So what have I been doing in the past week or so?
Mostly, being rather sick. I'd been coming down with something last week. It started in my nose, and my nose was bound and determined to share the love with my lungs. My lungs, being sensible, objected, and I was caught in the middle. Last Wednesday, I was in zombie-state, and barely able to breathe. I kept falling asleep in writers group, because I was so tired from coughing at night, and not being able to breathe. Fortunately, the Mucinex solved the breathing problem, as it quite efficiently encouraged my lungs to disgorge every last bloody glob of goop. The coughing was still a problem; I couldn't get to sleep, because I was coughing too hard every time I laid down, so much so that even though my throat hadn't been sore from being infected, I tore the hell out of my vocal cords, and now I honk instead of talking. Myrrh got me to go to urgent care, where they diagnosed a sinus infection (no surprise) but no pneumonia (no surprise to me, after the Mucinex worked). They prescribed me antibiotics, a serious decongestant/anti-mucus combo pill, and blessed cough syrup with codeine to knock me the hell out so I could actually sleep. I have about 25% of my voice back.
Backstory: this is part 12439023 of the same thing I've been coming down with practically since birth. My sinuses congest easily. When there's goo in my sinuses, it will get shared with my lungs. When there's goo in my lungs, I'm sick for two weeks, minimum, and I have these deathly coughs that scare anyone around me. I've come up with a few things that help me deal with it, over the years. I don't take well to being fussed over, as people have been finding out. The only person with real clearance to mother-hen me is Darkside, otherwise I get cranky.
Meanwhile, I've also been swapping my sleeping schedule around. Today I had a full eight hours of sleep, which makes me all kinds of happy. Work starts at 10:30pm, and ends at 7am. I am 99% off the phones, although there is still the possibility of telephoning when a) the incoming call queue gets out of hand, and b) people emailing in for support really do need a direct call. However, on the shift that I'm on, those two are the exception rather than the rule.
I'm learning that good music is not a luxury in this job. You're staring at text, you're dealing with people, you need focus, and you really can't be distracted on a regular basis. So you've got to have something in the ears. I have no idea where I left the charger for Fruitz last, so fortunately I have one of
hcolleen's old players. I do need some headphones that aren't falling apart, though. Ones that obstruct my hearing a little less would also be advantageous, because sometimes people do hail you audibly. But ear-comfort is first. I can't take earbuds a full eight hours. The new truism of my days is that you can't have too many cans. (Canned answers.) Hooray for Support!
