Sick

Well, I've managed to pick up a cold. Or, rather, an "upper respiratory infection" as the doctor called it. I know this sounds really weird, but it's almost nice to have what normal people get. For those of you unaware of my sinus history, I don't just get a cold. I typically get a cold, then a sinus infection, then bronchitis and am on like fifty rounds of antibiotics. So it's kind of nice to just have a plain old cold. Don't get me wrong, I'm horribly miserable, but it's the same miserable that half of our friends are right now. I have the cough from hell... I do pretty well when I'm sitting up, but when I go to lay down (you know, to sleep) I cough for hours.

Kaiser has this really cool thing... I called in yesterday because I tried to set up an appointment online with my doctor but she was on vacation. The advice nurse asked me a couple questions and said she could set up an appointment for me to come down and see another doctor or she could set up a phone appointment. How cool is that? Basically, a doctor called my house and went through a series of questions with me. If you answer any of them with something that sounds serious (like, yes, I'm coughing up blood), I assume they ask you to come in. However, my symptoms are sort of classic cold symptoms, so he was able to prescribe me some cough syrup and give me some advice. It was so easy and it saved me the time of having to sit in the waiting room, coughing with all of the other sick people. What a fantastic idea!

My game plan for this weekend is simple. Force myself to stay in bed or on the sofa so that I actually get better. The good news is that we don't have plans for the weekend, so this should be relatively easy. The bad news is that I get bored and end up trying to reorganize the office, for example. After all, I did just buy a labeller for that very purpose. I have a good book, my laptop and a dog who is totally ready to snuggle with me.

Speaking of snuggling, Mike is super sick right now too. While I end up coughing all night, he ends up with the nasty fever. I've spent the last two nights sleeping downstairs so that I don't wake him up with my coughing (that and it's a smaller bedroom, so the humidifier is much more effective) and so Shadow has had the rare opportunity to snuggle in bed with me (he's not allowed in our bed upstairs). This morning he brought both of his bones down here... apparently he's ready to hunker down for the day as well!