So, last week completely sucked. I went to work Monday, no prob. Then I got a phone call Monday evening that graveyard had called in, the on-call person’s phone number was disconnected, and they’d already called everyone more junior to me (which is something like 11 or 12 people now) and they’d all said no. Trying to be a good little worker (and having been offered the rest of Tuesday off if I would just do an 8-hour shift starting at midnight), I said, “Sure, I’ll come in and work another shift.” By the time I got off work Tuesday morning — having been awake for nearly 29 hours straight — I was so wiped out, it was a freaking miracle that I made it home safely.

Wednesday morning, I arrived at work. Within 3 hours, my throat was in so much pain that I was almost crying every time I had to answer the line…which was approximately every 20 seconds. So I begged for mercy, and went home sick. Anxiety was home sick, as well — I’d wanted her to stay home on Monday & Tuesday, but she insisted she was well enough to go to school; however, I made her stay home on Wednesday because she looked (and sounded!) like death warmed over. So I called the clinic and got us both in to be looked at that afternoon.

The good news was that it wasn’t strep. The bad news was that they didn’t actually know what it was, because it didn’t seem to be “just” a cold. Neither of us had fevers, so they weren’t going to give us antibiotics because it probably wasn’t bacterial. They threw some Claritin-D at Anxiety (on the theory that she had allergies), some anti-inflammatory meds at me (on the theory that I had laryngitis), and sent us packing. Luckily, I also got an official doctor’s note to be off work for the rest of the week, for which I am desperately grateful.

I’ve been on NyQuil 24/7 since Wednesday morning. I’ve gone through 2+ boxes of kleenex due to my runny nose. I’ve been sucking mentholated cough drops like candy due to my incessant cough. Today was the first day that I didn’t feel like the thundering wildebeests of the Serengeti had stampeded on all my muscles while I slept. I haven’t been eating much because I can’t smell anything at all, and so nothing tastes appealing in the least (except ice cream…which I’ve probably had a bit too much of, but it soothes the sore throat). That really alarmed me — I never lose my sense of smell, no matter how sick I am!

On the bright side, I also did 90% of the laundry on Wednesday before collapsing into a soggy, sniffling mess, and I’ve gotten a TON of crocheting done on my most recent asinine project (2-color king-sized afghan… sure, why not? *smack head into keyboard*). I also found out that Lion Brand yarn has hundreds of FREE knitting and crocheting patterns online! Ooh, shiny! (Don’t even ask me how much I spend on crochet pattern books annually. It’s painful.)

Hopefully this week will be much, much better…I’ll be deliriously happy if my nose will just stop running. I can tolerate (or at least be resigned to) the rest of being sick, but a runny nose is so utterly disgusting.