Throwaway Day
I've been pretty much belly up all day today after spending the entire night horking and blowing. If these are just allergies then they pack a wallop but I'm thinking more and more that I picked up an early school year cold.
Either way, its really hard to get any rest with two little boys in the house. And a dog that has to bark at the UPS truck driving by.
I think I'll go and lay down again now though.
Jun 10, 2008Either way, its really hard to get any rest with two little boys in the house. And a dog that has to bark at the UPS truck driving by.
I think I'll go and lay down again now though.
Wishful Thinking
If I can convince myself that these sniffles and the sore throat I've got aren't a cold, do you think my body will buy it?
No, neither do I.
I hate spring colds.
[Update: The one upside is that I found a site that figures out whether you've got a cold, flu or allergies. I wasn't sure whether I was having some allergies or whether it really is a cold. And yeah, its a cold. What fun! All I can say is this sucker better get gone fast!]
May 31, 2008No, neither do I.
I hate spring colds.
[Update: The one upside is that I found a site that figures out whether you've got a cold, flu or allergies. I wasn't sure whether I was having some allergies or whether it really is a cold. And yeah, its a cold. What fun! All I can say is this sucker better get gone fast!]
Normal Left A Couple of Years Ago
How bizarre is my life? I got up this morning with Sullivan who was running a bit of a fever and was just not thrilled with the universe.
While he was laying on the couch and I was getting coffee, he coughed a bit, sat up and looked like he was going to puke. Having nothing to catch the impending mess with, he vomited into my hand.
Normal and I used to know each other (not real well but well enough) but he hasn't come around in a long, long time. His younger siblings, Chaos, Mayhem and Nasty spend far too much time here.
May 8, 2008While he was laying on the couch and I was getting coffee, he coughed a bit, sat up and looked like he was going to puke. Having nothing to catch the impending mess with, he vomited into my hand.
Normal and I used to know each other (not real well but well enough) but he hasn't come around in a long, long time. His younger siblings, Chaos, Mayhem and Nasty spend far too much time here.
Labels: raising children, sick
Day Four on the Nausea Train
I've been pretty quiet this week and especially the last few days. The main reason for this is that I've had the worst case of gastro upset I've had in the last five or ten years.
What this means in my moment to moment is that it feels like someone has been kicking me in the stomach for the last few hours, they switched to my kidneys for an hour or two and then back to kicking me in the stomach again.
To say that this week has sucked would be pretty strong understatement. I stayed home from work yesterday, will stay home again today and really just want to stop feeling like I got run over by kicking machine. Oh and I wouldn't mind if my bowels stopped their rebellion as well.
Lovely post, eh? Be glad you're not living it.
Dec 28, 2007What this means in my moment to moment is that it feels like someone has been kicking me in the stomach for the last few hours, they switched to my kidneys for an hour or two and then back to kicking me in the stomach again.
To say that this week has sucked would be pretty strong understatement. I stayed home from work yesterday, will stay home again today and really just want to stop feeling like I got run over by kicking machine. Oh and I wouldn't mind if my bowels stopped their rebellion as well.
Lovely post, eh? Be glad you're not living it.
Out With the Old, In With the New.....Cold
I am battling yet another cold, my fourth or fifth in the last few months now. The result of working in the school and being exposed to a six hundred times the germs I am usually exposed to.
Only this latest sniffling bugger of a cold didn't come from the school, it came from a shopping cart or some other public spot. And I kicked the door open wide for it to come and make itself comfortable in my nose by not getting enough good sleep and being really stressed over the last week or so.
To help combat these repeated and tiring battles between my beleaguered immune system and the galaxy of pathogens, I'm educating myself on what I can do to strengthen my defenses and stay healthier.
To that end, I read Using Your Immune System to Stay Well at WebMD. The distilled advice is pretty simple with a couple of surprises tossed in.
1. Get enough sleep.
2. Wash your hands thoroughly and often.
3. Chicken soup, mushrooms and green tea can help boost immune response.
4. Listening to music can help elevate IGA (a protein from the immune system that helps fight infections) levels in the short term and can last beyond the last note. Music can also help de-stress which is good for both mental and physical health.
5. Sex can also boost IGA levels as well as just a loving touch.
6. Echinacea alone will not help but has long been thought to boost immune response when used in conjunction with other herbs.
To that end, I'm going to go and have myself some soup while listening to some Cake. But I'll be taking my tissues with me.
Dec 13, 2007Only this latest sniffling bugger of a cold didn't come from the school, it came from a shopping cart or some other public spot. And I kicked the door open wide for it to come and make itself comfortable in my nose by not getting enough good sleep and being really stressed over the last week or so.
