zeptember

Today is Day 2 of headache and 99.2F average temp… again.

Honestly I should say the temperature thing is a continuation of what has been going on since December 7, 2009, when I noticed I had a fever from the flu for the first time.

Since December, my temperature has returned to MY normal of 97.5F only once or twice. Since December, my temperature has gotten to 98.6F a handful of times. But the prevailing temperature has been in the 99F range.

This morning when I woke for work, my head hurt, my sinuses hurt, my eyes hurt, my joints ache and my upper back aches - but not in the flu sort of way. My head, sinuses and eyes are likely all tied with either a continuation of the last virus I had, or a new virus caught while back to work yesterday.
The joint pain is because I went dancing for two nights in a row this past weekend. The back pain is because george is due in 48 hours, and so my body is trying to fold in on itself from the top down as it usually does each month.

I have to leave for work in 10 minutes, and yet I feel like my head is going to explode and I feel like I could expel one of my sinus cavities right here on the keyboard. And just in time, the stabbing right side ovarian pain has awakened for its day at work on my body.

It’s 44°F outside, and we have one ambient heat lamp installed, which does absolutely nothing to warm the “outdoor classroom”. The teachers probably won’t want to send me any children when it’s below 55°F, which means I have to float around from classroom to classroom, assisting other teachers all morning. It’s awkward work.

But off I go.

Last night, just as I lay my head down on my pillow, I began coughing. At first it was intermittent, but after just a few minutes, the cough became relentless, and I found myself in the bathroom nearly puking from all the coughing. My body certainly wanted to expell something, and my head began to hurt.
I took my temperature - 99.5F - and I was seriously confused by this point. WTF?

I popped a Tylenol 3 because my joints have been seriously aching - I went dancing two nights in a row and my joints just can’t take that sort of beating. My knees and ankles had been swollen all day, and as a result, it hurt to stand up, sit down, go up or down stairs, or even sit in a chair for very long.
As well, the Tylenol 3 contains codeine, which suppresses a cough.
Lastly, I had the Sunday Night Insomnia going on, and Tylenol 3 is sure to knock me out.
Call it whack-a-mole if you will, but it’s what worked.

I woke this morning for work and my throat is sore and I have a headache. My eyes hurt.

I took my temperature with the digital temple thermometer - 100.1F - WTF!!!
Wanting to be sure of the reading, I took my temp with the old fashioned glass thermometer - 98.6F.
I tried a third thermometer - an oral digital - 98F.
I took my temp under arm with the glass thermometer - 98F.

I am completely confused.

So I looked up taking a temperature. I read that if the reading is unsure, wait 20 minutes and try again. So at 7:30am I will try again. I read that digital thermometers are considered less reliable than glass thermometers, and that taking one’s temp by armpit is the least reliable way to guage a fever.

…

I’m registering 101F on the digital thermometer, now, and taking my temp orally again… it’s 99F.

Screw this, I’m going in to work anyway. Stoopid body.

9pm Edit: I went to work and worked a full day. I took my temp regularly throughout the day - it hung around 99F to 99.5F.
When I got home, I took my temp - 100.3F.

I’m calling the doctor tomorrow to set up an appointment - I’ve been 99-100F since the flu back on December 7th…maybe longer. Is this my new body temp? I used to always be 97.5F.

What’s going on with my body?

By December 28, my sinus infection or whatever it was, had started to finally fade.

By December 31, my husband’s doctor cleared him to be able to go out in public again, though we’d been stepping out of the house for the past two days as it was, because of cabin fever. The doctor said that as long as one still has a cough, one is still contagious, at least when it comes to H1N1. My husband had a mild cough, and was told as long as he coughs into his inner elbow, and washes his hands frequently, the spread of the illness would be greatly minimised.

So on New Year’s Eve, we went to our friend’s house, and enjoyed a mellow evening just hanging out. Some of our friends have young children now, so the house was filled with infant and preschooler noises as well.
I had reminded my husband on the way to the party about how to cough into his elbow, since we employ this method in the Montessori school I work for.
Of course, within the first half hour, my dear husband jokingly shoved his face into a box of homemade cookies and made ‘nom nom nom’ noises.
I pulled him aside immediately and reminded him of his germs. He sheepishly said he was sorry, that he’d forgotten already.
*sigh*

On January 1st, we decided to go dancing, since we’d been screwed out of most of our vacation by being sick. We sweated and danced our asses off at Meat vs. Death Guild.

