TJ: I wrote this song for you. *cranks radio*
Phil: What?
TJ: This song. I wrote it for you.
Phil: You did not write Crocodile Rock.
TJ: What? Yes I did.
Phil: No, you did not.
TJ: What the hell! I wrote this song for you!
Phil: You were not even alive when Elton John wrote that song.
TJ: Elton John didn’t write it!
Phil: Elton John did write Crocodile Rock, a long time ago.
TJ: He did not! I wrote it for you!
Phil: You did not write Crocodile Rock!
TJ: You’re such a doubter! I write a song for you and this is the shit I get.
Phil: Fine. You wrote Crocodile Rock.
TJ: I wrote it for YOU.
Phil: Ok, baby. You wrote Crocodile Rock for me.
TJ: THANK YOU. Geeeeze.

So, I am leaving for Phoenix to spend Thanksgiving with Phil’s family tomorrow. Actually, I have to leave for the airport at 3am, so I guess I am sort of leaving tonight. Sort of. Though it will actually be tomorrow, technically. But stepping aside from technicalities, it will me the godforsaken middle of the night when I drag my tired butt to BWI for my 5:30am flight. Guess who is getting a “HOLY CRAP I’M ON A PLANE AAAAHHHHH!!!” phonecall? (Hint: His name starts with Phil.)

I am, of course, not at all ready to go. For some reason I can’t check in for my flight online, and have not made my usual obsessive list of things that need to be done/packed before I can leave. I have dumped both of those things onto Phil.

What? He took the day off work today! Like he has more important things to do than spend time on hold with US Airways and make sure I don’t forget my sunglasses and bath poof. Puff? Pouf? Scrubby thingie.

So, right, I am leaving in just over 12 hours and I have done nothing except buy a gigantic pile of new bras and underwear. Shove Target bag directly from car into suitcase, half packed! Sometimes, I amaze me.

However, while I am rather certain I am going to be cursing, dragging things out of the dryer and half-assedly redying my hair purple at 2 in the morning, SOMEONE is more than prepared for my arrival:

I have obviously made a good call with this one.

Not really. I mean, blog vacation, maybe. I think this is the longest break I have ever taken, but time just got away from me.

As my last posts said, I got sick last week. It was not cool. It seemed like it came out of nowhere. I was babysitting last Wednesday night and just felt uncomfortable. I went to work on Thursday and felt like I had a fever, but nothing else. No sore throat or headache, nothing. I assumed maybe the flu was coming. I went out Thursday night to acquire a new thermometer, some DayQuil and Zicam. By Thursday night, I had a fever over 101. By Friday, it was over 102.

Anyway, without going into all the miserable details, LAST WEEKEND SUCKED. I really appreciated the messages and emails, though, you are all very nice people.

I took my last dose of antibiotic Friday night and feel about a trillion percent better right now, but pretty worn out. It took me a couple of days to get back up to speed - I made it back to work on Tuesday, but was falling asleep at 8pm right after getting home. Just like the last time I took a day off work, I have sworn to never, ever again take another day off, all this week I feel like I did so much work but just got nothing done. I HATE playing catch up.

I was feeling just about 100% by Thursday, so I headed out to babysit Mr. Noah and his brand new baby brother and I swear, they have to be just about the two easiest kids on the planet. I mean, watching a 3 year old and a 5 week old is not something I’d really call easy in general, but I don’t think I’d be so willing to watch any OTHER 3 year old and 5 week old. I watched them again Friday night, and that wasn’t so easy. I fed the baby, I changed the baby, I bundled the baby up in his special blanket, I mean, as far as babies go, he was pretty much sitting on a little baby throne, not a need in the world, except to be held. Every time I thought he was asleep, or thought he was totally cool and went to set him down to play with Noah or feed Noah or bathe Noah, his eyes would pop back open and he’d be all “EXCUSE ME, MY BABY-SENSE IS TINGLING AND I BELIEVE YOU ARE NO LONGER IN PHYSICAL CONTACT WITH ME. I DO NOT ACCEPT.”

