: 6.05 miles.  My race pace should've been just about 1:30-1:36, and I came in right at 1:40.  That's a snail's pace, but I'm just glad I finished.  I no longer feel like the half marathon I've got 11 weeks from yesterday (and the other one I've got 12 weeks from today) is an insurmountable goal.

So...wondering about the title of the post?  Well, today is the first time I can really recall running through muscle pain.  Aside from my various foot ailments, my only other running injury to date was an occasionally sore knee.  And generally speaking, I chicken out when there's pain involved.  But I know what a sore muscle feels like and knew I wouldn't do any actual damage to myself if I kept going.  And I kept going.  And I'm still sore, but it's nothing I can't handle.

Today, the sunrise,the rainbow, and all the friendly neighborhood dogs weren't my only rewards.  Today I'm wearing my sore muscle like a badge of honor.  Tomorrow, however, I'd like to be pain-free.  Seems that would be a way better reward!

Highs and Lows

I think this screenshot says a lot about my running progress: 19 miles one week, then only 2 the next.  Then again, this week has been pretty much covered in a layer of snot, so I guess 2 miles just has to be good enough.  Don't worry about my snot though, I have been advised by the doctor that I have the common cold, and sleep and lots of water (and some zyrtec and mucinex) will fix me up in no time.  I hope so...I miss breathing!

School starts back up this week.  I'm looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. Break seems to have gone on forever, and my brain is already starting to feel mushy again.

Time With My Thoughts

I had a long training run this morning - 8 miles - and during that time, I found myself doing a little reflection.  It's amazing what two hours (and six minutes) alone with your thoughts and some tunes can yield!

Starting at the bottom...of my feet
A few weeks back, I was at a bar with some guys from work and one was telling me his philosophy of feet.  He says that you can tell a lot about a woman by the state of her feet.  At the time, I made a joke about him having a foot fetish, but agreed with him.  I spend about as much time on making my feet pretty as I do on anything else - not a whole lot.  My polish is usually chipped and/or multi-colored, my shoes are for comfort rather than style, and I didn't spend the time or money for pedicures even when I had the time or money for pedicures.  In other words, my feet show that I'm low-maintenance, and not concerned with appearances.

But today, I was thinking about the actual damage to my feet.  I have blisters from my shoes, blisters from my blister remedies, and callouses and scars from running combined with other factors.  My feet show more than that I don't care about appearances.  They show that I am capable of continuing through adversity.  They show that I'm not a quitter.  And really, what could be more beautiful than that?

Progress
I've been thinking a lot about my progress recently.  Remember when it was a huge deal that I was able to run a mile in under 14 minutes?  I realized recently that I'm pushing towards a sub-13 pace these days.  I'm sure I could do it for a mile, but then would be wrecked for the rest of my run.  On my morning runs, I tend to get disappointed when my pace isn't under 14 minutes for both miles. 

In addition to speed, I am shocked at my stamina.  When I was training for the 10-Miler, my last decent run was 6 miles.  And I blogged about the utter failure that was my 8-mile training run.  Today, I took a few walk breaks and even stopped to take a few pictures, but pretty much maintained a moderate pace throughout.  And when I finished, I was smiling.  Really!  Ask Scott!  I also managed to make it through the rest of today without a nap.

(note: my weekday runs are up to 30/35 second run-walk intervals. today's long run was a pleasantly slow 20/40, which was easy to maintain)

My next long run is 10 miles, in two weeks.  I have a 5k next week, and am wondering if I'll be able to beat my pace from the Jingle Jungle 5k last month.  And for anyone keeping track, the Princess Half Marathon is 77 days away.

I got this.

Man Feet

Today's 8-mile run turned into a 5-mile run/walk followed by a 3 mile hobble.  The blisters came back in force, despite new socks, body glide, and a whole week out of the gym due to an upper-respiratory infection.  I was furious with my feet, in tears more from frustration than pain (but also pain).  I knew the problem was my shoes.  After 5 miles, my feet would swell and my toes were basically curled over each other because there wasn't enough room in the shoe.  And so, everything after mile 5 was an exercise in will power rather than running power.

So we went back to the shoe store.  I brought my shoes (carried them - today was definitely a flip flop day) and got help immediately, despite the store's 20% off sale causing huge crowds.  The guy who helped me measured my foot and immediately noticed that my right foot is wider than the left.  My response: "that explains all the blisters on my right foot!"  He measured me again, cocked his head to the side and asked that question every gal dreams someday she'll hear: "are you opposed to a men's shoe?"

