your week, your month or even your year

-The Rembrandts

My birthday is next Monday. I only bring it up to say, wow, my last two weeks as a 28 year old were no fun. (Ok, I’m just assuming about the rest of this week, we shall see.) Anyway, I spent the first half of last week with a stomach virus complete with all the typical ailments that go along with that and I’ll spare you the details. Meanwhile, I also developed a new floater in my eye. This wouldn’t be such a big deal if the thing wasn’t HUGE and as annoying as a flock of seagulls looking for lunch on the beach. I even managed to maintain a fever most of the days of the week.

So I had to go to the eye doctor to make sure my retina hadn’t detached. And I think you two guys reading this that think I’m a hypochondriac have learned that I’m not, right?? Anyway, the vitreous layer of my eye pulled away from the retina, causing some cells to break away and become my brand new floater. And bonus! There isn’t a thing in the world they can do about it. Awesome. Once this happens to one eye, there’s a risk of it happening to the other, so I have to go back for a check in six weeks to be sure both retinas are still intact. Meanwhile, they dilated my eyes and I could barely drive the four blocks back to work. My pupils were the size of dimes – literally. If you ever wondered what I’d look like with raven eyes, that was your chance. Anyway, I had to get Grace to come get me and take me home and I had to catch a ride to work the next day with a nice coworker. Loving my life.

Somewhere around Thursday I started getting a sore throat. I assumed it was from being sick earlier in the week. Meanwhile Holli, who I had dinner with two days before the virus, had strep throat. Oh and yeah, she had the stomach bug, too, so it could only mean that strep was forthcoming, right? The last time I had step I was thirteen and I literally thought I was dying, I had a fever over 104 and had to get in ice water baths and sleep with ice packs on me. So here’s hoping I never catch it again in my lifetime.

I did manage to avoid strep this time (knocking on every wood or wood like surface within 10 feet of me) but I developed a cough. You know the kind – the uncontrollable hacking cough. The kind that makes your eyes water and your nose run and causes your body to convulse so violently that you fear your frontal lobe will promptly exit via your forehead or your nose. The kind of cough that will not allow you to sleep. But the kind of cough, that a trip to the doctor would only yield the requisite “upper respiratory infection” diagnosis, which basically means, “ha ha, you tool, you just wasted that copay money because there ain’t a damn thing I can do for you. But I will write you a prescription for Guafisen – which, yes, you are correct, that is found in most over the counter cold remedies.”

What’s a girl to do? Besides complain to y’all, that is.