Difficulties

So I’m finally getting over the bronchitis. It’s been nearly a month, and I can finally go as long as an hour without coughing. I’m getting a decent night’s sleep. I don’t feel like I’m camping out on death’s door.

Lessons learned? Plenty. First, if at all possible, stay away from doctors. They’ll kill you. By and large being a doctor is not much different than being a mechanic. Yeah, they have specialized knowledge. But your dis-ease is really just an educated guess to them. They look you over, they look the tests they’ve given you over, and then they say, “X.” And if X doesn’t work, they say “Y.” If not Y, then “Z.” Etc.

Second, trust your gut. The first doctor I saw, a woman young enough to be my daughter (and I’m not really that old), prescribed for me a course of action I knew to be wrong. But I deferred to the white lab coat. As a result, I think I suffered an extra three weeks. And I mean suffered – coughing so hard I felt I would vomit, long nights without sleep, difficulty breathing to the point where I actually walked extra horizontal distance at work to an elevator to avoid walking extra vertical distance.

Third, when symptoms occur, get medical treatment. Yeah, this seems to fly in the face of Lesson the First, but negotiating your health and dis-ease is really an art, not a science. I should’ve made an appointment with a trusted doctor (not show up without an appointment for a sick visit) and asked for antibiotics, the treatment that’s worked for me in the past.

But there have been other difficulties, too.

My three-year-old laptop has been acting up. So much so that I barely use it anymore; that’s why there hasn’t been any fresh posts here of late (the previous post was written and slapped on the blog via a library computer). The problem? The screen goes black seemingly at random. However, my buddy’s son, who has been trained to take apart and rebuild computers by his dad, thinks it’s a loose connection somewhere and offered to help. I’ll bring it over to him in the next couple of days, and get him a gift card if he fixes it. Right now I’m posting on it because I have it in a certain position at a certain angle and it’s working. If I move it ever so slightly, or bang just a tad too hard on the keyboard – fade to black.

Work has been insane, insane-r than usual. Missed a couple of days due to the bronchitis, which put me behind the 8-ball. Then only had one day to process payroll during the Fourth of July week, and did that in full bronchitic bloom. Had to manually update pay rates for 185 union employees when their contract got signed last-minute last week. Had to manually move PTO (Paid Time Off) accruals for 135 non-union employees to the PTOP (Paid Time Off Prior) accrual bucket, which gives them until September 30 to use any time off or lose it. We’re upgrading our timekeeping system, so I’ve been filling out a 33-page questionnaire for the new company, half of which I don’t understand and the other half I don’t know. Oh, and endless pointless meetings meetings meetings.

Home life is hectic too as every week – sometimes every other day – the girls are somewhere else requiring a change in my schedule. And half the time whatever they’re doing involves spending more money I don’t have. And the damn dog. Always gotta rush home to feed this dog I didn’t want and rush back to work because I’m a wage slave yoked to that damn clock on the wall.

I’d throw it all away in a heartbeat and become a Carthusian monk if I could, but I don’t think the Carthusians would take too kindly to family abandonment.

Anyway, more posts on the way, and not all will be complaint-laden whinefests.