The next night, we returned to the same location for New Wave City, and danced some more. I began to get sad on the way to the club, because I realised it was our last night out together before having to return to work. We’d not been able to go to Michigan to see friends and family, and we’d not been able to go out into the world from Christmas Eve til New Year’s Eve in any capacity to hang with friends, much less go wining, dining and dancing.

Today is the end of our “vacation”. Tomorrow it’s back to work. I slept in til 11:30am, despite having told myself that would be a bad idea - that I’d have insomnia tonight. Ah well.

Throughout the past week and a half, I’ve checked flight status on the airline we were supposed to have flown. Our flight made it safely to Michigan on December 25, and safely back to San Francisco on January 2. The Cabal party we were supposed to attend still happened in our absense, and pictures and dialogue were posted. I kept tabs on the weather - snow fell regularly through Christmas into the New Year in Michigan.
It’s a bit surreal knowing all of this, and having reality be that I never got on the plane.

Meanwhile, back in California, it’s been a mix of rain and sun, and the temperature has been roughly in the 50°F range during the day, and in the 30-40°F range in the evenings.

Yesterday as we shopped for a dishwasher, I informed my husband that we’d boarded the plane in Michigan and were now on our way home.
This morning I had a nightmare that we’d overslept and likely missed our flight back to San Francisco. I spent a lot of time on my cell phone with a bad connection to Travelocity to try to pin down whether the plane had left already or not. The nightmare ended with me at my ma’s house, having gone into the kitchen and turned down the country music on an old small boombox radio, so I could hear the phone conversation about how to go about getting booked on another flight. My husband was in the living room, my brother had just walked in the front door, and the boy next door stood on his porch with his wife, who was there and then not there and then there again…like some sort of hologram. The two looked a bit Victorian.

My cough returned Wednesday or Thursday as I cleaned the house, because of the dust. The cough settled, then returned again by Saturday morning, along with phlegm, after my husband and I had gotten all kissy face for the first time in about two weeks. I was hesitant but gave in. We’ll see if I get sick again. I don’t have the best immune system…

Yesterday I was so tired all day long, despite having slept in, that I wanted to cry. I overcaffinated myself to no avail. Today I’m feeling pretty tired again, but not as worn out as I was on Saturday. I’m guessing I was just super dehydrated and worn out from all that dancing and sweating on Friday, since it is the first major activity in weeks on account that I’ve been sick. I first got the flu around December 5, and my husband’s doctor thinks it was a blend of H1N1 and the regular flu. She says it takes weeks to fully recover from it, and that relapses can happen.

So it’s back to wait and see, now that we’ve had a weekend of strenuous activity via the nightclubs.

Sickie flu timeline:

November 11, 2009
I developed a sore throat.

November 12, 2009
Sore throat continued all day.
headache and weird motion feeling…some nausea…whole body feeling ‘off’ by 3pm - low and mid back pain so bad i thought i’d cry

November 13, 2009
I developed a mild headache and still had the sore throat.
still stuffy nose and back pain, now upper back/shoulders as well

November 14, 2009
mild headache and moderate sore throat, worsening by evening
still stuffy nose and full back / shoulder pain. Hubby massaged my back around midnight. took half a T3

November 15, 2009
mild sore throat and headache, stuffy nose
still moderate to severe full back and shoulder pain from shoulders down to lumbar region. took 400mg ibu

November 16, 2009
Developed a canker sore.
Ate an orange Saturday morning. Ate pad thai Sat night. Ate leftover pad thai Sun afternoon. Ate garlic fries Sun night. Drank 2 glasses red wine Sun night.