Sigh...I said I'd be willing to give it a shot, secretly hoping that he'd go back and find something pink and sparkly.  Instead, he returned with 2 pairs of Brooks (what I currently have).  The first pair was black and red.  Mostly black.  I put them on and walked the store, grudgingly admitting that they were comfortable.  I tried the second pair, which were gray and bright blue (I told Scott hot pink laces would make them fabulous).  Even these were tighter in the toes than I wanted to go.  So he put me back in the ugly black and red pair and told me to go out and jog a little while on the sidewalk.  I went out and jogged 1/2 block, came back, and accepted my fate.  "The ugly shoes are perfect."  I had plenty of space to spread out my toes, and the rest of the shoe fit my foot perfectly.

Since my left (slightly narrower) foot has barely had any blisters, I am hopeful that the new wider shoe will eventually allow my right foot to heal and I won't have this kind of problem again.

In case you're wondering what sort of damage causes a girl to give up all of her pride and buy the ugliest shoes she's ever seen, I'm including a picture of the bottom of my foot after the jump.  (there's no blood, just callouses and blisters)

Sidelined

First of all, you're welcome. 

See, more than anything, I want to document in large-format digital photos the horrible wounds I have on my feet.  But I'm not going to, so you're welcome.

...I didn't say I wasn't going to talk about them though, so feel free to click away now.  If you leave, here's a random Classic Jamie political post instead.

Scott and I visited Typhoon Lagoon on Monday, and I took a wave in the wave pool... I guess you could say poorly.  Somehow I got pushed a fair distance, dragging the tops of my feet along the concrete bottom.  I got scrapes on the side of my left foot, and the outside of my right big toe.  Since they were only scrapes, and since I was in a big old vat of chlorine, I ignored the stinging and kept on diving under the waves.

Tuesday morning, I bandaged up my wounds and headed off to run two miles at the gym (14.44 minute mile, my new PB).  Wednesday, I skipped the gym because I had to work early, but then walked 2.5 miles outside with Scott at the Walking League.  And then I came home and cried.  It turns out I'd gotten very good at ignoring the scrapes on my feet and hadn't paid attention to the pain or the oozing.

The scrape on my big toe is long and ugly, but a bandage is keeping it covered and it doesn't look that bad.  The one on my left foot, on the other hand, is about the size of a pencil eraser, and is currently a crater 1/2 full of green.  It reminds me of every skinned knee or elbow I had in my entire childhood.  The appearance icked Scott out enough that he actually smelled it tonight.  Good news: my feet aren't too stinky, and my wound doesn't smell like the garbage can.  That side of the foot feels badly bruised though, which is what worries me.  I realized this afternoon that my normal work shoes have an edge right about where this non-scab is, which is probably why I was weepy all morning.  Tomorrow I'm wearing my old shoes with a different shape.

Scott, upon having to baby me last night, suggested I skip the gym today.  And I did, though I hated (not) doing it.  He thinks my feet don't need to be squeezed in the shoes, and that my skin needs a few days off to actually scab over.  I'm following orders, but I'm already feeling sluggish.  I'm sidelining myself until Monday at the latest, unless this morphs into a doctor-worthy injury.

Measles, Mumps, and Purple Bumps

Yesterday almost all day, I had a tickle in my throat.  You know, the kind that makes you want to continuously make that "ehkkkkk" noise to dislodge whatever is tickling you?  I finally figured it out around 3:00 when I looked in the mirror at work.  There was a thing on my tonsil. It looked like a chicken pock.  (also, is that the singular of pox?)  I blamed Scott, and went back to drinking a record amount of water.

And then I sneezed.

Something flew out of my mouth and into my elbow pit.  It was a piece of oatmeal.  That's right, I spent about 8 hours with a cooked oat crusted onto my throat.

Not my finest hour(s).

At least it wasn't a raisin!

Post title inspired by the poem Sick, by Shel Silverstein

Crazy People

Scene: Waiting room of doctor's office
Time: 7:04 am

Man: I'm here for bloodwork...and whoever I'm with, make sure they know I'm really bad with needles.
Receptionist: (smiling) Just let them know when they come and get you. They'll take care of you.
Man: OK, because I can't handle needles at all.


Time: 7:08 am

Woman: Does he even know I'm here?
Receptionist: Excuse me?
Woman: Does he know I'm here? My appointment was at 7. I have to be at work at 7:30 and I can't wait much longer.