To help combat these repeated and tiring battles between my beleaguered immune system and the galaxy of pathogens, I'm educating myself on what I can do to strengthen my defenses and stay healthier.
To that end, I read Using Your Immune System to Stay Well at WebMD. The distilled advice is pretty simple with a couple of surprises tossed in.
1. Get enough sleep.
2. Wash your hands thoroughly and often.
3. Chicken soup, mushrooms and green tea can help boost immune response.
4. Listening to music can help elevate IGA (a protein from the immune system that helps fight infections) levels in the short term and can last beyond the last note. Music can also help de-stress which is good for both mental and physical health.
5. Sex can also boost IGA levels as well as just a loving touch.
6. Echinacea alone will not help but has long been thought to boost immune response when used in conjunction with other herbs.
To that end, I'm going to go and have myself some soup while listening to some Cake. But I'll be taking my tissues with me.
Labels: cold, immune system, sick
When To Call In Sick
Movin' On Up: 5 Signs it’s Time to Call in Sick via the Express Personnel blog. All of the reasons below are expanded upon over there.
1. A high fever
2. A very sore throat
3. A cough
4. Stomach problems
5. Pinkeye
The best reason to call in sick is to help get yourself better, of course, but it should also be noted that keeping other people from getting the same flu or cold is just as important. A small office can be pretty well stopped dead in its tracks by a nasty flu.
So how do you keep yourself healthy during the runny nose season?
1. Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water.
2. Do not touch your eyes, nose or mouth after coming in contact with anything else (i.e. touch these gateway places only after washing your hands or having just used a hand sanitizer).
3. Keep hand sanitizer handy and use it often.
4. Disinfect common areas and surfaces regularly.
5. Get enough sleep to give your body a chance to fight any attacking microbes.
6. At the first sign of a cold or flu, start really loading up on Airborne or one of those zinc based remedies. If you can shorten a cold or flu by even a day or two, it'll be worth it.
7. Get a flu shot.
8. Be aware of potential hot spots for germs (i.e. door knobs, toilet handles and any other public common use area) and make sure to disinfect or wash your hands after touching. I sometimes go so far as to use a paper towel to open doors that I know get a lot of traffic.
The best way to stay healthy is to become a compulsive hand washer. I wash my hands at least six times a day now and use an instant hand sanitizer after any contact with the regular computers in the lab. I know they're crawling with nasties so I murderize them every time. I am also starting to kill them en masse by hitting up each machine in the morning with a liberal dose of Lysol.
Dec 4, 20071. A high fever
2. A very sore throat
3. A cough
4. Stomach problems
5. Pinkeye
The best reason to call in sick is to help get yourself better, of course, but it should also be noted that keeping other people from getting the same flu or cold is just as important. A small office can be pretty well stopped dead in its tracks by a nasty flu.
So how do you keep yourself healthy during the runny nose season?
1. Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water.
2. Do not touch your eyes, nose or mouth after coming in contact with anything else (i.e. touch these gateway places only after washing your hands or having just used a hand sanitizer).
3. Keep hand sanitizer handy and use it often.
4. Disinfect common areas and surfaces regularly.
5. Get enough sleep to give your body a chance to fight any attacking microbes.
6. At the first sign of a cold or flu, start really loading up on Airborne or one of those zinc based remedies. If you can shorten a cold or flu by even a day or two, it'll be worth it.
7. Get a flu shot.
8. Be aware of potential hot spots for germs (i.e. door knobs, toilet handles and any other public common use area) and make sure to disinfect or wash your hands after touching. I sometimes go so far as to use a paper towel to open doors that I know get a lot of traffic.
The best way to stay healthy is to become a compulsive hand washer. I wash my hands at least six times a day now and use an instant hand sanitizer after any contact with the regular computers in the lab. I know they're crawling with nasties so I murderize them every time. I am also starting to kill them en masse by hitting up each machine in the morning with a liberal dose of Lysol.
Labels: employment, sick, work
A Little Good, A Little Bad
Some good news is that I finally won our local football pool this week. I've been near the top of the heap all season with a couple of notably awful weeks but this week I had the pool won before we got to Monday Night and the nail biter Pats win over the Ravens.
I also won three of four fantasy leagues this weekend, which is kind of nice as well but doesn't feel quite as good as cold hard cash, does it?
The bad news is that I stayed home sick from work yesterday to rest up and am feeling worse today. More stuffed up, more achy and just more sick. But I can't really stay home a couple of days in a row right now so I'm heading in to work. DayQuil will be my salvation or my sleep aid. If I'm feeling up to it then I'll probably leave a bit early but we'll see.
I'm sure the shower will be a calvacade of goo, horking and clearances. Oh boy!
