Author: Aaron Pogue

Yesterday I got home from work to find AB burning up. It was terrible. She had a huge fever, and she hates getting her temperature taken (which is pretty odd, as it’s a fairly casual process with modern baby thermometers).

Anyway, we canceled our plans for the gym, because she was in no shape to go. I was pretty glad of it myself, because I spent all day yesterday walking crooked, so half an hour on the treadmill sounded like too much of a challenge.

Instead we ate leftovers and watched Sesame Street with AB. D– came over and we played Civ for most of the evening, too. It was a quiet one, but fun.

Then this morning I had an annual physical. While I was there I requested physical therapy and they filed the paperwork, so now I’m waiting to hear back from the clinic to schedule the actual sessions. I couldn’t do blood work because I’d had a protein shake for breakfast, but everything else looked perfect. So at least there’s that. If I can just get past the backache, I’ll be in pretty good shape.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

Holy cow, it’s August 11.

Anyway, I just spent a weekend being sick. I premonited it in my post last Thursday, and it got way worse before it got better.

Actually, before I headed home from work Thursday I decided to drop by my boss’s office and let him know I might not make it in on Friday, and on the way I got a case of the chills so bad that I could barely walk. That was probably the worst part of the weekend — the chills.

Anyway, I got through that conversation (and he was pretty understanding, since I was standing with teeth chattering like maracas), then I went out to the car and drove home without turning on the air conditioner, and was still shivering when I went into the house.

T– made a delicious casserole for supper (that I was barely able to eat, because I was feeling queasy), and D– came over, and we watched TV — me curled up on the couch under a blanket, while everyone else wished the A/C were a little stronger.

I took some medicine — ibuprofen for the fever (and my back pain, which made the shivers excruciating), and Zicam (and later pure zinc tablets, per N–‘s suggestion) to shorten the duration of the virus. I’ve got to say, that seems to have worked. Oh, and I took a couple benadryl to try to keep the queasiness down. That it would make me drowsy just seemed like a plus.

I couldn’t sleep, though. I didn’t sleep. My fever raged all night. I was burning up — I felt like I was on fire — and that was just constant, pretty much from the time I got in my car after work on. But, on top of that, I would go through cold spells where I shivered as though I were having seizures, and that was even worse. So, during the night, I went through cycles. I would feel so hot that I threw off the covers and the blankets, and it would take 10 minutes or so until I started shivering. Then I’d pile the blankets back on and spend 10 minutes or so regaining my core temperature, until the shivering stopped. At that point I had about 10 minutes of rest before I got so hot I had to throw the blankets off again.

I got up every two hours, through the night. Each time, I took whatever medication I could (as doses were constantly expiring). Finally, after I got up at 5:10, my fever must have broken because I went back to bed, piled on the covers, and before I stopped shivering I fell asleep and didn’t get up until 1:00.

So, yeah, I skipped work Friday. I felt a little queasy again when I woke up Friday, but other than that it was just a headache and a sore throat, so I took some painkiller and got through it. I tried to drink lots of fluids, but I didn’t eat much at all. On Friday I had a bowl of watermelon, a small box of cereal, and a single cup of soup. That was it, as far as calories went (and that was pushing it). Friday wasn’t much fun.

We did get tired of being boring sometime Friday evening and T– pulled up a website she’d heard about a while back — rifftrax.com — which is a site where the guys from Mystery Science Theater 3000 sell mp3s that you can play while you watch newer movies, and they sync up to create the ol’ MST3K effect. We got one for Willy Wonka and then realized it was for the old one (and we only have the new one), so I ordered that from blockbuster and then we got another track for Harry Potter and watched that for the rest of the night. It was surprisingly good quality, and well worth the $4 pricetag.

My fever came back, complete with the agonizing chills, right about an hour into that movie, so I piled on blankets to try to make it through, and when I finally gave up and went to bed I had a similar experience to the night before, but it ended much earlier this time. I still slept until almost noon on Sunday, and woke up feeling better than I had in days. Had a turkey sandwich for lunch, and then D– and I played Civ for about an hour before heading over to K– and N–‘s to watch the first Cowboys preseason game, and then T– and I went shopping while D– watched AB, and then we all watched the first 12 episodes of the original series of Get Smart while D– and I played Civ. That was a fun night.

I’m over my cold, now, to all appearances, but my back is hurting me worse than ever. Tomorrow I go in to see my doctor for a follow-up, so I’m going to request physical therapy. From what I’ve heard, it’ll pretty much fix my problem. I just have to make the time commitment. And deal with another stranger. Fun.

Oh! Last night I went to bed fever-free, but still couldn’t get to sleep. I tossed and turned for a while, and then finally just got up, frustrated, and stormed to my office to write down the lines that had been plaguing me. Julie asked me over a year ago if I would write a poem for her wedding, and I’ve been kind of guilt-tripping myself for months now to just get it done, but it always seemed like I had plenty of time, so I never put a moment’s real thought into it. Then, last night, the entire poem sprang fully-formed into my head, so I just had to go write it down.