Time: 7:12 am

Nurse: Number 2061? (we are handed pagers when we check in, but rather than actually use the pagers, they use them like those take-a-number strips at the deli)
Woman from above: Do you know where Dr. M is?
Nurse: Do I... know where he is?
Woman: I had a 7:00 appointment and (rising from chair) forget it. I have to go. I'm going to be late for work. (slams pager down at reception desk and storms out)

Time: 7:25 am

Man from above: I'm really bad with needles.
Phlebotomist: Okay, no problem.
Man: No, I'm really bad with needles. So make sure I don't see one at all or I'll freak out.
Vampire: Okay...
Man: I once had one (pause for dramatic effect) break off inside me!
Vampire: Oh...wow...
Man: umm...
Vampire: did you have any water this morning?
Man: umm...no...
Vampire: ok, I'm going to go and get you some water and give you a chance to calm down.
Man: okay...
(Vampire grabs an empty styrofoam cup and literally bolts from the room.  Jamie, in the next chair over, realizes that this man is between her and the exit and wills her blood to pump out faster so that she can escape before he pukes)

These are verbatim conversations from this morning.  I'm not sure how the crazy woman EVER thought she'd be in and out of the doctor's office in 25 minutes or less (I'm giving her a minimum of 5 minutes travel time to work).  And really, if she starts at 7:30, she's done at 4. The doctor is open until 7 pm - why not schedule an after-work appointment?  You KNOW she went to her work location raving about the terrible service there.  And to think - she didn't even have a chance to sit in an empty exam room for a minimum of 10 minutes! 

As for the man, pardon the expression, but MAN UP!  Put on your big girl panties and suffer quietly. No one - not even the person doing the blood draw - gives a damn about how afraid you are of needles.  It's not going to make her do her job any more gently. If anything, it could make her nervous and end up hurting you even more.  Especially since the girl taking his blood is the one who blew out both of my elbow veins last time.

I wonder if they both survived?

Imodium

I took two Imodium Wednesday night. I rarely take Imodium at all, and when I do I've been known to take 1/2 a pill. I don't know how it works, but I picture it as one of those novelty capsule-that-turns-into-a-sponge-animal things, but with concrete instead of a sponge.

Anyway, at the time two pills seemed like the best thing for me. Trust me - I was near tears and tweeting to God for mercy.

Fortunately, the pills worked.

Unfortunately, the pills are still working.

I may be putting prunes on the shopping list.

Today, It's the Nose

Does anyone remember that Puffs commercial with the kid whose nose literally ran across his face when the tissue approached? Today, that's me.

Aside from painful congestion, my nose is runny. But it's doing that thing where you just need to have a tissue on stand-by to catch drips. Any attempt to blow will just further compact the congestion.

And the sneezes! Big sneezes that seem to come from my toes! They are as painful as they are disgusting!

I was up on and off all night with a cough. No worries there - it was the tickle-in-your-throat annoying type of cough, not the honking-goose cough that I had the past few days. I made it through the day at work, and have found my way back to the couch. Don't look for me elsewhere.

...unless I decide to go out to the garage and take the drywall saw to my nose. It's not so much spiting my face as solving a problem!

Couch-Bound

It's a good thing I went and got the antibiotics yesterday, because I'm feeling about 100% worse today than yesterday. My sinuses realized they were missing out on the congesting, mucus-producing fun. And damn, am I tired!

It's unlikely that I'll be going to work tomorrow, but by antibiotic day #3 I know I'm at least not going to infect anyone else. But damn, I'm so tired!

Coughing is exhausting, as is nose blowing and keeping my eyes open. I'm not sure I could handle sitting up all day on top of all that!

Whine

I'm officially sick again. Hopefully 2 days of Azithromycin will make me better enough to go back to work on Monday. I've already accepted that the weekend is a wash - but full of soup and juice and other good things. And naps. Naps are the best part of being sick!

Please excuse me as I continue my convalescence on the couch and watch Harry Potter.

Headaches of the Literal Type

Saturday I woke up with a headache. It came and went, but when it came it was a doozy. It felt like an ice pick was being inserted into my head above my left ear and then wiggled around. Ibuprofen helped, but it didn't completely go away.

Tonight I had a different headache. This time, an elephant was sitting right on the top of my head. Still is, actually. So please excuse me while I turn the lights down low and wait for the pills to kick in.

Who's Ready?

Who's ready to hear Jamie's embarrassingly stupid illness/injury story for September? (you can catch up on August's sunburn or July's self-imposed bronchitis if necessary)

On the way home from the grocery store, we stopped at the mailboxes and I hopped out to check the mail. I told Scott to drive home, that I needed a walk (damn that pedometer strapped to my hip!). So I picked up the mail and set off home.

Because the first house on our street hasn't been built yet (don't ask me - they built the second house first), the sidewalk doesn't go all the way home. Where the sidewalk ended, I walked down the little ramp to get to the street, slipped on some mud, and then I think I tripped on my own shoe.

