09:21 – It was 52.6F (11.5C) when I took Colin out at 0700, overcast, damp, breezy, and nasty.
I’ve been ill since early this month. It started with some congestion and insomnia, which I almost never suffer from. My temperature was normal, so I figured it was just an allergic reaction to something that had started dumping pollen.
When I inhaled it felt like I was only able to inhale half as much air as usual. Barbara gave me a 12-hour Mucinex, which helped a lot. The first time. The second time, it helped, but not as much. After a couple of days on the stuff, I felt a pain in my lower back. Ruh-roh. Kidney stones are a side effect of guaiphenesin. Also, my fluid intake was down from my normal gallon or so (4 L) per day little over half that. So I discontinued the guaiphenesin and starting trying to force fluids. No lower back pain since then. I think the insomnia is an artifact of the breathing issue. I just can’t get comfortable, lying down, sitting up, whatever.
This morning, around 0400, I was thrashing around trying to get settled. I woke Barbara up, and she announced that she wasn’t going to go on her trip. She’s due to leave Friday. She said there’s no way she could enjoy herself, worrying about me the whole time.
So we talked about it some more, and I agreed to go to the doctor and get checked out. I hope it’ll just be a matter of him prescribing an antibiotic that’ll clear up the problem in a day or two. But even if that is the case, it wouldn’t surprise me if she decided to bag the trip and stay home to keep an eye on me.
I hate that. Barbara deserves some downtime doing things she enjoys. She shouldn’t have to stay at home to babysit me. But, on the other hand, I confess that the idea of being on my own here for ten days does concern me.
If she does decide to bag the trip, I’m going to insist that she still use that ten days as the closest she can come to being on vacation. Eating out a lot, taking day trips to various places near here, and so on. It won’t be the same as a real vacation, but it might be better than the daily grind.