Sick and Tried

I've been sick for a couple of months or more. Not sick enough to go to the hospital, but sick enough to go to the doctor five times and still I'm sick. For a few moments I forgot how sick I was and spent my time cleaning and shopping and preparing to cook for Cal. I spent one entire day sprucing myself up for the imagined romantic seduction. Now I think part of this illness might be mere mortification at my own foolishness. And yet, I'm sick, there is no getting around it, I'm sick. My symptoms include fatigue, a terrible cough, wheezing on every breath, in and out, and the loss of my voice. Without my voice I have nothing to say. Really. Maybe without my voice I can't think.

Yes, I know there has been a lot of interesting news. Yes, I could write about any of it and have a post ready for you to read and comment on as if I really did have an original thought. Yes, I could pretend to be cruising along happy as a clam, but I'm sick. And once I bang out something on this keyboard, I won't have enough energy to visit you, to comment on your smart, witty, thoughtful, brilliant posts. I'm too sick.

I'm on my second round of antibiotics. Along with the first round (a Zpack) I was on a weeks worth of prednisone which made me feel great. No wonder athletes like the steroids. I felt invincible. So I wheezed. I felt great. Then, when the steroids ran out, I didn't feel better at all. But romance was just around the corner, so I plowed on through the cleaning, and hair coloring, the shopping and laundry. Endorphins and hope kept me going.

Then after the debacle that was my imaginary romance, I realized just how sick I felt. There is no real depression in this illness. Just wheezing, coughing, and no voice. I have had four "breathing treatments" two rounds of steroids and bed rest. I'm now on a different antibiotic, two types of inhalers, my second round of antibiotics, plus Mucinex, and Delsym cough medicine. And still I croak and wheeze.

It is the ugly season here--that time between real winter and the promise of spring. I know it will be Spring again and then I will be full of energy and enthusiasm for one project or another that will keep me outside. I'm hoping by then I'll feel well and full of energy. But for now, I'm sick and oddly tired.