Kelly's World

Yesterday I wrote about being crook and being confined to bed. Unfortunately I awoke this morning to a text from C letting me know that he’s been suffering from hot and cold flushes, and at his worst cold flush he was wearing a massive FOUR layers of clothing and still shivering. This morning he was shivering, coughing and had chest pains so I urged him to go to the doctor immediately rather than be stubborn like me.

The outcome? He’s crook with the same thing. Oops.

I’ve been working from home today doing what I could, and having the odd nap when my head felt like it couldn’t stay upright anymore. But tonight I’m going to go over to C’s house, make some dinner and fuss over him a bit, before coming back home for the night. Whether it’s just a typical male not being able to cope with being sick I don’t know, but he definitely sounds a lot worse than me. I don’t even know if I’m totally up for going and visiting, and whether two sick people should even be hanging out, but I feel so guilty for passing on my sickness that I think that cooking and fussing is the least I could do.

Sharing a bed for the night isn’t an option by any means, and that’s just by going off my own experience last night. I would alternate between the hot and cold flushes (sweating so profusely to a point that at one point my entire body was one big sweaty mess) or awaken with coughing fits several times during the night. I know just how important rest is to getting better, therefore sharing a bed with me for the night isn’t something I’m willing to inflict on C. He needs his rest even moreso, since working from home isn’t an option for him. It’s times like this I love my job.

I would say that I should be nominated for worst girlfriend in the world, but I think it can be offset by the fact that he got a ticket to the NRL grand final for his birthday (just have to hope the right teams get through now). Plus I’m sure there are plenty of worse things a girl can do to a guy than share germs…right? It’s not like it’s an STD!

Still feeling pretty guilty though

I hate being sick. I hate knowing that I need to sit down and rest, and miss out on doing fun things. I hate having to constantly blow my nose. I hate having coughing fits and then vomiting because I couldn’t stop coughing.

I’ve had a cold for a few weeks now. It started going away towards the end of last week with just a cough remaining (albeit quite a bad cough), but then on Friday night it came back with a vengeance. Saturday it hit full force, and I survived my girl’s weekend (post forthcoming) by downing copious amounts of berocca as well as falling asleep in the car and not telling the girls which turnoff to take off the highway I actually threw up a few times from my coughing, and after I nearly did it again at the office today I conceded defeat and visited the doctor.

When I arrived it turned out that I couldn’t get in without an appointment (it used to be walk in only), so made an appointment for just over 3 hours time then returned home. Fifteen mins later I passed out in bed for a solid 2.5 hours, thankfully having set my alarm to make sure I got up in time for the appointment.

After visiting the doc it turns out I have a bacterial infection, possibly bronchitis. My reward is a lot of tablets to be taken, followed by a repeat prescription and more tablets, along with the luxury of working from home for the next few days. I can see my energy levels are terrible at the moment, but that could also be a result of a few late nights in a row.

So, since I hate being sick so much I will completely give in and admit that I can’t get through this by just riding it out. I’ll religiously take my tablets and hope for a speedy recovery, since I’m meant to be training for the city 2 surf, a 14km event that’s only 3 weekends away! I can already tell I’m going to be hurting.

Stupid sickness. Hmph.

Yesterday I took a day off work, and apart from a quick trip to the Telstra shop to get myself a new phone (thanks to my good friend, you know who you are) I spent the entire day in bed. At night, I got out of bed to shower, get some dinner and take it over to C’s house, while we vegged out on the couch and then went to bed (his cuddles can make even the sickest person feel better). This morning I woke up early (he had to be at work by 6), drove home, and got back into bed.

See the common theme here?

It takes a lot for me to give up and stay in bed for a day, but I’m determined to get well quickly. I hate feeling like this, and given how hard it was to keep my eyes open yesterday my body clearly needed that sleep. Going to see a football match two nights ago while sick probably wasn’t the best idea, but it wasn’t just any game – it was the State of Origin. Needless to say, I’d do it all over again.

Today I was meant to be visiting my friend from Melbourne who’s up on the Gold Coast at the moment. I’m going to give it a miss, purely because with barely a voice, a runny nose and a disgusting cough I don’t think I’d make great company. For that same reason I’m not going to be joining C and his friends this afternoon and tonight when they all get together for a few drinks and watch the union grand final (go the Reds!!) as much as I would love to. Meeting these friends of his for the first time in my state wouldn’t be making the great first impression I would like to make!

