Some Days Are Not Good Days

Today is one of them. I woke up feeling somewhat refreshed, despite the soreness in my throat. Things seemed to just go downhill from then on. Well, I suppose there were a few positive notes in there, but not for how my body is feeling. The illness that's been finding its way around our group of family and friends (including Juliet, Amanda, Jill, Martha, Nicholas and who knows who else...) has finally found me after several weeks of searching. It starts out as a sore throat and gets progressively worse and worse, from what I've heard. So, at the first signs of actually getting it, I decided it was time to visit the doctor (instead of waiting for it to get any worse, since I'm pretty sure I already know what this thing is).

However, I did go to work this morning, and stayed for about four and a half hours to get a certain project done. That project would've probably normally taken me under three hours, but my head started hurting and whatnot throughout the midst of it. So, on my morning break, instead of reading (sad) I went to Target in hopes of some remedial remedies. I found some that helped, but only slightly. Also, as I was leaving, the card machine wouldn't accept my payment...well, not as credit anyhow. So I ran it as a debit, which worked fine. I thought it was unusual, but hey. There is a tear in my card that could've had something to do with it.

So, after finishing the project at work, I left for a 1:10pm appointment, leaving a note for my boss, since for some reason he had disappeared for awhile. Maybe he went to lunch. But he usually doesn't go to lunch until 1:30, and I left at 12:40 or so. Strange. Also, he gets an hour lunch, whereas we get a half-hour. I don't get it. It's not even an option for us, although I have suggested it.

Anyway, in my headache-induced delusional half-stupor, I turned the wrong way and lost myself along the way to a place I used to go at least frequently enough that I should remember how to get there. On turning around and finding the place--the doctor's office--I went in and had to fill out paperwork because I'd changed insurance since the last time I was there (umpteen months ago). Then I went upstairs, which was odd, since I'd never been upstairs before. I didn't have much of a wait, but everyone seemed to be in such a huge rush...I have no idea why. When I took Juliet to the doctor on Monday, they seemed to be all in a rush as well. Until this week, I've never seen doctoral staff in such a hurry--and that's coming from someone who used to only go to the free clinic for medical care.

As I was leaving, their machine also rejected my Visa credit/debit card. Three times. Ridiculous, I say. They said they would bill me, since I don't ever carry around any other form of payment. So, I was off home, then off to the nearest CVS (it was closer than Walgreens, and I like it better overall...this parenthetical reference is directed towards Brett, because I told him I was going to Walgreens) to pick up my prescription. Generic Omnicef. Cefdinir, to be specific. I didn't get the all-out normal penicillin because, as I said, the doctor was overanxious to be done and had asked if what Juliet was taking would be okay with me. I said yes, trying not to be a bother, and trying not to talk so very much as it hurts a bit to do.

So, I go to pay at CVS, and it takes my card immediately. Odd, no? But it did automatically process it as a debit payment, so I figured that had something to do with it. I also began to be suspicious that my ordering of a new card on Monday (the card hasn't arrived yet) had something to do with the aforementioned problems, and that it wasn't just the tear in the card being more of a nuisance than it usually is.

When I arrived home, there was something I wanted to purchase online, so I tried to update my PayPal account with my current card information (since I hadn't used the account since before my last card expired). But, it came up with a display stating that my card was rejected by my financial institution or some such mumbojumbo. I decided, after taking my first dose of antibiotics (I seriously hope this is bacterial and not viral), that I would drive in my dazed state to the bank. At the bank, I completely baffled the teller with the small bit of my story I told her--she was under the impression that things never happened this way and that, if anything, it should have successfully processed as credit and not as debit if the card was acting all screwy like it was. So I talked to a personal banker (nice to have, and I must say I hold my UMB representatives in high regard...at least the ones who work on 87th street), and she called the card company on my behalf...I should have probably just called the company myself, but I wasn't exactly thinking clearly, what with this sickness and all.

It turns out that they canceled my card when the other one was ordered, and it was their mistake, and I'm not going crazy. Well, maybe I am going crazy, but they said that this whole declining my credit card business wasn't my fault, which is good to hear. At least I know I didn't do anything so financially incompetent that it would have been my fault. Well, hopefully.

So that should be all fixed now. Well, apparently it is, since I was able to make that online purchase I wanted to make. But that, in joint with feeling incompetently sickly, made for a not very great day.

In other news, I have decided not to attend youth group (in reference to the one I work with as a youth leader...hopefully I didn't confuse you about my age) this evening, for fear of infecting those in attendance, and through them, a dozen or so junior highs and high schools. It wouldn't be pretty, I'm sure. So now, I sit at home alone whiling away the time here. I'm hungry, but I think eating may just hurt my throat at this point. Might as well try anyhow.

Or perhaps Juliet is home. Yes. That would be it. Hooray.

But now she is off again. Off to her busyness and schoolwork and spending time with Katie Carder and suchlike things. And I am here again typing more lines onto a post I already finished. I should definitely go eat now. But we don't have so much food for the making, and I really am not feeling up to going anywhere. I do want to apologize to those of you who have come to expect links from my page to interesting articles and websites. But I never promised that I would do those on every post. So, your expectations had no real foundation, especially if you based them only on my two initial posts. That's not much of a test group, even for modern statistics.

And now, I will go try to get some rest. Maybe I'll go to bed after I find something to eat. Yes, in sickness, bedtime at six-thirty in the evening sounds quite lovely.

P.S. I hate fever-sweat; I wish it was colder.