Now I totally understand what a huge market those “strap-your-babies-to-you” slings and backpacks and strappy jobbers are. It must be absolutely impossible for new parents to get anything done otherwise. At about 7pm, I was able to put the baby down for about 15 minutes before he realized what was going on, so I swept up Noah saying “BATH TIME BATH TIME GO GO GO GO GO! No, it’s not bedtime. I promise you don’t have to go to bed yet. You just need to get in the bath now! If we don’t go now, I’m gonna have to run you through the dishwasher!”

Babysitting for a few hours is no big deal, I can totally handle it. But I had a flash of what kind of parent I would be if I was in that situation 24/7. “The baby is sleeping! We’ve got like, 45 minutes. I’m going to need you to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner all right now, then we’re gonna watch 2 videos on fast forward, then we’re going to play trains for about 12 seconds, then I’ll read you the back cover of a couple of books, then it’s bedtime. Yes, I know it’s only 9:47 in the morning but we need to take these opportunities where they come!”

Luckily by the time bathtime was over, I’d semi-mastered the “hold a baby with this arm, play with the toddler with this arm” skill and when it was time to go home, I actually had everyone under 4 feet tall asleep in the appropriate beds. I’m like the king of this stuff.

I’m also rather certain that 4 to 10 hours a week of baby is just enough exposure for me for the forseeable future. I have a great time with Noah, I get to hold a brand new baby, and I get to hand them all back at the end of the evening. I really don’t understand why more people aren’t in on this racket.

The Redhead:: I assume you’ve seen this?
http://www.stopjenny.com/
TJ: yes
I didn’t see anything about shovels to the face
more importantly
I’m not dead
The Redhead:: well, that’s good
TJ: I was so sure I was going to die, srsly
I have not had a more miserable weekend in my entire life
nor have I ever sweat so much
This morning I had an unbearable need for gatorade and I never drink that stuff
so I went to 7-11 and found myself buying more than I could carry almost
as soon as I had some I decided I will never ever have anything other than gatorade for as long as I live
The Redhead:: Yeah. When my kidneys were infected, I made Price by me about a palette of vitamin water
TJ: The trip wiped me out, too
The HMFIC banned me from the office today
glad she did, I feel better but never would have made it through the drive
I’m shaky like muhammad ali
that was the most brutal illness I have ever been through, I even called my mom
The Redhead:: There should definitely be a Kidney Appreciation Week
I think we take them for granted
TJ: What is stupid is that I was sick for a month and didn’t even know it
I will not ever ignore things being “a little off” again, I swear on my stack of gatorade
Fierce melon gatorade. It’s like cantelope in a bottle!
The Redhead:: There’s nothing I like better than fierce melons.
TJ: … how do you DO it!
The Redhead:: caffeine, mostly, and booze
plus a healthy dose of angry.

I have had the most miserable 48 hours of my entire life, Internet. I have NEVER been this sick. Everything hurts, I’m too hot and I’m too cold, I can’t find clothes I haven’t sweat through, I can hardly keep anything down, I can’t take enough medicine to keep my fever down. I did essentially nothing today except lay in my bed and cry.

And after spending a good 15 minutes on the phone with Phil, weeping pathetically and nonsensically, I gave in and… called my mother.

Yes, Internet, I am THAT sick.

I do not know what is going to happen at the moment, but I may be looking at possible impending mother visit and I am not even a little upset about that. So I am excusing myself from NaBloPoMo, I don’t even know why I’ve tried to keep it up. Good luck to those of you still working at it.

Well, Internet, anyone who has been around me recently has no worry that whatever I have is contagious - I went to the doctor today when I found it impossible to keep my fever below 102 and it’s turned out to be a kidney infection.

