6 April 2001
Last year: "If I didn't know better," I told K.T., "I'd swear I had the flu."
Well, that was no fun at all.
I was busy as a bee yesterday after work - making some changes to the website, chatting with at least three friends on Instant Messenger, and exchanging rapid-fire e-mails with Ashley, the wonderful person who hosts my website. I was feeling perfectly happy and healthy.
Then something weird happened to my computer screen - nothing major, but all the text in the menu and window title bars turned boldface or maybe extra-wide... I'm not sure. This had happened to me before, and the only cure that I know of is to reboot.
About the same time, I felt the beginnings of tightness in my stomach that heralded another fit of indigestion. So while the computer rebooted, I went into the kitchen and took a Pepcid AC in the hopes the fit would pass quickly. I went back out to the computer, figuring it might help if I were distracted.
About ten seconds later, I decided that was a Bad Idea. The pain had suddenly spiked to a level it's never been at before, and I literally could not sit still. I got up and started pacing. The pain didn't subside. I went upstairs, hoping that if I laid down I could find a position somewhat more comfortable.
About two seconds after I laid down, I realized that, too, was a Bad Idea. I got back up, went into the bathroom, and proceeded to "up my swallow," to borrow a phrase. I don't know if it was because I ate something bad, and that caused the pain as well; or if it was just that the pain was so bad I threw up.
Whatever the reason, the pain didn't abate after I'd finished. Matt got home just as I was levering myself off the floor. I got back into bed as the pain spiked again.
Usually, when I'm in pain, I lie as still as possible. But I couldn't force myself to be still with this pain. I shifted positions constantly, desperately seeking a more comfortable one and not finding it. (It was almost interesting. Is this what they call "writhing in pain?" I wondered.)
Finally, it abated enough that I could at least lie still. I got Matt to bring me my laptop so I could distract myself. I chatted with K.T. a little, finished the website changes (behind the scenes - they should only be visible to the Mystery Messager - who, I should note, hasn't yet confessed. Probably because the Mystery Messages are on a timer, so he doesn't yet know he's been busted. Okay, well, he does now that he's read this.)
That fit passed pretty quickly - it came on around 6:45, and I was pain-free again by 7:15. About an hour later, it came back. It wasn't the awful, spiking pain it had been before - just a persistent dull ache. If I pulled myself into a fetal position and breathed slowly and shallowly, the pain abated. But this pain hung on longer - it didn't fade until after midnight sometime.
My stomach is still feeling a little sore this morning, but I think today's malaise is muscle soreness from throwing up. If the pain comes back, though, I'm calling the doctor. I didn't eat anything out of the ordinary yesterday, to set it off.
It was just about a year ago - almost to the day - that I started having that headache. Am I going to have some weird, unexplainable pain for a week every spring? Gods above and below, I hope not.
On a happier note, we finally had the meeting yesterday that explained our current project. It's better than I'd hoped, too - my officemate and I are going to be pretty much allowed to do the design ourselves, and we're being given a full month to do that design.
If we work as well together on this design as we did on the last one, the project will pretty much write itself. So even though it's WinCE, I'm sortof happy with it.
Oh, and the docking cradle for the WinCE device came back yesterday. They finally got it loaded with the correct firmware, and using it to connect the device to my desktop machine was surprisingly painless.
I might pull through this, after all...
Word of the Day:
pilgarlic - a bald head or bald-headed man; a man looked upon with humorous contempt or mock pity
Currently Reading:
- nothing
Current Projects:
- Kris' afghan
- gardening