How To Deal.

I'm in bed.
I've been in bed for a couple of hours now.
And I'll be in bed tomorrow.

Yesterday at work, I was lightheaded and feverish and literally walked into a wall.
After a month of feeling worse and worse, I told Eli "ok. I really need to go to the doctor now."

So we headed to InstaCare after work and the doctor seemed pretty surprised at my condition, and that I had been sick for a month, and been on 3 bouts of antibiotics in that month and was feeling worse.
And we found what felt like a huge string of pearls under my skin, on the back side of my neck.

He did a chest x-ray and a bunch of blood work, and concluded that I had bronchitis at the beginning of December, which became pneumonia, which morphed in the severe flu I now have.
And those weird, hard bumps under my skin? The are glands that, when swollen, indicate a virus (as compared to the lymph nodes in front that indicate a bacterial infection).
But he was still unnerved.
Some of my symptoms could not be accounted for as merely "flu-like," and why are the glands on my left all swollen, but not the ones on the right?

He thinks this all somehow ties to my jaw and the never ending problems there, and told me to get a CT scan, making him the 2nd doctor in 2 days to tell me such.
So that's #1 on my To-Do list now, although it costs a ridiculous penny. I have to know what is going on in there.  I am scared to know. But I need to.
Whenever I chew something now (even just chocolate!), I get a throbbing pain in my temples.
And that ain't normal.

He told me to take it easy.  Thus, why I left work early today, and why I brought my laptop home to work off site a bit tomorrow.

So instead of having to deal with the bitchy drama of the office, and go downstairs for a refuge in my tea break, I can sleep in, stretch out on my couch, and answer my emails while watching Grey's Anatomy and drinking as much tea as I please.  No high heels, just my bathrobe. DEAL.


As I drove home from work today, the inversion was still in the air.
Inversion is what Salt Lake folks like to call the smoggy shit that invades our air every winter.
Because we live in a valley, it is basically a bowl for pollution, so the cold, filthy air gets trapped in, and the warmer, cleaner jet stream just floats over the top.
It has been bitter cold, and the air literally has a grit to it.  Disgusting. And SO bad for you (and a big reason everyone has been getting sicker, not better).

I took a hot bath and collapsed in bed, my wet hair soaking into the pillow.
And when Eli got home and started bustling around in the kitchen, turning all the lights on, I opened my eyes and... SNOW.
Not just a few white flakes drifting down, but a blizzard kicking up tufts of white powder!

Eli tried to run to the store to get ingredients for some hot jambalaya, one of is specialties, but after he saw several cars spin out, and nearly crashed himself (going 8 miles an hour), he came home.
So...blueberry waffles for dinner! (The blueberries were frozen).