Cold report, day 40
Short version of this entry: I'm still sick. Woe! Pity me, for I am piteous! Or maybe pitiful.
This cold arrived rather suddenly on the evening of Thursday, December 30. It mostly wasn't terribly serious—dropped to the level of a minor irritant fairly quickly, and mostly stayed there. There've been two or three times that I've gone a full 24 hours without coughing, and a couple of weeks when I was only coughing every few hours. And the cough has mostly been the only symptom.
But then once a week or so, the cold comes back in full force, and I lose a day or two to exhaustion.
Most of this past week, it's been getting worse rather than better, possibly exacerbated by sleeping problems. I've been sleeping just fine most of the time for months, but I haven't had a full night's sleep since last Wednesday or so. I keep being woken up by what sounds like someone walking around on my roof, or by what sounds like someone revving a motorcycle engine in my backyard. I keep not being able to get to sleep 'cause the bed's too cold. (I'm thinking of obtaining a hot water bottle or an electric blanket.) Though sometimes it's too warm. I keep waking up after a couple of hours and then taking an hour or two to fall back asleep.
On Sunday, the cold symptoms got much worse; yesterday I coughed every couple of minutes all day; today I'm wiped out. And kind of sore and achy all over. Still no fever, though.
Yesterday I finally gave in and made a doctor's appointment. (And in the process, discovered that the Palo Alto Medical Foundation now has a branch in Mountain View! Significantly more convenient for me.) So I'll be going in this afternoon to get examined, and presumably to be told, “Yep, you have a cold,” because that's what doctors have said to me every time I've gone in to see them about a cold.
But at least when people ask me if I've seen a doctor, I'll be able to say yes.
What I would like to do with the rest of the day is lie down and sleep, but I have a work deadline impending, so I'm gonna try to get some work done.
(PS: I gather that what I have is pretty much what everyone else has had—the long-lasting cough seems to be a very common symptom. So this is nothing especially unusual or awful, I'm just feeling especially tired of it today.)
