For the second time in my life, I've come down with the flu.

I had a cough on Monday. Now, I have a cough more often than I don't. Sometimes it seems like I just get over the cough from the last illness before a new one hits. Chronic bronchitis for the loss.

There are a lot of things I don't do "right". I don't see right, even with corrective lenses. I don't walk right or bend right. All three of these are attributed to my prematurity (more than two months), or more precisely in the case of the latter two, to the lack of physiotherapy given to preemies in 1972.

And I don't cough right. I have no idea why that is.

I seem to be almost incapable of coughing the way 'normal' people cough, with two or three coughs to a breath. My coughs each require a full breath (often, it feels like, more than one). They're great hacking explosions and if I'm sick, once they get going they're bloody hard to stop. After seven or eight, my chest is uncomfortably tight.

Add in the bitchly sore throat I woke up with on Tuesday and I was a portrait of misery.

I called in sick, of course. I didn't want to: this is the only place I've worked where calling in sick costs you a day's pay. But I had no choice.
Symptoms progressed. I'll spare you the list, because you can probably imagine. It wasn't until Thursday that I got in to see the doctor and was told I had the flu. He gave me a note saying I would return to work "when well"...and that might be in "10-14 days".

They hate open-ended notes. Also, 10-14 days? Screw that. I don't have that many sick days available to me. (After the first day, I do at least get sick pay, but of course I have to present a doctor's note to get it. A doctor's note costs an hour and a half's work, and my doctor is cheap as they go.)

No, I didn't get the flu shot. For the first time in many years. Why not? Because I had read somewhere that last year's shot was 36% effective. Joke's on me.

I've been medicating myself out the ass. I'm no longer contagious (but of course I've given it to everyone in the house). I am scheduled to work a string of three night shifts starting tomorrow night, and I aim to work them. I'm resting as much as I can.
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We're back to a feline-only household. It hits you at certain times, the lack of a Tux: mostly when you come in the door and no jingling, chuffing dog smiles out to greet you (and yes, "smile" is also a gait--don't believe me? own a dog and see). Bubbles, who had proclaimed himself Tux's BFF, has been taking it especially hard, spending most of his time in his cat tree looking out for his vanished partner. Eva found Tux's leash and collar the other day and inadvertently jingled it...Bubbles came running out to the kitchen where Eva was and stared all around, quite clearly confused. That hurt.

No plans to get a dog in the near future. Our dog-plans were for the far future, but in all honesty, I suspect now there'll be another dog along in a couple-few years. Dogs give you a different kind of love.
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I was going to write a post on coming out (to others) as poly, but that's going to wait a couple of months, now.
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And I find I don't have much else to write. Sickness has eliminated three planned outings so far.  Maybe I'll think of something else to type out in the wee hours tonight, as I try to flip to a night footing.