Bad Times

Bad times with the Vicodin cough syrup ;-(

Dad's wicked sore throat

My unfounded optimism yesterday about this "little flu bug" is rapidly waning. Last night was sheer torture. Not only could I not swallow without immense pain, but throughout the night it felt like my airway was closing up every 5 minutes. The only position I found comfortable was sitting up or standing. In desperation I took two of Dana's leftover Vicodin from her pregnancy (which of course she never needed). All that yielded was a very loopy Dan for about 2 hours, then back to misery, plus with a brand new throbbing tension/hangover headache, and nausea.

I guess I should have prefaced this entry by warning you that I am merely here to complain and seek sympathy. But hey, it's my blog, so I'll whimper if I want to.

Quick update on Dana & Alex. They are recovering steadily. Dana still has a scratchy or very slightly sore throat, and Alex is not quite back to his usual chirpy self, but both seem to be pretty comfortable. Dana has been an absolute angel over the past 5 days. Even when she was at the zenith of her own symptoms, she was scurrying about taking care of Alex and I, who generally just rolled around on the floor moaning. I love that woman so much.

Around 10:30, after we'd dropped Alex off with our wonderful sitter Jane, Dana drove me up to the Urgent Care clinic in Fort Collins. We prepared for a lengthy waiting room wait, with our two books and our lackluster conversation. But remarkably, they had me in and out of there in about an hour!

Less remarkable was the news. It does not look like Strep, although they are waiting on lab results in 2 days. Otherwise I'm healthy as a horse. The good Doc just told me to get plenty of rest, fluids, blah blah blah. Then he gave me a huge Rx for Histinex HC, a vicodin-laced cough suppressant, pain reliever and "whatnot". This, after I mentioned that the earlier vicodin experiment made me nauseous. They said it acts more locally. Whatever.

Dana and I have come to take a pretty jaded view of most of the professional medicine racket. By and large, these people just dispense the least litigious advice possible that may or may not be of any help. Generally this means that all we ever get are "duh" answers that I could have either come across in Wikipedia or deduced on my own. (That being said, we have had some wonderful doctors in the past too). Thinking about this situation more, it seems like maybe the Naturopath people are on to something. Although I have not taken the time yet to research it, at least the practitioners are in it to actually help people, and are probably much more likely to TALK to patients, try and find out what's really going on, and actually propose solutions, not just crazy narcotics to mask the symptoms.

I feel pretty lousy all around, particularly for missing so much work right now. We are on the cusp of releasing a major new project to the open source community that has the potential to really help out a lot of projects and communities, and push forward the legitimacy and palatability of lots of really great software. I would usually be at least indifferent to missing a day or so of work, but I feel like I'm living in a vacuum right now. Sorry guys if you're reading this.

So here I am again sitting at home with a fever, unable to drink much water. I just took a dose of the magical elixir and some ibuprofen for good measure. We'll see if I can catch some sleep before it all wears off.

Here's one thing at least that has worked very well:

Fresh peach and yogurt smoothie, yum!

P.S. Thanks again Michael & Moira for that awesome blender. It can blend the rocks off a Colorado 14'er!

Sick As A...

Last week Alex started at daycare, where he's enrolled Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. It's very close to my work, so I can drop by at lunchtime to see him and play with him. So far it has been okay. They are very nice and good with the babies, but their caregiver to baby ratio is a bit too low for our tastes. If nothing else, it will be a good stop-gap measure until we come to a better long-term solution. All options are still on the table. Tuesdays and Thursdays we have our good friend Jane helping us watch Alex. She was the very first person besides us who watched Alex, way back when he was just a month old or so. She is fantastic!

As a special present for us, Alex brought home one nasty little flu virus. He first started showing signs of it on Thursday. By Friday night it had set in like a thunderstorm. Dana and I both came down with a persistent mid-grade fever, slight congestion, aches and pains, and overall exhaustion. Alex had a slight fever, and presumably most of the same symptoms. By Saturday it had manifested itself in a raging sore throat. While Dana and Alex have turned the corner, I am just miserable in the sore throat department. Codeine does not seem to do the trick...

For his part, Alex was completely miserable all weekend, Thursday, Friday and Saturday night we slept in shifts, since Alex could only breathe well when mostly upright. So we traded off sleeping with him on the couch sitting up. Even with that concession, he was not a happy camper. We had him on infant Tylenol drops, and regular saline nasal spray and aspirator suction. Blah. He really hates that, but he could sure breathe easier afterwards.

On a happier note, the weather has been nice. It has been a bit hot during the day, but almost every day since we've been back we've had a huge thunderstorm. The winds and rain on Friday night were enough to knock out power all night on our block.

In other great news, the upstairs bedroom remodel is nearly complete. The finish trim work is complete and it looks fabulous, very faithfully reproducing the look of all of the dark reddish-brown woodwork downstairs. I am especially pleased with our new built-in bookshelf, which is already stacked to the brim with our books. We had all of the carpets cleaned on Saturday and the only things left to do are to hook up the electricity and hook up the heat. I hope to get these done next week (after my throat is not killing me), and we should be moved in by this time next weekend.

Alex and Dana lounging on the new, clean carpet

Our lovely new built-in bookcase, with room for lots (but not all)) of our paperbacks

Return Home

Sorry for the big delay in posting. Dana and Alex flew home from Seattle 2 weeks ago Wednesday, and I drove home starting Wednesday evening after a hectic afternoon of packing and cleaning the condo.

Both of our trips were uneventful. I took I-5 south to Oregon and picked up my trailer there full of goodies from Grandpa. Then I headed East through Washington and Idaho down to Salt Lake City. From there I headed across Wyoming and down into Colorado. Thursday and Friday were two very long driving days. I do not recommend making that drive in 2 days! Fortunately, on Thursday night I had a warm bed waiting for me at Alison's lovely home in SLC's Sugarhouse neighborhood. What a relief it is to arrive there and be greeted by the friendly "woof" of a couple of greyhounds. I slept in Friday and then Ali and I had a relaxing breakfast at the cafe down the street.

By the time I got to Laramie, it was dumping rain. Plus it was getting near dusk. I just don't do very well driving in the rain at night. But fortunately I know the roads from Laramie to home like the back of my hand, having driven them so many times. So I just took it slow and got home with no problems. It was such a joy to get home and see my two favorite people there to welcome me with open arms!