Here I am again. I wish I had something to tell you. Anything that wouldn’t sound like an excuse. But the fact is, I did next to no writing this past week on either of my projects, because 2023 and all its bad luck wasn’t quite finished with me. Yes, the car is fixed now. Yes, I got to celebrate my birthday the way I wanted to. And then, as I reported last time, I got sick. Here’s where our update begins.
I thought it was a 24-hour virus because the nausea and the fever only lasted 24 hours. The dry cough and the lack of appetite decided to stick around. I also developed a scratchy throat and sporadically runny nose. I’d be fine for hours, then suddenly start coughing and sneezing. Then I’d lie down and take a nap. Assuming I could, because when I tried to lie down the phlegm would drip into my throat and I’d start coughing. I could hear it making liquidy sounds whenever I took a breath. That’s bronchitis, which I’ve dealt with before, only it wasn’t as intense. It was kind of bronchitis lite. The fever, the night coughing, the sleeplessness and fatigue only lasted a day or two each. The problem with bronchitis, though, is that there’s no shot or medicine you can take to relieve it. You need to stay in bed and ride it out and let it run its course.
Caveat: yes, I did try Nyquil, during my last bout of full-blown bronchitis back in 2020. It did knock me cold and suppress the coughing so I could sleep through the night. The trouble happened after it wore off. I’d get wide-awake, standing-up catchup coughing fits so bad I could barely breathe. For two of them I had ringing in my ears and thought I was going to pass out. One was in public. The one where I almost passed out happened right in front of my house, with nobody around. I count myself extremely lucky that it didn’t get any worse. I will never take Nyquil for bronchitis again. Your mileage may vary.
Back to the story. It’s now Monday night, and we’re having an overnight snowstorm.
Not too bad. Three fluffy inches. But I don’t have anyone to dig my car out for me, and I needed to get to the store because I was running out of food and Kleenex. (Thank Chuck, God of Supernatural, the Tylenol held out.) So sick l’il me went out—twice, had to shovel in stages because I got tired—and cleared off the car. That was Tuesday. I’d sleep as well as I could and drive to the grocery store in the morning.
Woke up Wednesday morning, put on my glasses, and discovered I had double vision.
Luckily this is something else I’ve dealt with before. It first happened to me after a really bad week of computer game addiction, when I wasn’t eating right, if at all, and not getting sufficient sleep. Simple enough to manage: take a nap, eat decent meals, and it goes away on its own. Which it did, eventually. By the end of the day I was seeing single again…but only in the house. I got into the car and realized outside was a whole different animal. Y’see, with my form of double vision, everything close is in focus. The farther away things are, the more likely they are to double. Imagine the two-lane road running past your house is now a four-lane, and half the cars coming at you in the opposite lane(s) aren’t real, and you can’t be sure which is which. Or if the lane you’re driving on is an actual lane and not somebody’s lawn. Or somebody. And you still need to get to the store if you want to eat breakfast tomorrow. (I can always blow my nose on toilet paper. I always have plenty of that.)
If I’d been dizzy, or nauseous, or fatigued, I would have just gone back in the house and toughed it out until morning. But I’ve done this before too. The store I was aiming for is only two miles away, on a straight, clear main road. I drove most of it with one hand covering my right eye (the blurrier of the two). Each eye was fine on its own; it’s trying to look through both at once that was causing me problems. I got to the store with no problems. Coming home, the double vision had even cleared up but now I was driving into the sunset. Sometimes there’s just no winning no matter what you do.
Thursday. Woke up with double vision again but it was gone by the end of the day, for good this time. The coughing is more liquid now; whatever I’ve got is starting to break up. The shoveling I did Tuesday has resulted in sore back muscles, so walking around is a bitch. And guess what, we’ve got another all-day snowstorm scheduled for Friday…
Which I survived, obviously. I didn’t need to get supplies this time, so I basically took Friday off to let my back recover. Some neighbor with a snowblower did all our sidewalks, so all I had to do was dig out the car and my mini-driveway. I did that in stages on Saturday. Sunday I didn’t do bupkis. Napped, ate, read. No writing beyond flash.
That’s where we stand. Three weeks into January and I’ve barely written squat. Can I write a book in a month? The question remains unanswered. Or else the answer is, “Not this month.” Or maybe it’s, “Next month.”
Though I have established one positive habit while possibly extinguishing a bad one. I’ve now written and posted a blog four weeks in a row. I haven’t done that in years. I wish the content was better for you guys. I’ll work on that next. Also, I’m not sure of the exact date, but I think it’s now been at least a full month since I stopped playing computer games. I know that ended sometime before New Year’s. I even had some momentum going for a couple of days there before life tripped me up again. I survived. Hopefully I learned something. Hopefully whatever I learned may be useful to some of you attempting your own New Year’s journeys. I do not recommend driving while sick, or with double vision. Stick that one under the generalization, “Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.”
Now to post this puppy and get back to work. See you next week.
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