The Week in Review

The week started out calmly enough... well, if by calm you mean a bunch of Doctor Who fans taking over my house and watching British television until all hours of the night. I spent a lot of the time upstairs hiding with Inkwell, reading Hugo nominees. I got through a ton of them, wrote up most of my reviews and tried to rest.

Sick Daze

Unfortunately, whatever was simmering and has been making me sick decided it couldn't wait any longer. I felt absolutely miserable Monday morning, but dragged myself to work because, frankly, with the editor out I didn't want to burden my co-workers with the extra effort it would take if I was gone. Once I got to work I realized immediately what a mistake I'd made. I spent the entirety of deadline racing to the bathroom every few minutes to either throw up or have horrible gagging reflexes. Please note: I do not drink alcohol. This was not a result of too much partying. I didn't even eat all that much over the weekend, which is unusual for me when the Doctor Who fans come over.

After the third or fourth dry heave, I decided I'd had enough of the office and went home sick. I was able to get some water down, although it didn't always stay down. I also tried to sleep, although that was also not really working well.

I let Inkwell nibble on some catgrass while I was busy worshipping the porcelain god, but apparently he was feeling left out and found a nice spot on the carpet to do his own heaving on. I almost managed to get him into the bathroom in time, but he left a little splash on the carpet. Eric came up to clean it up; Inky then threw up again, this time on a towel I'd spread out for him. That almost triggered another round in me, but luckily I was able to settle my stomach. Poor Eric had to deal with a sick cat and sick wife, which could not have been pleasant for him.

I finally managed to fall asleep, with a great deal of difficulty. As near as I can figure, and this might be completely wrong, I think my body was reacting to my recent bouts of heat exhaustion (caused by our hot spell of temperatures over 100F for several days), stress, and possibly a nasty little thunderstorm that zipped through. The storms sometimes trigger a fibromyalgia flare-up, which was definitely part of this illness. But the fibro alone doesn't account for all the symptoms. I generally don't throw up during flare-ups. In any case, I definitely had the fibro fog and was pretty much useless for a couple of days. I was really happy I'd already written and scheduled my Hugo posts, since I couldn't have written them while I was sick.

I woke up, ate a little, tried to read a little, then went back to bed. This pattern continued most of Monday and throughout Tuesday. I watched some TV, but don't remember much of it. Eric and I headed down to get my car and I nearly got sick on the very bumpy state route 22 between Granger and Toppenish. Driving home was a nightmare I don't even want to think about. Tuesday night my folks and sister spent the night on their way back from my nephew's wedding. I wasn't much of a hostess, but Inkwell surprised me by being absolutely cool with my family and not hiding upstairs under my chair for the duration.

Back to Work

Wednesday morning was odd. I was still not well, but I wasn't nearly as sick as before. I got up to see my family leave, then slept again for a bit in my chair with Inkwell next to me. I got up again before 8 a.m. and tried to decide whether to go to the clinic and have them tell me they couldn't determine what was wrong with me, or just go to work. I eventually made the decision to go to work.

It felt like I'd been gone a month, not a day and a half. I started to line up my ducks to make sure I had my assignments in place and knew what I was doing. I had several assignments to complete and two appointments scheduled for Thursday, including a swim meet. I churned through what I could do, trying to get as much in place as possible for Thursday, and went home still sick a bit early after a little less than a half-day of work. Wednesday evening I started to feel better, enough that I was able to write up some blogs and even work on my much neglected wiki.

Happy Anniversary!

Thursday morning came very early, but my hubby happily woke me with the words, "Our marriage is now old enough to legally drink!" Happy anniversary, Eric.

Back in the Swing of Things

Thursday was all about getting back into my routine. Up in the morning, shower, a little bit of online browsing with breakfast, then off to work. Deadline was more difficult than it ought to have been due to some dithering. Then I started to work on Friday's stuff before heading off to the morning meeting of the group trying to use the resources of the town to help local children avoid the pitfalls of gangs and drugs.

The meeting was nicely casual. Although I felt relaxed, I was a little concerned about finding something in the meeting to write about. After the meeting I stuck around to chat with a person who works for the Educational Service District about how the local high school has turned around its graduation rate.

I then went home for lunch. My Windows 10 computer said it wanted to upgrade, so I told it to go ahead... and it took its dear sweet time. As I was waiting I started to get a bit sleepy, so I set my phone alarm to wake me up before 1 p.m. so I wouldn't be late back to work. Good thing I did, as I fell pretty soundly asleep. When the alarm went off I pulled myself together and headed out the door, pausing to pick some plums from my plum stick. The Windows upgrade was not yet done.

Back to work, and actually somewhat productive for an afternoon. I got four stories churned out and the foundation laid for another story. I headed home a little early to cut hours for the evening swim meet. Then back home to rest for a bit before heading out again. It's always difficult to leave once you've gone back home, but with three hours until the meet, I wasn't going to stay at work. Eric and I had a spaghetti dinner together for our 21st anniversary and joked about how wild and crazy we were, spending the special day cleaning house and going to take photos at swim meets.

I headed out to the swim meet a little early, and arrived just in time for the start of the medley relay, which is the event I most wanted to be around for. It means you can get all the different strokes in a single event. I'm always amazed at how chaotic swim meets are, and yet the children seem to be able to get on the blocks at the right time and the timers seem to be able to figure out what kids they are tracking. I try to approach the kids I've just got a picture of after they come out of the water to get their name, though sometimes I'll ask the timekeepers if they don't look too flustered. It can be very difficult to make sure I get all the names and get them right.

I stayed for almost an hour before deciding I probably had enough photos, since I was trying to get one each of both teams and both genders. Once home I started to work on my wiki again, which was refreshing and relaxing. I stayed up a little late getting stuff on it done, then slept soundly.

Friday morning I was already back in my routine, and up and going in plenty of time. I got to work slightly early and started to sort through my photos... there were a couple decent ones I could use. There were a few that looked too similar to previous photos, so I passed on those to go after what I thought were better shots.

Deadline was easy enough, then I was mostly prepping for Monday. I have a full schedule today, including a bike rodeo, health fair, fiber fair and a fundraiser. I'm hoping to write a little more about those next week. In the meantime, I'm going to be late if I don't get ready, so off I go.