Once I was able to get myself to the doctor, and let me tell you, it was difficult - I can’t remember the last time I felt so miserable - I got a prescription for an antibiotic and the doctor said most people feel better in as little as 1 or two doses.

So of course I took one as soon as I got home. I’m still struggling to keep the fever down, though, and all the discomfort that goes along with that. On top of trying to keep my fever down, keeping down the medicine to keep the fever down is a challenge as well.

For now, I am laying in bed with many, many episodes of Law & Order: SVU, and rolling around and moaning to myself, though it doesn’t seem to be helping.

Hopefully in a day or two I will be up and about and good to go, but for now, I am just going to lay here.

I need an adult!, originally uploaded by TemerityJane.

This is a bonafide strawberry milkshake occasion, Internet. Or at
least, it felt like one until I actually drank the milkshake I felt
entitled to for all my brave, silent suffering (no comments from the
boyfriend gallery, please). I have a feeling the shake may have been
slightly ill-advised. Where’s my moootheeeeerrrr.

Not THAT kind of doctor, the kind where I tell you how I feel and you tell me what’s wrong with me.

Symptoms: None.

Well, none like, I have no sore throat, no upset stomach, no real headache, no runny nose, no sniffling or sneezing or coughing. Nothing like that at all.

What I have, Internet, is hurt. Aches, you know, like when you have a fever? Is that just me? I can handle any kind of being sick. I rarely get sick. The last time I was really sick was in 2005, I had the flu for the one and only time in my life. I can handle anything at all about being sick, except for fever and the aches that go with it. I can’t stand it, I find it intolerable, I moan and whine and hurt and complain. The idea of a hot shower sounds fantastic except for the part where I feel like water hitting me might actually kill me. I had to step out of my car to get gas this evening and nearly cried through the whole event, because the cold made it so much worse.

I also have a low fever, though I have not taken my temperature, I am just assuming I do, because I have all of my own traditional fever signs. 1) I hurt, 2) my eyelids are burning my eyeballs when I blink, and 3) I’ve got the dumb. Seriously, if my temperature crawls even one notch above 97.8 (I know it to a science), I am suddenly beset with stupid. I turned down a 1 way mall entrance tonight the wrong way. I had what I am sure is a completely nonsensical conversation with Phil for the entire drive home this evening.

But that’s all, though. Just the hurting, that’s the thing. The kind of full body aches where you need to be in sweatpants, a t-shirt, a hoodie and 4 blankets and then and only then will you feel any kind of comfortable. Nothing else at all. No sneezing or coughing on people, no puking. My head and stomach maybe hurt a LITTLE, but that could also be fake in that I am worried I am getting sick which, did I mention, I NEVER DO?

So, while I am mostly convinced I am going to feel 100% better in the morning because my immune system is actually made of titanium and WD-40, I have some questions I would like you to answer for me, Internet, because it is way easier that convincing myself I have a bone eating parasite.

Question 1: Tell me I am not alone in the whole body fever aches and that I didn’t just spend an entire post talking about something like you all knew exactly what I was talking about and I’m just totally weird.

Question 2: What the hell kind of potentially flesh-eating super disease can a) bring me down (because seriously, as if) and b) causes no symptoms other than terrible aches and a reasonable certainty of lowgrade fever?

Question 3: If you do indeed have a fever and you do indeed have some painful aches but otherwise feel absolutely 100% fine, do you go to work or stay home?

I was going to write a post that just said “I ALL OF A SUDDEN FEEL LIKE CRAP FOR NO GOOD REASON!,” but I figured I could put you all to work instead. I would like to see who can come up with the most plausible (by symptoms) but ridiculous (because I’m rather certain I do not have anything, let alone like… ebola) diagnosis.

And then I will take that internet-supplied ridiculous diagnosis and call my mother and tell her that’s what I have.

Because if I am anything at all, if there is any one thing that will define me as time moves on forever, if there is a characteristic or designation that will forever fit me to a T, it is a terrible, terrible child.