What happened next was something of a slow-motion blur. I know for sure that when I tripped with my right foot, I fell onto my right knee, and then my left foot slid in the slippery mud about 8 feet to the side, away from my ass.

It was sort of like this, only replace the blue sky with mud, switch out a handful of mail for the pom in her left hand, and a palmful of pebbles and mud in the right hand. Oh, and erase the enthusiastic smile. An embarrassed smirk is much more appropriate.

Scott was mightily freaked out when I got home and he saw that my jeans were soaked from the knee down in the front of my right leg and in the back of my left leg.

The injuries are minor. I have road rash on the top of my right foot and a pretty wicked goose egg on my right knee. My left hamstring will likely hurt pretty badly in the morning, but I made Scott go out and walk with me when football was over, hoping a little stretch would relax the muscle and convince it to not freak out. I'm also a little concerned about my left ankle, but I don't think it really hurts that much more than normal.

I'll take a bruised knee any day over last month's sunburn. But allow me just a moment to whiiiine about it.

Thank you!

3 Hours of Sleep Later

The answer to the question posed in last night's entry is only partly yes. The other part of the answer is "and continued low-grade constant pain with twinges of much worse pain."

The sunburn. It sucks.

This picture was taken Saturday morning when I was supposed to be packing to come home. That's the front of my right calf, taken from the perspective of the inside of the leg.

I've really tried to be strong and not whine, but jeez does it hurt! And stubble isn't helping matters any. My poor follicles are constantly being pulled back and forth by pants (pants are my new nemesis), but at this stage I still think the razor would do more harm than good. That's why there's no "here's how it looks 5 days later" photo. I mean, I normally crop my legs out of pictures. Taking a close-up of a fuzzy one? Unlikely!

Well, it's been lovely chatting with you and showing off my war wounds, but it's time for me to get ready to go to work. The timestamp is what makes that last sentence so funny.

Pills, Pills, and More Pills

Last week was long and winding. My follow-up at the doctor landed me with another pack of prescriptions. This time I got a nasal spray (which I used for all of three days before I gave up on it - ick!), a pack of pills to clear out my sinuses, of which I took the last one this morning, and a low dose of blood pressure medicine. I'm particularly furious about the last. The doctor and I agreed to it for now until I can make enough lifestyle changes to come off of it. After all, who wants to stay on a drug with a warning like this? As much as I wanted to fight her on it, the fact is my BP is dangerously high. In my defense, I can say with a fair amount of certainty that it hasn't been this high for very long. Scott and I used to take our pressure every time we went to Publix before we moved. In the new store, the pharmacy is after the frozen foods, so we don't stop. But both numbers have gone up at least 20 points since I last checked.

So we're eating healthier. We're talking about walking. (yes, talking, baby steps man!) And we're using the existing junk food in the house to step-down to responsible choices. There's no reason to let perfectly good bacon go to waste, right? I'm in culture shock right now. Sure, I know that a bag of noodles & sauce is bad for me, but have you seen how much sodium is in a bag of flavored whole grain rice? (apparently eating one bag of rice as a meal was a bad call...to the tune of 60% of my RDA) Jeez!

And in the next month, I'm getting actual labs done - anyone want to bet what my cholesterol is going to be? - having my first full physical since high school, and I have an appointment with the "wellness nurse." I don't know what that means, but I'll let you know when I find out. I also let myself get suckered into a 7-week heart health seminar that starts this week. There are going to be guest speakers each week including a nutritionist and some other people. It's a night that Scott works late, and I couldn't think of an excuse to say no, so I signed up.

It's time to make a change. I think I'm also speaking for Scott when I say we're glad to have someone tell us to stop eating and acting like immortal fools. And I'm hoping that eventually my desire to drown myself in a pot of cheese sauce will subside. (note: when I say 'drown myself,' I really mean jump in and eat my way out with a spoon and a baguette. please don't call some hotline on me!)

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to have a chicken/cucumber/sprout sandwich on whole grain bread.

Air Freshener to Inhaler in Six Short Days

After dinner Thursday, Scott and I stopped in to Bath & Body Works because I needed some pretty-smelling hand sanitizer for my work desk. Sadly, they no longer make the size or the scent that I wanted, so I bought five 1-ounce bottles in different scents. And because it's physically impossible to walk into that store and not spend a mere $5, we also got these cute little portable air fresheners for each car.

I immediately opened Scott's and set it up in his car on our way home. Halfway through our 15 minute trip, I was ready to stick my head out the window. I figured this wouldn't be a problem for me. I had a plan. Rather than open the whole foil lid, I'd just poke a few air holes in the lid so that not as much scent would escape at once.

