Viruses, bacteria, SAD and jetlag.

[baratron]

Well, I'm home. Many thank yous to my lovely hosts, jinian & hattifattener and leback & Alexei. Also to their various cats: Dizzy, Bat & Squeak, and Jasmine, Mischa & Tofu, who did not meow all night and keep me awake, jump on me while I was fast asleep, or put all their weight unexpectedly on my bladder. In fact, I successfully shared a bed with Jasmine for an entire night, and only woke up sneezing because of the cold I already knew I had. It may be that I am no longer allergic to cats; either that, or my current allergy meds are good enough to deal with the allergy. Hooray! 

I currently feel absolutely rotten. While in the US I "accidentally" reduced my Efexor dosage from 112.5 mg to 75 mg per day without passing through 90 mg as intended (went straight from every 16 hours to every 24 hours; couldn't manage to remember every 20 hours). This was fine in Seattle which was having unusually summery weather, and especially in the Bay Area which was glorious (around 30 °C and incredibly sunny). Now I am back home, and it is grey, drizzly and disgusting - under 20 °C, and well and truly autumn. SAD is suddenly kicking my arse, bigtime. I wasn't expecting it this early, and I am completely unprepared.

Also, yes, I've had a cold. I'm pretty certain it isn't the PAX H1N1 because I really haven't been very ill at all by my standards. Didn't have a thermometer to check my temperature while I was away, but I knew I couldn't have much of a fever because I could still think. (My brain gives up entirely once my temperature reaches 37.7 °C or so.) However, I was spacing out badly enough in the airport in Friday that I refused the offer of a hotel room for the night, a business class seat on Saturday and $200 in compensation in exchange for allowing myself to be bumped off the flight, because I just wanted to get back to the land of civilised healthcare asap. Really didn't want to have to have the argument/fight with my travel insurance people about whether a chest infection following a cold would count as a "pre-existing" condition given that I have asthma and get secondary infections after every other cold.

I've had a night of bad breathing, so I'm going to pack myself off to the doctor first thing in the morning. Decided I wasn't ill enough for A&E, but I definitely need to get my lungs listened to. I'm 90% sure I have a chest infection, because my lungs feel full of goo and it's hard to breathe deeply. If I didn't have asthma meds, I'd have been a very unhappy bunny - have been taking double of everything for a week now. It's time for Moar Steroids (UGH).

And I have No Freaking Idea how to fix my jetlag. Normal people can get up early and/or go to bed early, and it fixes itself. With my sleep disorder, I could drag myself out of bed at 6 am, but I won't get tired any earlier. The only sure-fire way to fix it is to stay up later and later, and work round the clock *that* way, but... that's a method for last resort. 

Comments

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Yay, you made it home! Sorry you're sick and jetlagged though.

Obligatory obsessing about illness:
I wasn't very sick except for the fever, but the fever sucked. Wim was really ill but for a much shorter time. I agree that you seemed to have a cold rather than flu, but I don't know what my vector was for getting it before the concert, then, and I was symptomatic several days before Annemarie. Apparently her nose swab test was "inconclusive" as to whether it was really the flu of the swine, so they're redoing it, ugh.

[ludy]

*gentle hugs*

[firecat]

It was good to see you, and I hope you mend and un-lag quickly.