Turning the corner.

Better today. Much better. Not entirely well - I still can't take a deep breath, I still tire very easily, and I still cough and gasp a little when it's almost time for a breathing treatment. But for pretty much the first time in ten days, today I felt (1) mentally alert, (2) cheerful, and (3) hungry.

Ravenously hungry, in fact - I told curiousangel I wanted to eat everything in the world, but I settled for going out and getting myself some Mexican food. Going out! Sure, maybe the trip was tiring, but feeling well enough to go out was definitely buoying enough to compensate. More than compensate.

It couldn't have come at a better time. Yesterday afternoon I had an emotional meltdown and cried all over curiousangel - I was feeling lonely and bored and dull and fractious and pathetic and worn out and utterly sick of being sick. I think the precipitating factor for the tears was being reminded that I don't have a dog, if that gives you a sense of how ridiculously on-the-edge I was. He was very loving and reassuring and got me over it, but I honestly don't know how I would've gotten through today if I hadn't been any better.

If my doctor hadn't forbidden it, I'd be planning to go in to the office tomorrow. I think it probably is for the best that I stay home - I can't kid myself that I don't actually need these nebulizer treatments every four hours - but it does feel a bit weird not to push myself back to work immediately. At least maybe tomorrow I can enjoy being home sick, instead of lying limply on the couch unable to read or do needlework.

I can't even begin to express how good this feels. I've been bouncing around (very gently) and grinning my head off and giving curiousangel little kisses all evening. It's just! So! Good! to not feel like I'm at death's door all the time. Even if I do have a little ways to go, yet, before I'm healthy.

Non-LJ weblogs.

serenejournal asked which non-LJ weblogs people read. I read a lot of them, so I'm going to choose ten good recommendations. I hope this is a meme that spreads - I'm always looking for more things to read.
( and the winners are... )

Analytical follow-up to all the posts about sickness.

wcg stopped by to spend time with me Saturday evening, and he seemed quite shocked by how sick I was. "I'm better today than I was yesterday or Thursday," I said, and he was shocked again. So then I was shocked - hadn't I been posting over and over again to my LJ about how I was incredibly, insanely, frighteningly sick?

Today I went back and looked. Actually, I hadn't. I'd posted a lot of things about my symptoms and what the doctor said and how frustrated I was, but I never said that I was sick enough to wonder whether I should be in the hospital. I never said I was afraid I would have a coughing fit in the bathtub, pass out, and drown. I never said that I was afraid to do anything but lie still when I was home alone. I never said that there was a point at which I was too sick to make myself a cup of tea. My posts sound like things were always basically under control, and they weren't. And yet I wasn't trying to "fake good." I was trying to be straightforward without being too whiny.

So wcg wasn't unobservant - I was underreporting. Huh. This is particularly interesting because it's been a subject of some tension between us before, on emotional issues - in that there have been times when I've been quite upset and he hasn't perceived the full extent of it. Although it's true that I don't want to be a drama queen, obviously I need to give more careful attention to the possibility that when things are bad for me I may not be communicating everything I intend to communicate.

This and that.

The World's Greatest Husband took me out for a drive this afternoon. I was out of the house for almost two hours, and everything was lovely. We stopped by the store where my brother is registered for wedding gifts, which was fun - now I know what a sixty dollar bedsheet looks like - but then abruptly became very tiring. I went from "fine" to "ready to collapse" in about two minutes. Now I'm ready to lie down for the rest of the evening. So not really fully recovered yet. But! It was a great outing, and curiousangel is a hero for suggesting it.

Moving on to the BBC's 100 books meme, because everyone else is doing it: ( Read more... )