Oh, snot. Oh, snot snot snot.  I’m going batshit with it, swear to dog.

My BFF - we go everywhere together!

My body has not been right since, I think, February (March? No – I think it was February). That’s when the dreaded norovirus trotted through our house and totaled me for about a week.

It came home from school with Our Small Person, and laid him low for a few days. I want to say here and now that the second worst thing about watching your loved one throw up* is the knowledge that you’re next in line for that business. Despite the fact that we sanitized behind him, and that WIll was able to avoid all that nonsense, I got it a week later, and manoman, did I get it. There was moaning and crying, and barfing into bags while sitting on the toilet. There was Will calling my clients and telling them, Under no circumstances should you come to our home; I don’t care if you have a fitting today,  consider this a plague zone. There was a deep fear that I would reinfect Our Small Person or take Will out (Oh, yes – you can get norovirus over and over in an endless circle jerk of household hilarity. Norovirus is a hardy motherfucker). It was just terrible.

And since then there has been noteworthy fallout. I have dealt with an ulcer, with recurring back/hip pain that I’ve never had before and which seems to come and go as if by magic, and the worst part so far, with allergies.

I haven’t had seasonal allergies since I was pregnant (no I’m not pregnant, and yes, I’m 100% sure of that) 12 years ago. And this year, holy guacamole, I’m allergic to the entire world. There was a short bout of it in May, and then from August until the beginning of this week, I’ve been bizarre with it – sneezing loudly**, coughing, wheezing, itchy eyes, all of it. The seasonal stuff seems to be the tipping point for a mild allergy to animal dander, making it nigh impossible to snuggle with the critters (usually I just can’t touch the cats and then touch my eyes – this stuff is unacceptable), which really? Is freaking depressing.

But two or three days ago, the allergies just about went away at last – the weather must be coming in from somewhere else, or some sinister plant has quit blooming. Seriously, I don’t care what did it, the relief is kinda osm. I’m sneezing here and there, like people generally sneeze. Only thing is, the sneezing has stopped, but left behind a face and chest full of goo I can’t seem to get rid of.  There’s coughing and wheezing, and last night I pulled a muscle in my side/back in the process.

I got a box of expectorant/cough suppressant (btw, that combo makes almost no sense to me – if you’re not coughing it out, then where is the goo going?)  stuff last night, and I’m taking it; if it doesn’t kick in full sail by this afternoon, I’m going to break down and call the doctor. I cough till I see stars. The coughing gives me heartburn. And I just can’t stand the squeaking sound coming from my chest – it’s grossing me out.

Thing about the doctor is, as nice a lady as she is (she really is a nice lady), I’m terrified of going to see her. Part of it is that I’m always doing the Somatic Flip-Flop: Is this really so serious that I need to go to the doctor?/omg, what if I’m secretly dying. Which is to say, I’m worried that I’m going to her office with a little bit of nothing and being somatic, and at the same time I’m also worried that I’ve downplayed something super serious for so long that now there’s no hope. I’m worried about wasting her time, and I’m worried that I’m showing up too late. I sweat in the waiting room. Sometimes I cry. Then they make me step on a scale before I see the doctor and I get worried that I’ll get a lecture about being too fat.***  In short, going to the doctor is not my most favorite thing ever.

Which is to say, I hope this stuff starts working soon.

***

*The first worst thing is watching them be miserable.
**Which is weird for me as hell – I’m a teeny-tiny sneezer, and have been since I was a kid. I do not AAAAchoo, I keep my mouth shut and chirp when I sneeze; I’m dainty about it,  that’s how I roll. Until this year, apparently.
***Nice Doctor has not actually given me a bad time about this, but the doctor I had before her, the one I fired, looked upon my size 14 body and proclaimed (I shit you not), “If you eat one more potato chip, you will die. Do you hear me? Die.” While she was likely full of shit (she was full of shit about a few things, hence I fired her), I have not eaten a potato chip since. I’m also terrified of gaining an ounce now, irrationally expecting death to pop out of a cake or something if I do. I know it’s irrational – I know, I know. It’s just one of those things niggling at the back of my mind all the damned time.