I’m not convinced it’s what they want, but it should be enough to start with. It’s enough to be proud of, I think. Anyway, that’s my big accomplishment for the weekend.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

Something funny.

I subscribe to a handful of news feeds just to get a quick overview of what’s going on in the world, and there was a story this morning with the headline:
“Mauritania forces stage coup after officers sacked.”
I also, just to keep a hand in, subscribe to a French news feed that pulls from some of the same sources, and today it carried a French version of that story. Its headline read:
“Putsch en Mauritanie apres le limogeage de militaires.”

Now, yeah, “limogeage” is a pretty funny word, but that’s not what I’m getting at here. I just found it interesting that we have this word in English, “coup,” which is extraordinarily French, but everyone knows it. But, in France (where “coup” means “cut” and is much more versatile and commonplace than military coups are), the same event is called a “putsch,” which isn’t a very French word at all (it looks Yiddish to me).

Anyway, I found it funny. “Putsch.” Silly Frenchies.

Umm… T– is in Tulsa on business. She went up yesterday afternoon while I was still at work, and then stayed the night. As a result, I had to go pick up AB from the babysitter’s after work, and this particular babysitter lives in…Egypt. A long way away. Anyway, I’ve been doing a markup on my little sister’s novel, and she happened to be free for the afternoon (husbandless and kidless), so she met me at the house after work then rode out there with me, and we talked about her book the whole way.

We had McDonalds for dinner, and then I played with AB for a while before putting her to bed. She was in an incredibly good mood. Around 8:00 I sent my sister home because I was expecting D– for some Civ, but he was at a schmoozing sort of event for work and it was going profitably, so he stayed at that until 9-ish. I had already made arrangements to come into work a little late this morning, so D– brought his laptop over anyway, and we played until midnight-ish.

Then this morning N– came over to watch AB until T– gets home (we expect her in around 2:00 or 3:00). I made it to work about 9:00, and now it’s already almost lunchtime. Awesome.

Ah. As I said, I had intended to sleep late (thus the late-night Civving), but I woke up half an hour before my alarm clock went off this morning. For the last week I’ve been virtually unable to wake up at all, groggy well into the afternoon, and yet this morning I jumped out of bed before the alarm clock went off. Now, admittedly the alarm clock was still set for an hour and a half later than its norm, but still. I give the credit to going off my medication. With any luck my pain will stay manageable (and I’ll actually get better), and I can stay off the stuff. It would be nice.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

Friday evening was interesting. I got home from work early enough for T– to get to her crop on time, but she was concerned because Granddad hadn’t made it in yet (he and Mom and Dad were coming in for my niece’s birthday). With her permission, I went and grabbed a snowcone (which I’d skipped in a generous sacrifice to allow her to get to the crop on time), while she waited for Granddad.

By the time I got back, friends and family were already on their way to the crop, so T– went on up to meet them. Shortly after I got a call from Granddad saying he was in Yukon (so, about a half hour away), and I gave him directions. Turned out he’d been caught behind a major accident and lost nearly two hours on his drive.

Jeff came over with his girls (and I had AB), and Dad came, so among us we had quite a party going. At Dad’s request I made up cheese dip and salsa, and he picked up a couple of Little Caesar’s pizzas, and we talked and ate for several hours while the girls happily trashed the house. D– came over, a little later, and joined in the conversation (and the dinner).

Around 9:30 Jeff decided the girls needed to get to bed (AB had already been asleep for an hour), so he drove Dad home, and D– left at the same time. Granddad and I sat up talking for another hour or so, then I started cleaning up the house for T–, and he headed to bed. When T– got in a little after midnight, I was playing Civ on the couch. She showed me her pages (six in one night!), then we headed to bed.

Saturday morning I slept in and T– made some amazing cinnamon rolls. My sister called to postpone the birthday lunch by half an hour, so I took advantage of the time to run a few errands. I got some refills on one of my back medications, deposited a check, and picked up T–‘s other birthday present. Then I went home and picked up Granddad and the girls, and we headed north to Ted’s Cafe Escondido (my sister’s favorite Mexican place).

Lunch was fun. I spent most of it talking to Dad and my sister about their writing projects, becasue I was down at that end of the table. Afterward, we took Granddad back home, and Mom and Dad came to spend a little time with us before heading back. When Granddad found out they were leaving so soon, he decided to head home, too, so they could drive the first half of the trip together.

D– came over while they were there, and we had some fun talking, but too soon they left. Then D– and I finished our most recent game of Civ, which took five or six hours. His Mom showed up at some point while we were playing, and expressed her shock and dismay that we could spend so much time just playing video games. Whatever.

Sunday morning, we went to church with K– and N–, then headed to Souper Salad for lunch. Afterward, K– and N– went home to take naps, and I went home to edit my little sister’s novel. I got through the second chapter. Editing creative works, I’ve found, I can do about 10 pages an hour. That means this book is going to take me about 27 hours of work. Yeesh. When you factor in Dad’s and Heather’s this year (not to mention my own stuff), that’s a lot of editing work in my free time.