Aug 20, 2007I also won three of four fantasy leagues this weekend, which is kind of nice as well but doesn't feel quite as good as cold hard cash, does it?
The bad news is that I stayed home sick from work yesterday to rest up and am feeling worse today. More stuffed up, more achy and just more sick. But I can't really stay home a couple of days in a row right now so I'm heading in to work. DayQuil will be my salvation or my sleep aid. If I'm feeling up to it then I'll probably leave a bit early but we'll see.
I'm sure the shower will be a calvacade of goo, horking and clearances. Oh boy!
The Wrong Freaklight
Prosecutor: Salinas teacher morphed porn to include students' images
And, with that, you've had a little glimpse into the sad, sick, pedophilic world of John Hawthorne. In addition to molesting students in his classrooms, attempting to bully some to his home with threats and possessing tons of child pornography, this sick bugger cut and pasted digital images of some of his students on to pornographic images he already had.
And that, folks, is sickness of the brain. It doesn't excuse his actions by any stretch but can there by any argument that this guy was sick?
The problem with pedophilia (or, if you prefer the Euro spelling, paedophilia) is that it elicits such a strong emotional response that it is nearly impossible to step beyond the overt taboo to see the truly warped and sick mind behind it. Partly because people don't want to and partly because people are so furious with the sicko to begin with.
Just like I would be if either of my kids were in his class.
And note, I'm not condoning his actions in any way, shape or form. I firmly believe that pedophiles should be held accountable for their actions as this teacher will be. But it could also be argued that he has an illness of the mind and maybe if he'd sought treatment, he wouldn't have lowered himself to where he is now. That's neither here nor there though.
Sometimes I want to lock my doors to the outside world and never let my two boys out again. I know that won't happen but there are just too many freakin' nutters in the world these days and some of them aren't our president.
May 21, 2007And, with that, you've had a little glimpse into the sad, sick, pedophilic world of John Hawthorne. In addition to molesting students in his classrooms, attempting to bully some to his home with threats and possessing tons of child pornography, this sick bugger cut and pasted digital images of some of his students on to pornographic images he already had.
And that, folks, is sickness of the brain. It doesn't excuse his actions by any stretch but can there by any argument that this guy was sick?
The problem with pedophilia (or, if you prefer the Euro spelling, paedophilia) is that it elicits such a strong emotional response that it is nearly impossible to step beyond the overt taboo to see the truly warped and sick mind behind it. Partly because people don't want to and partly because people are so furious with the sicko to begin with.
Just like I would be if either of my kids were in his class.
And note, I'm not condoning his actions in any way, shape or form. I firmly believe that pedophiles should be held accountable for their actions as this teacher will be. But it could also be argued that he has an illness of the mind and maybe if he'd sought treatment, he wouldn't have lowered himself to where he is now. That's neither here nor there though.
Sometimes I want to lock my doors to the outside world and never let my two boys out again. I know that won't happen but there are just too many freakin' nutters in the world these days and some of them aren't our president.
Hork House
This is the house that post-nasal drip built. We are the Hork House. Only two of our members are unable to perform the hork, yet. Perhaps we'll call them Hork Initiates?
Allergy season has been kicking our asses for the last week or two here. The cut grasses have been killing me and the trees are killing my wife.
We've been coughing up disgusting post-nasal drip chunks all week long. And she's got this booming cough to go with it.
As a result of the nasty that includes a very rough and raw throat and tonsils (mine swell up to the size of golfballs or maybe tennis balls), the horking has been hot and wild. We are using our sinks more for rinse outs than anything else. Sorry for that image but at least you don't have the soundtrack to go with it too.
My symptoms are finally starting to abate now, which is nice as I'm tired of having to brace myself before I could swallow.
In other news, I'm putting together my first professional photography/graphic arts portfolio. And later this week I'll be placing my first ads for gigs. The first events I work are going to be at pretty severely discounted rates as I come up to speed on the ins and outs of the process.
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Allergy season has been kicking our asses for the last week or two here. The cut grasses have been killing me and the trees are killing my wife.
We've been coughing up disgusting post-nasal drip chunks all week long. And she's got this booming cough to go with it.
As a result of the nasty that includes a very rough and raw throat and tonsils (mine swell up to the size of golfballs or maybe tennis balls), the horking has been hot and wild. We are using our sinks more for rinse outs than anything else. Sorry for that image but at least you don't have the soundtrack to go with it too.
My symptoms are finally starting to abate now, which is nice as I'm tired of having to brace myself before I could swallow.
In other news, I'm putting together my first professional photography/graphic arts portfolio. And later this week I'll be placing my first ads for gigs. The first events I work are going to be at pretty severely discounted rates as I come up to speed on the ins and outs of the process.
Labels: sick