embalming the dead

Well, the news now is that I’ve been sick for a week.

I went to the doctor, she shoved those cotton swabs way down my throat, I backed off the first time, thought I was going to throw up right on her shoes. Then she shoved this wicked thing up my nose, thought I was going to die. Isn’t that how the ancient Egyptians used to embalm their dead, stick a wire up their nose, twirl it around and pull the brains out? I don’t know if I’d trust my knowledge, I’m pretty sure I’m remembering that from the movie “The Mummy” and we all know Hollywood’s commitment to all that is good, true and worthy of remembering.

Anyway. Back to the doctor’s office.

So she shoves this wire up my nose with a little patch of cotton that wouldn’t cushion a fly from a hard landing. I swear it was like a foot and a half long. She was like, “Close your eyes,” and she shoves it in. The noises I made aren’t to be described. Don’t know how I made it to 29 and that’s the first flu test I’ve had like that. And the last one too, I hope. You’d think they could test it some other way.

So what’s the end result of sitting in the waiting room for a couple hours and having my orifices probed and abused by a doctor with such a thick foreign accent I couldn’t understand anything until it was repeated several times? I don’t have strep throat and I don’t have flu. Just a virus. So no drugs for me, just “Plenty of rest and fluids.” Perhaps my immune system is not functioning well, she hypothesized. Might I be stressed out for any reason? Ha. I laughed right out loud in her office.

But I had this big project due Monday so I just kept working, hence not getting better.

1. It’s a new job. I hated to not do my best on this project and it’s huge.
2. Once in Grand Forks, what was I going to do if I stayed “home” sick? It’s not very nice being sick away from home and I really didn’t feel like staying in the basement all day.

Finally on Friday I couldn’t take it anymore. I turned in the last of one of my little projects. (we write several little items for each of the two monthly magazines and one, or sometimes, two huge stories for each one. That divides out for about two weeks for each magazine.) Then I went home at noon. I didn’t tell Chad I’d be there when he came home from work, I thought it would be fun to surprise him. I even called him at about the time I usually do after work and told him I was running late. Then I was sitting in the garage talking on the cell phone to him when he opened the door. Hee hee.

Hopefully I can rest up real good and get better over the weekend. In a week I move out of the pastor’s basement and into our little apartment. We’ll camp there until we can get a house, it’s a six month lease, the shortest I could find. Since our house hasn’t sold yet we realized we just won’t be able to transition straight into a house. So we’re going to rent for a while.

Well, that’s about all my news. Talk to you all again later. I’ll get back to posting regularly when our little family (husband and cats) are living together in one place again. Right now I just don’t really feel sociable.