A little after 5:00 we headed to Edmond. First we checked on the car at the mechanics, to see if there was any way we could drive it home (nope — they had it behind a locked gate to make sure they got paid), then we went up to K– and N–‘s and rode with them to our Small Groups meeting.

It was packed. The little house was full to bursting. Dinner was hamburgers and chili dogs, with all the best chips and cake with homemade ice cream for dessert. It looked wonderful, but I was feeling awful, so I didn’t eat anything. Actually, all I really had to eat yesterday was a packet of jellybeans. Ugh.

After dinner, we had a devo and lesson, and it was 9:30 before we got home. I did the dishes and T– took care of some business stuff, and then we went to bed. That was my weekend.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

Yesterday D–‘s mom came into town and took us out to dinner, as she likes to do. My car was dead (as I may have mentioned), so D– ended up picking me up from work, and I just left the Saturn there. We got to the house where D–‘s mom was already playing with AB, and after some discussion settled on Poblano’s for dinner.

We all had margaritas with dinner (well, all but AB), and they were not small. I had the chicken tamales, which were fantastic. I highly recommend them. The sides there are lame, though. Just get them a la carte.

Anyway, after dinner we went back to the house and showed D–‘s mom an episode of Boston Legal, and then…well, everyone was pretty lethargic all evening, so after the one show D– and his mom left, and T– and I did a few chores around the house and then headed to bed ridiculously early.

I was still late getting up this morning. That was irritating. T– took me in to work, and the plan was to try to start the car around noon, and if it still didn’t work, try to figure out how to get a tow truck past security and onto the Aeronautical Center.

Before I got around to that, I had a call from my doctor’s office saying they’d received my MRI results, and it was not a ruptured disk (something he’d feared it was). So that’s good news. It also meant they didn’t have a specific suggestion. They asked how I was feeling with and without medication, and asked if I wanted to start Physical Therapy right away. I told them to give me a week, and I’m going to go back to my chiropractor. I saw him for a week and felt like it was making a big difference, so I want to give him a chance to finish the job.

Either way, I’m going back to my doctor in about a week for a physical, so we can revisit the issue at that time, if necessary.

Anyway, at lunch I tried the car and had no luck. Then I spent twenty minutes on the phone with AAA trying to get a tow truck out here, only to finally learn the 800-number dispatcher had put me in touch with the Kansas office, and they would have to transfer me to the Oklahoma office to start over. I waited on hold during that transfer for nearly ten minutes, then gave up.

My social anxiety was something of a bother here, but I managed to muster the courage to ask a couple of my coworkers (who were playing chess in the break room) if they had any experience push-starting a car, and if so, if they would be willing to help me out. Incredibly generous fellows that they are, they immediately did, and the car started on the first try (and thank the Lord for that).

So I took the car up to the shop, and it’s already been positively diagnosed as the starter, which is going to run me right at $500 to replace, but they can have it done this afternoon. At least there’s that.

Tonight we’ve got family coming in, and it should be an interesting weekend. I’ll tell you all about it on Monday.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

Tuesday night, T– volunteered to help with an event at church, so I stayed home to take care of AB. I made up her dinner, and then D– showed up with some dinner for me — a turkey sandwich from Jersey Mike’s. Awesome.

T– got home around 8:30 and put AB to bed, and D– and I started up a game of Civ. We finished our previous game (U. N. victory before we had a chance to go to war with Hannibal). I set up our second game wrong, so even though we had an amazing starting map (flowing with milk and honey, as it were), we ditched it to fix the broken settings with a new game.

We were up until after midnight playing. Ugh.

Yesterday I left work early to go to an MRI. It went really well. We spent maybe 10 minutes in waiting rooms, and then the tech came to get me (he wouldn’t let T– come along). He took down all my symptoms, and then put me in the machine for twenty minutes.

I was pretty doped up on my medicine all day yesterday, so it was easy enough to lie still for twenty minutes. At one point, while I was inside the machine, I started idly wondering what it would be like to be claustrophobic, and then I started imagining it, and then I could see so clearly how a claustrophobic person would react to that awful tube, and I just almost worked myself into a panic attack. I managed to remember that I’m not actually claustrophobic, though, and talked myself back out of it.

Afterward, we met D– and K– and N– and my little sister’s family at Qdoba for dinner. It was pretty good, in a Moe’s kind of way. We were there until almost 7:30, then D– brought me home and we played Civ until 10. This new game is going very well. I trashed the English, and now D–‘s going to take over the Holy Roman Empire. And after that, the world.

We watched the pilot of a show called Mad Men while T– was at church, and it’s pretty good. More drama than I usually watch, but good. Once T– got home we switched to Boston Legal and that ran until bedtime.

T– also made some new curtains for our bedroom yesterday, and they look really nice. It brings some color to the room. I’m impressed how much of a difference they made.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.