Thus, it’s another day to myself where I will lay in bed and feel sorry for myself, blow my nose, sniffle a bit more, then cough.

But before all of that can begin, I have some things that need doing first.

1. Get to the Telstra shop again and get a sim card that works. It’s been 24 hours and my phone still isn’t active (it shows a “no sim card” message), which means I’ve been without a working phone for over 48 hours now. Are you all impressed?
2. To take advantage of the time that I’m at home I thought I’d get my first week of uni stuff done, but can’t do that without a notepad. Thus I’ll need to stop in at a stationery store and get a new notepad.
3. Restock my supplies of Vick’s vapour drops and tissues. This rudolph nose needs more facial tissues! More more more! The tally currently stands at 1.5 plastic bags worth of dirty tissues, and quickly increasing.

So time to drag myself out of bed, take a shower, and get some of this stuff done. Then I can promptly go back to bed and fall asleep again. Awesome.

Wow, what a day. I woke up feeling like absolute crap, excuse the language. My throat hurt, my head felt like it weighed 100kgs and my nose began running as soon as I sat up. Real nice picture at 6am in the morning.

I had my breakfast while I contemplated what to do. I sat at the computer for a bit before I felt like I needed to curl up in a ball and rock myself to sleep. So I called in sick at work, even though really my boss was the only other person working (the office is closed until next week), laid on the couch and tried for a nap. Next thing I knew 2 hours had passed; I guess I really needed that extra sleep.

The rest of the day passed through a foggy haze, dozing on and off, and trying to revise for my uni exam. Of all the days to feel super sick, it had to be today when I needed my brain the most. Great.

Finally at 5.30pm I said “screw it, let’s get this exam on baby” and sat down at the computer. Half an hour later, the results were in…

95% aka 19/20. Yeah baby!

I’m pretty sure I know which one I got wrong, which I sat on for a few minutes trying to decide one answer or another, before finally settling on one and hitting submit. I had 3mins up my sleeve, but I just wanted it to be all over, so the submit button was the best way out. I guess I really should have selected that other option – d’oh.

Tonight I shall enjoy my short hiatus from study, before tomorrow attempting to get stuck into some research for my assignment that’s due in three weeks. It’s my birthday next month, and I think the best present ever will be the glorious month-long break from study before starting all over again in March. I hope February arrives quickly.

On Monday morning, Julie and I started our training for a 14km run/walk event we’re doing in August. We started at 6am, finished about 40mins later, and I captured this beautiful image of the sunrise. We were meant to go for a run the next morning too, but my throat was on fire. The rest of the week I was out to, including Friday, which bummed me out big time.

Mat and I had both booked days off from work so that we could go to the Wet & Wild water theme park on the Gold Coast. I haven’t been there since I was about 12 or 13, and was greatly looking forward to it. Theme parks are totally my thing, I LOVE roller coasters and rides and everything crazy. It’s so much fun!

Thursday night I was still insisting I would be well enough for us to go. Then Friday morning rolled around, Mat took one look at me and called it off. I was devastated. Once I finally accepted his decision, I realised just how right he was. I couldn’t go for longer than 5 – 10mins without blowing my nose, the entire centre of my face was red (from blowing said nose), and my blocked sinuses cause my face to take on a swollen look. It was a totally sexy look, if you’re into that kind of thing. So the entire day I spent sitting around at home, staying rugged up and trying to get better.

I looked something like this

Fast forward to Saturday, right now. I have blown my nose maybe all of 5 times today? My nose is clear, my face is no longer red (though the skin is a bit dry and raw), the sun is shining and the sky is totally clear. Why couldn’t this have been yesterday?!  The whole reason we had taken a day off from work was so we could go on a day when the park wouldn’t be busy. Knowing that less than 24 hours later I was so much better, well, it’s killing me. The other side of the coin is that had I not spent yesterday rugged up I probably wouldn’t have been in this shape today, but that’s beside the point. I wanted to go to the theme park dammit! *grin*

Monday is a public holiday in Australia, and Mat suggested we go then instead (we have plans tomorrow). So we’ll see how it pans out, I hope we go. We have these VIP passes that run out at the end of this month as well, which meant entry was totally free for us. If we manage to make it, stay tuned for an interesting photo of the day!