November 16, 2009
sore throat, headache, sore shoulders continued

November 17, 2009
sore throat, headache, stuffy nose, sore joints and neck

November 18, 2009
sore throat, headache, stuffy nose, sore joints and neck

November 19, 2009
Dry cough, sore throat, headache, stuffy nose, sore joints and neck

November 20, 2009
sore throat, headache, stuffy nose, sore joints and neck

November 21, 2009
sore throat, headache, stuffy nose, sore joints and neck

November 22, 2009
sore throat, headache, stuffy nose, sore joints and neck

November 23, 2009
sore throat, headache, stuffy nose, sore joints and neck

November 24, 2009
sore throat, headache, stuffy nose, sore joints and neck
~Approx date Hubby got a flu shot - Free shot from work - date is not definite

November 25, 2009
sore throat, stuffy nose

November 26, 2009
sore throat, stuffy nose

November 27, 2009
sore throat, stuffy nose

November 28, 2009
sore throat, stuffy nose

November 29, 2009
sore throat, stuffy nose, yellow gunk in nose/throat

November 30, 2009
sore throat, stuffy nose, yellow gunk in nose/throat

December 1, 2009
sore throat, stuffy nose, yellow gunk in nose/throat

December 5, 2009
Developed mild cough

December 6, 2009
still mild cough

December 7, 2009
At 2pm, I wrote in my calendar “Sometime between last night and this morning, my shoulder began to go out. Now it’s fully out. Pinched nerve. Haven’t had this happen in probably a year. Bleh.”
At 3pm - coughing/hocking and running a low grade fever with a bum shoulder. I developed a fever by 3:18pm.
By 8:40pm - ” I hit 100F before my body temp receded again. Slept for 90 mins, woke due to hunger. Waiting for B to bring soup. Can barely keep my eyes open. Talking makes me cough a lung.”

December 8, 2009
Fever steady at 99.5F since the middle of the night (my normal temp is 97.5F). Full back and shoulder ache/seized. Constant headache and face flush. Stuffed ears. Sputum. Chills. Stupidly tired. Dry cough, worsens while eating or talking.
By 2:30pm, had 101.3F again. Went and saw the doctor. The doc said the reason my fever spiked is that I’m not hydrating enough. No sympathy for the seized back/neck.
By 5:49pm - 101F fever. Head still ready to go splodey.

December 9, 2009
100F fever again upon waking. Then at 12:45pm - 99.6F fever. It’s up and down like this since Monday. Drinking lots of water and soup and tea.
Then at 10pm - My fever has not dropped below 99F all day, and is now elevated again. I’m at 99.8F. The interwebs tell me a flu fever can last 3-5 days. I’m at Day 3. :/
Then at 11:45pm - would like the liquid-like blobular vision and the nausea to stop now, plz.

December 10, 2009
7:15am - woke up with no fever, not hacking a lung!
9:15am - fever back up to 99F again.

December 11, 2009
Woke with normal temp, went to work. still had mild cough. Worked til lunchtime, then wasn’t needed for rest of the day.
Ironically that’s just when the splitting headache reappeared, along with 99F temp. whee.

December 12, 2009
Still 99F temp on and off

December 13, 2009
Still 99F temp on and off
George arrived on December 13, and from Dec. 14 - 20, my body did not seem to have the flu or virus like effects going on. I was taking a lot of Tylenol 3; codeine suppresses a cough, and acetaminophen keeps a fever down, so it’s likely that I merely staved the virus.

December 21, 2009
cough returned - green snot

December 22, 2009
green snot, cough, stuffed up, lots of choking in the morning

December 23, 2009
green snot, cough, stuffed, runny nose alternating, lots of choking in the morning; almost puked.
Hubby got the flu - 101F fever, chills, cough, pounding headache, body aches

December 24, 2009
green goo and mild cough all day. alternating runny/stuffed nose. Still heavy goo clumps in the morning from nose and throat. Alternated between normal temp and 99.3F temp all day.
Hubby still 100F.
CANCELLED FLIGHT AND ENTIRE VACATION TO MICHIGAN.

December 25, 2009
green goo and mild cough on and off throughout the day. alternating runny/stuffed nose. Still heavy goo clumps in the morning from nose and throat. Choked at times. Alternated between normal temp and 99.3F temp all day.
Hubby around 99.5F all day. He’s still got body aches, dizziness, very sore throat, mild cough, extreme fatigue.

My cough returned as of the last weekend of Dickens Fair (Dec. 21), and after I thought I’d been over the flu for a week. I usually have a core body temp of 97.5F but my temp has been at 99.3F since Thursday Dec. 24. The doctor did say that I can get the flu more than once in a season, but she thinks I just picked up a secondary virus - from the fair. 
It is my opinion that I’d caught the flu the second time around at the fair. Now you tell me why I’d want to work that again next year?

