I've been sick

[fitzw]

Still am, actually.


Had mild reflux problems for a couple of days, then started coughing late Tuesday. Irritating, itchy cough, rather than a congestion cough. Bad enough that I called in sick on Wednesday (I work from home, so it takes a lot to get me to call in sick). No fever, though. I felt recovered enough on Wednesday evening to go to Gongfu class; wasn't really even coughing at that point.

Thursday, though, complete crash. Got out of bed long enough to notify work that I was taking another day off sick, and went back to bed. helwen got hit hard with the same illness sometime around 11:00 AM and came to bed as well. Mostly slept until 6:00 PM (!), occasionally getting up to get more water and use the bathroom. Somewhere in there, I recall that I had really bad chills.

Had some of the most bizarre dreams that I've ever had. No, strike that: One dream that kept going, all day, in which all aspects of the dream could be manipulated consciously, down to the slightest detail.

Got up around 6:00 PM, mostly to say that we didn't spend all day in bed, and to watch a little bit of television (Total Recall). Decided that we weren't going to make it to the end of that movie, or to the TV show that we were interested in watching (CSI), so I programmed the DVR for CSI and we went back to bed.

We were both up all day yesterday, with just a 2-3 hour nap in the middle of the day. Needless to say, I called in sick on that day as well.

We hadn't taken our temperatures on Thursday. On Friday, Helwen had a temperature of 101.2°F, and I had one of 101.3°F.

Now, understand, the symptoms that I've had were primarily that cough (which is enough to double me over -- diaphragm is getting really tired) and some dehydration, plus aches and pains that could as easily come from lying in bed for so long. Helwen added symptoms like skin feeling like it was on fire if something touched it, worse headache, a lot more congestion in her cough.

But somehow I lost 6 pounds this week. I admit that I wasn't eating much food for two days, but 6 pounds? I had to have lost most of that through sweat.

That's a lot of sweat.

Helwen's temperature seems to be back to normal. Mine is still above 99°F (my normal is around 97).

The doctor thinks we've both contracted a nasty bug that is going around the valley, but says that we should call if symptoms get worse again during the weekend. Main thing right now is hydration and carbs.

Comments

[prince-hring.livejournal.com]

"One dream that kept going, all day, in which all aspects of the dream could be manipulated consciously, down to the slightest detail."

I suspect that that's a healing trance... a type of sleep that the body enters when it needs to heal. I've had them since I was a kid.

During this type of sleep/dream, your pituitary makes a higher than normal amount of HGH, promoting cell division and helping heal.

Personally, I find this sort of dreaming to be exhausting...

[prince-hring.livejournal.com]

p.s. and the entire time, the dream is about solving some sort of logic problem... one that cannot be expressed or properly remembered once awake, but one that you tumble back into whenever sleep returns.

[fitzw.livejournal.com]

You're right, the problem with that dreaming, if it was a healing trance, is that it wasn't very restful.

Logic problems, we loves 'em, we do...

[silverhawkdruid.livejournal.com]

Ye gods! That sounds ghastly! Hope the two of you recover soon.
Hugs

[fitzw.livejournal.com]

Thank you. We are better, but not fully recovered. We've entered into stage where mild activity produces a flush response, and hacking and coughing have become routine (and painful). The coughing tends to be worst at night, lying down and trying to sleep. I've been falling asleep with a cough drop in my mouth, because it's the only way to suppress the coughing long enough to get some rest.

[bunnyjadwiga.livejournal.com]

Oh, one of those take-and-retake dreams? I HATE those, especially when I keep trying to make it come out more like the book. (And of course I wake up and it's a book that DOESN'T EXIST.) I get them a lot, especially between 5 and 6 am.

[fitzw.livejournal.com]

A little bit different from the "take-and-retake" dreams, although I've been having that type since Thursday (at least one of which was trying to complete a particular video game level (Tomb Raider II), and knowing that there was a more efficient way to finish the level).

This dream construction had no theme, other than the fact that it could be altered. No subject, no theme, no storyline, nothing. You could "drill down" into the dream to the level of a grain of rice, to alter it and shape it to whatever you wanted. The difficulty was then in trying to pull it together into a cohesive whole.