(This is basically how I always handle any sort of air fresheners. I just don't like a whole lot of scent.)

The next morning, I grabbed a safety pin and headed out the door. I opened the package and poked an air hole in the foil liner. I poked the air hole a little too far. Immediately, scented oil started to ooze out. Very scented oil started to ooze out.

I made it to work on Friday without incident, but the drive home was particularly bad. My eyes were watering, and I had to roll down the window despite the 90-degree weather. When I got home, I left the windows rolled down so that the car could air out over the weekend.

Almost right away, my throat got scratchy. At 8:15 Friday night, I tweeted, "I feel like my lungs are half filled with goop. Strange, I was fine this morning. Wheeeeze." I spent the weekend on the couch, not really coughing a lot, but definitely not breathing well.

I made it through two days of work, but by Tuesday afternoon I could barely keep mental focus on my job. I called in yesterday and had a diet of won ton soup, tea, and orange juice. And it just kept getting worse. Mucinex wasn't helping. Robitussin wasn't touching the cough. And only the ibuprofen seemed to be doing its job on my throat. (no, not combining cough medicines - I know better)

By bedtime, I knew I was going to need to call in again today, a fact that was abundantly clear at 2 am when I awoke to the feeling of a golf ball being shoved up into my sinuses. Up until that point, it had just been the lung goop, the cough, and the cough-related sore throat. And as I drifted off to sleep after the next coughing fit, I noticed that I had a "nose whistle" coming from my throat.

To recap: when I finally woke up for the day, I really thought I had pneumonia. I couldn't breathe at all through my nose, could barely breathe through my mouth, my sinuses were exploding, and every cough felt like it was coming from my spine. And don't get me started on the pain of sneezing!

I managed to get an appointment at the doctor, and I told her about the air freshener incident. After some looking and listening and some other questions, she said that most likely I had an allergic reaction to it, and that the irritation then got infected. The diagnosis: acute bacterial bronchitis (which I believe is just doctor speak for cough with green phlegm) and sinusitis. She gave me prescriptions for antibiotics, cough medicine (the "good" kind with narcotics), and a freaking inhaler!

It's been 4 hours and though I wouldn't say I feel good, I do feel alive. Trust me, it's an improvement. I'm still coughing and sneezing, but it's not as painful as before. Whether it's the inhaler or the cough medicine, I'm able to breathe more deeply (granted, still through my mouth!) than I have in days. And right now, breathing = peace and happiness.

As of right now, I'm planning to go to work tomorrow - for one day - and then I have a three day weekend. By the time I go back to work on Tuesday, I'll be finished my antibiotics and hopefully as good as new. And if not, at least I have my cough medicine with hydrocodone to help me care a little less...

Assorted Nuts

Today's post is really more like a handful of Tweets. Enjoy the odds & ends!

* Why is it ok to talk about puking your guts up or having a splitting headache, but not ok to tell the world about the extent of your diarrhea? It bugs me. Sickness is sickness. Poop is so misunderstood.

* Speaking of sickness, I went home sick halfway through my shift last night. My stomach still hurts, though I'm being careful to feed it a steady diet of bland foods and a distinct lack of dairy. Scott was having stomach problems last weekend (manifesting differently from my own), and we thought it was the fault of the pork nachos. But given my stunning digestive pyrotechnics yesterday (hat tip to "10 Things I Hate About You" for my favorite euphemism), I'm starting to think perhaps it was viral. I'm back to work today. I'd rather take the day off, but if I do that I'll lose my holiday pay.

* Scott and I had a miscommunication regarding our late-November feast. It seems I didn't tell him the ingredients I needed for my cheesecake. And so the poor guy went out in the rain today to buy me a graham cracker crust, caramel topping, and 2 bricks of cream cheese. I was going to make the pie this morning, but I'll try again tonight. I just wanted to get it done and out of the way so I don't have to jockey for oven space at a later time.

* As I mentioned, it is currently POURING! I won't be complaining though. Yes, it's so uncharacteristic of me. I won't complain about this one day of rain because it is a cold front. Tonight we'll have the windows open and in the morning, I might actually be using a blanket. I guess I should find a jacket and umbrella...

It's Going Around

(please excuse me while I whiiiiiiiiine for a minute)

A co-worker lost her voice and has been battling a sore throat for over a week.

A manager came in yesterday having slept for 14 hours and still felt lousy.

A chef worked one day last week with what can only be described as Kathleen Turner-itis.

I've woken up for the past three days with a headache and a sore throat.

And Elphie just puked half her weight right by the front door.

We need to shut down The Restaurant so that we can all heal. And while I'm in bed, Scott can watch over Elphie.