December 26, 2009
green goo and mild cough on and off throughout the day. alternating runny/stuffed nose. Still heavy goo clumps in the morning from nose and throat. Choked at times. Alternated between normal temp and 99.3F temp all day. developed debilitating headache by 9pm.
Hubby alternating between 99.5F and 100F all day. He’s still got body aches, dizziness, very sore throat, mild cough, extreme fatigue.

December 27, 2009
Hubby & Zept SnotFest. green and yellow thick goo. Started today for B, continues day 7 for Zept

December 28, 2009
Day 2 for B, continues day 8 for me. I woke without choking or gagging on phlegm until I ate cereal with milk. Sneezing throughout the day but no longer pouring snot from nose and throat. Hubby however is.

I seem to have every symptom for flu except for fever at the moment. It started yesterday with a mild sore throat that persisted into today. Then, around 3pm today, everything else hit:

All types of flu can cause:

* Fever
* Coughing and/or sore throat
* Runny or stuffy nose
* Headaches and/or body aches
* Chills
* Fatigue
-courtesy flu.gov

In addition to the above, webmd.com lists “ill appearance with warm, flushed skin and red, watery eyes” as a common flu symptom. Well, I have that, too.

It all started yesterday, when I developed a mild sore throat sometime in the afternoon. I’d worked ‘holiday daycare’, which means I spent much of the day inside, rather than outside, in close quarters with preschoolers. Several of the little buggers have wet coughs and runny noses. Some have clear snot, some have yellow or green snot.

The day before that, on Tuesday, I’d opened a door to a teacher’s classroom, gone inside and asked her if she had any eyedroppers and bottles that my co-teacher and I could use for our seed propagation project. She’d said she did not have any. This conversation is relevant later.

By the time I got home from work yesterday afternoon, I was feeling run-down. I’d had a crappy dinner, and asked for Tuckers ice cream (thus violating my sugar ban on the fourth day). Tuckers uses cow’s milk, like every other ice creamery does. I’m not supposed to have cow’s milk. Hello cravings! Within a few minutes of beginning to eat the ice cream, my stomach began to gurgle wildly. Hello lactose intolerance!

An hour of eating the ice cream, I got sharp stabbing uterine pains. This is reproducible 100% of the time, and yet I keep going back to eating dairy foods. The reason I get the pain is that dairy, especially cow’s milk, contains inflammatory prostalandins. For more info on that, read here, here and here. This may be relevant later.

This morning, my joints were aching. My knees and lower back were bugging me, so I decided not to bicycle to work, and to drive, instead. It’s the first time since November 2nd that I drove my car instead of biking to work, so I felt like the break from biking was okay. Plus, there was a chance of rain today, and I didn’t want to get caught in it like I was last week.

The uterine pain continued intermittently throughout today. After the children went inside from lunch recess, I began sweeping up the yard. My co-worker brought out lemon-scented Clorox wipes and began wiping down the tables. I gagged, the bleach scent was so strong. I looked over to double-check the type of wipes she was using and it was indeed the yellow label - the only label I thought I was still okay with. Dammit. Stupid chemical sensitivities.

As I continued to sweep the yard, my eyes began to water with thick gooey fluid. That’s when I knew for sure that my recent bout of eye allergies are triggered by the workplace. This may be relevant later.

I was on my lunch break when I sat upright on the couch in the lounge and nearly yelped from the pelvic pain. It felt like my uterus had been locked in one place and I was moving against it. So having consumed ice cream still had its effects on me. This too may be relevant later.

Around 3pm, as I was closing up my classroom for the day, I went to the open children’s bathroom and emptied out a container of dirty water into a sink. The noise of the water emptying from the container made me nauseous. My mind flooded with images of me puking water non-stop. This imagery made me want to vomit of course. The last time I was this ill from hearing water or other fluids pouring was when I was on a mushroom trip. Immediately following this imagery, I wondered if I would be getting that sick in the near future, and this was my body’s way of giving me a head’s up.

