Worn

goodbye
Originally uploaded by susiejulie

Well folks, I'm glad I'm not the only one who wrestles with the calling-in dilemma.

On Thursday night, I went to bed at 10pm, after reading in bed for an hour. I felt tired and hoped for some good rest. I began to drift off, but was jolted back to awareness by a fucking police siren.

I continued to lie there, begging my brain to rest. My eyes hurt and I was so frustrated. At 3am I got up, wide awake, and went online for half an hour looking at symptoms and such.

I went back to bed and pretended to sleep. I must have actually drifted off to sleep around 5.30 or 6, because when the alarm went off at 6.30, I was dreaming.

I hit the snooze four times but got up, moaning to myself. I felt sick to my stomach and woozy. Along with the week-old headache, of course.

Thank goodness all I had to do was give a final, which meant that all my classes sat quietly while they worked on the test. Gave me a chance to rest by sitting at my desk and working on papers two weeks old.

In the afternoon, my body perked up and I felt mostly normal for awhile. The headache faded and my energy was closer to normal than it's been for the last week. I even made it to my travel meeting for Australia.

By about nine, though, the headache was creeping back in and my body and energy were fading. I got home at ten, took one tablet of Tylenol PM just in case at eleven, and went to bed at twelve (again, I'm such a nightowl whore, it's ridiculous that even when I'm exhausted and weak, I'll stay up late).

I slept very well all night. The alarm went off at ten thirty and it was a struggle to wake myself. Later I had an appointment for the doctor, and after 'only' waiting an hour I saw him. He told me I had a sinus infection and that was what was causing the headaches. Though I don't have much congestion, my head has feeling lots of pressure, and my ears have been tweaking. So I got some prescriptions for congestion and antibiotics, as well as Ambien.

Oh, and he had someone draw blood for a Lyme titer (sp?) just to be safe. I think the combination of that plus the Tylenol explains why it's now after 2pm and I'm still feeling very sleepy and lightheaded.

I would have loved to stay home yesterday, but with having the final, and already being gone for one day this week, I really couldn't bring myself to call in. Certainly some of it is guilt, and part of it is hoarding--I hate giving things away, even sick days and personal time. Also, sometimes I feel afraid that I'm some kind of hypochondriac and nothing's really wrong with me, I'm just being lazy and whiny. It turned out well this time, because somehow I made it through the day pretty well.