yes, a cold.

I started feeling worse after I got home yesterday. I decided to take my temperature, on the grounds of "if you have a fever, you are contagious" and as one of the CWF members has a husband doing chemo....well, I didn't want to pass potential sick on.

It was 99.5. As my temperature normally runs a bit below average (98.6 is merely an average value, it's not the "right" or the "ideal" one), I figured I was sick. So I called one of the women to let her know and decided to just bail on CWF.

That was a good decision because then I started getting VERY chilled. Well, it had started in my office, which is often too cold in the "transitional" period (and has a vent that blows cold air down on my neck). I turned the thermostat up to 72 - as high as I am willing to go - and was still cold, so finally around 7 pm I just gave up, got into pajamas, heated up my buckwheat bags, and got into bed with them. I read most of this week's issue of "The Week" (normally comes on Saturday but there was no mail delivery this Saturday for Veteran's Day). Was going to read the new Interweave but felt so tired by the end of "The Week" that I just went to sleep.

I slept okay, but one of the weird features of viruses for me - and I don't think this is just that I'm drinking more fluids - is that I have to get up for the bathroom more often, so every couple hours I was up. Well, it also gave a chance to try to clear out my sinuses from a standing position. And to drink more water for my scratchy throat, though that of course exacerbated the other problem.

I did finally wake up in the middle of the night and was HOT instead of cold (I have a wool mattress topper, which holds a lot of heat, and it often happens I warm up overnight). I was hoping that meant the fever had broken but I still had it this morning.

Yes, I am in at work. If it were earlier in the semester and I were not giving a quiz in one class I might have taken a sick day. At least when I walk out of class around noon or so, I have nothing else I have to be doing, so I can just go home and stay home.

The worst part right now, I think, is some muscle aches - the coldness has subsided, the sore throat is a bit better, but the back of my neck and my shoulders and lower back hurt (this is not terribly uncommon for me with colds, and I don't think I'm sick enough for this to be a flu, and anyway, I had the flu shot so hopefully I am protected against the most common strains).

I am also very tired. I got up, got dressed, and then went back and laid down in bed for another 10 minutes because it wore me out to just go through all the rituals of washing and combing hair and applying makeup and putting clothes on...

I'm hoping I feel a little better, or at least better enough to sit on the floor and try to put the new tree together - my plan was to put it up this week (though I could put that off until Thursday evening, or even the weekend...)

I bought some orange juice on the way home yesterday afternoon but I now remember why I quit drinking orange juice in the morning (other than the sugar content): it's VERY acid and gives me a little indigestion. Ugh. I think lunch today might be one of the "ginger noodle bowls" (an instant food that amazingly is low enough in sodium and contains nothing I'm allergic to) and maybe some cranberry sauce. Yes, that sounds weird, but that kind of sour/astringent stuff appeals to me when I'm stuffed up, and I think I need to dial it back a little on orange juice...maybe make a pot of hibiscus tea and drink that during the afternoon.