I went back outside to my classroom and wrapped up the data for our daily record book. While doing that, I was seized with severe fatigue, low and mid back pain so strong I wanted to cry, and a general blurry feeling all over. It’s hard to explain, but it’s similar to how I feel when I’m in a lot of pain from endometriosis. The world around me looks different - not so bright, and kind of blurry - and my head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton.

By the time I got home from work, around 3:45pm, I had severe chills.
I turned on the heater fan, the house furnace and put a heating pad under the covers. I changed into pajamas and went to bed and napped for a bit. I was freezing under two blankets, with the heating pad set to medium, with the heater fan going, and the furnace set to 70°F.

The thing is, with all that I’ve listed, most of it fits the bill for the premenstrual pain and suffering that I routinely experience, up to two weeks before george.

However, I remembered the scene from early this morning when I got in to work - the office was scrambling to avoid having a teacher come in to work. She’d called to say she has the flu, but that she couldn’t afford for hers and her students’ sake to miss any class time, so she’d be coming in only for a little while. The office was trying to decide whether or not to go to her house to prevent her from leaving, or to meet her at the front door and shoo her away. As it was, I heard later, that teacher DID show up to work to deliver some classroom materials, and the office staff shooed her away.

This is the same teacher - I’d opened the door to her classroom and I spoke to her on Tuesday.

Could be that she’s the infection point. Could be the children with their wet coughs and runny noses every day. Hell, we’d had a case of swine flu a couple weeks ago, and the staff decided to suppress the news, saying the mother said the child developed symptoms at home, not at school, and she kept him home for days. I found out because his teacher spilled the beans to me. Good times, eh? Covering up swine flu, a teacher coming in despite knowing full well she has the flu. No wonder the world still gets epidemics and pandemics. Stupid people.

…When I woke from my nap this afternoon, I checked out flu symptoms at flu.gov and then called my doctor’s office. It was 20 minutes to closing time, but I asked if I could be seen. They’d just stopped taking patients 10 minutes before I called, but asked me what was going on, and then did a run-down of symptoms checking with me. I was told I’d get a call back.

The on-call nurse called me back, we went over the symptoms again, and she told me she was pretty sure I have the flu, and that the doctor herself would call me back. She asked if I have had the flu shot. I told her I’d refused it because I have egg allergy (many vaccines, including the flu shot, are made with egg protein). She replied, “Oh! No you can’t get the shot, then.” Glad she didn’t fight me on the decision.

A little while later, the doctor called, and we went through the symptoms one more time. By this time, I had facial flushing, headache growing worse, sensitivity to light getting worse (all the lights in the house were off). As I ticked off my symptoms, I mentioned the back pain which came on suddenly and so severe that I wanted to cry.

The doctor interrupted me and said, “yeah, ya know, I’m sorry, but you have the flu, and tomorrow you WILL have a fever. You can NOT go to work. I’m sorry.”

She faxed in a doctor’s note to cover me for tomorrow, and told me to call back if I need an extension for next week.

We discussed over-the-counter remedies to help me through the flu (Tylenol, Advil, Pseudoephedrine), and she mentioned Tamiflu. I told her I would not feel comfortable pursuing Tamiflu based upon the side effects I’d read about, the fact that I’m super sensitive to all medications (I’ve hallucinated on prescribed minimum dosages of Tagamet, for example) and well, the news reports in general over the years. The doctor did not argue with me - in fact she said that taking Tamiflu only reduces symptoms by 1-2 days, and there’s only a select group of people she’d be willing to press to take Tamiflu.

When I got off the phone with the doctor, I broke the news to my husband, and added “I don’t want to be sick. I want to think she’s got it wrong. Maybe it’s just early george symptoms.”

Maybe it’s allergies. Maybe it’s because of the cow’s milk. Maybe it’s all of the above, but still not the flu.

It’s taken me a couple of hours to chronicle everything. In that time, it’s gotten very dark outside and I’ve turned on the overhead light. The light in the room, as well as the monitor brightness (which I keep reducing) has not helped with the stinging eye pain. I’m sore behind the eyes as well as experiencing the stinging in the eyes.
Meh.

So there is my über detailed influenza report, should I need it for the doctor, and non-influenza report, should I need to refer back to it again in case of ingestion of cow’s milk.

Stupid cows.