Sunday, January 27, 2002

I Hate Being Sick!

I've been incredibly sick lately. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, and it's so frustrating! I just keep moving from one malady to the next to the next since the middle of December. In the last month and a half, I have had maybe one week total without any sort of illness. I started by waking up in the middle of the night puking about a month and a half ago, and the puking gave me a sore throat so bad that I couldn't talk for three days, and then the sore throat gradually became a cold, and the cold went away but my ears stayed stuffed, and it then became an ear infection, etc. etc. I had a few days of healthiness last week during Shabbat. Then, I woke up early (5AM) in Jerusalem last Sunday so I could photograph the sunrise, and I felt fine. But on the bus, when I had almost arrived in Be'er Sheva, I was suddenly hit with a wave of exhaustion and achiness, so I went straight home and lay down. By Monday, it had gotten so bad that it hurt to get out of bed or even move a limb, even just to go to the bathroom. Gradually, that became a sore throat by Wednesday, which transformed into a stuffy cold on Thursday. Friday night (erev Shabbat) I was just getting over the cold when my head started to hurt. It just got worse and worse. I think it's a sinus infection. On Shabbat day (yesterday), I took about five Advil (Spaced out, of course) and a bunch of anti-cold and flu medicine, but it didn't help in the least. I then went home last night and tried to go to sleep, but it hurt so badly I couldn't sleep. It feels like somebody took a balloon, dipped it in sulfuric acid, inserted it inside my brain, and, at every beat of my heart, is trying to inflate it, or like one of those horrible creatures from "Alien" has been gestating in my brain and is now trying to get out. Then, I remembered I had all sorts of prescription pain killers left over from all of my ear maladies in Santa Barbara, so I checked and sure enough I brought them with me to Israel. Now, I'm on Advil, decongestant, and I also took two vicatin. However, the vicatin made me punchy, and right now my head is swimming and I feel like I'm walking everywhere on a cloud of warm air. I decided not to go to work since I'm working with water and electronics, and the equation goes: Electronics + Water + Mind altering drugs = electrocution. The vicatin has helped to reduce the pain but I can still feel it trying to break through the drugs. I have a doctor's appointment at 3:30 (about two and a half hours) and hopefully she'll know what to do. This is really a drag!

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