It was a wasted day today -- but maybe that's too harsh an assessment. It was a recovery day is a better way to put it. It was a recover day, so it's understandable that basically all I did was watch YouTube videos on my phone. In my last entry, I mentioned that I had started feeling some Covid-like symptoms, and said symptoms intensified a hundredfold immediately after I posted. I woke up Tuesday morning and went on auto-pilot -- I got out of bed, got dressed, and started making the boys breakfast, moving via pure muscle memory, and then about five minutes into the process I realized I was going to pass out if I didn't lay down soon, so I called up S, who was working downstairs, told her I was sick and asked if she could do morning and get the kids to school. She told me she could, so I got back into bed and basically didn't get out until noon the next day.
It was brutal. Even when I was sleeping I somehow still felt sick. I kept having this weird fever dream where I had to solve this numerical code but couldn't do so. There was this big screen of numbers, and I had to arrange them, but no matter how I did so it was wrong. (There was a very Severance vibe to the whole thing.) I had specific symptoms -- sore throat, headache, chills, etc. -- but the main issue was that I physically just could not function. It was a chore to go to the bathroom, and taking a Covid test -- opening the packaging, doing the swabbing, mixing the solution, etc. -- was a monumental task, seemingly on par with administering a shot of adrenaline to the heart of a woman od'ing on heroin. I didn't have Covid, but I probably would have felt better if I did.
By Thursday, I thought I was on the mend -- and I was, I could do basic tasks, at least -- but then on Friday, I woke up with a sore throat to end all sore throats. It was like a woodworker's file had been dragged through my esophagus. My lymph nodes were swollen and throbbing with pain and just taking a sip of water felt like swallowing a burning ember. It was so brutal. I tried sucking on lozenges but all that did was leave me with a sore throat and a worn away roof of my mouth. There's really nothing you can do but wait it out. On the plus side, I dropped like seven pounds. Apparently, eating nothing but a few cans of soup and a handful of Ritz crackers over the course of three days really makes the weight melt away.
Anyway, it still hurts today -- quite a bit, actually, like if I felt this way a week ago, I'd be like oh man, I got a sore throat! -- but it feels so much better than it did yesterday that it doesn't really bother me. I think tomorrow, Monday at the latest, I'll basically be back to normal. Although, I feel like I kinda always have a sore throat, at least in the morning. I often wake up with a very dry mouth and throat. I guess I'm a mouth-breather when I sleep. Speaking of which, I've recently become a snorer, which S "loves". It's apparently only when I sleep on my back, which I've started doing a lot lately because the arthritis in my shoulder prevents me from lying on my side for too long. It starts to ache even when I'm lying on my opposite side, somehow. The joys of aging.
In other news, we had a little episode happen a few days ago that would have been funny, had it not cost us some money. There's been a car parked in front of our neighbor's house for the last two-weeks, and nobody knows whose it is. So, our neighbor calls the District Department of Transportation (DDOT), and they tell her it hasn't been reported as stolen, and they can't just tow it for no reason, so they will come out and ticket it, and then if still nobody moves it after n days, or whatever, they can tow it. Our streets are technically zoned, so you need a parking permit to stay for longer than two hours during the day, but it's not enforced. We never bought a permit, and we once parked on the street for five straight weeks (this summer when we stayed in UP), and didn't get a ticket. But we weren't so lucky this time. The traffic cop came out, didn't ticket the car in front of our neighbor's house for some reason, but ticketed our car. So, the mystery car is still there, unticketed, and we have to pay a fine for parking in the same spot, right in front of our house, we have parked at for the last four years, without issue. Thanks, DDOT -- you guys rock!
Until next time...
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