Cav's Place

I’m writing this on four hours of sleep, if even that, and I slept very badly yesterday as well, but today I wanted to get up to watch the Formula E race, so I’ve been up since 11:20 AM, when the alarm rang, and awake pretty much since before 10 AM, since it was a few minutes before 10 AM when I went to pee and checked the time and I had been awake for at least a few minutes at that point, and if I managed to get back to sleep after that at all, it was at most for one or two very brief moments. But I need to write this week’s first post, so I might as well make it about the fact that I’m recovering, or at least I hope that I’m recovering, from a cold, just shy of three years after the last time I had something like this, not counting getting COVID-19 last year. And it does seem to just be a cold, while that one seemed like a pretty bad flu, though I have also been taking things now, no longer trying to just push through it, which likely made quite a difference.

It started last Wednesday, on February 1, as these things usually do, with my throat being quite sore. I had eaten quickly the previous night, and I was thinking that having a bag of snacks without really chewing had probably hurt my throat, but even if the soreness diminished over the course of the day, it seemed too bad to really be caused by that, and my nose was also irritated, so I was getting worried. On the other hand, I’ll also mention here that I finished Kindred Straits that day, after having started it on January 23, and three days later I finally managed to write a review, since I received it in a giveaway and wanted to write a little more than I usually do in the quick ones.
To get back to the cold, when the soreness returned the following day, while I was in bed, I was still trying to tell myself that it was something else, that perhaps all of the mamaliga which I had made and eaten the previous night had prevented the damage caused by those snacks from healing, and the soreness did diminish significantly over the course of the day, though the fact that I also took something for it in the afternoon likely had something to do with that. But later it became clear that something was wrong, since I was feeling really tired, just wanted to stay in bed, and I also started to cough a little, so I took another pill in the evening, and while that and a brief nap made me feel noticeably better at night, before going to bed there was a feeling of having something in my chest that was making me cough. On the other hand, I’ll also mention here that, after the enamel from the bottom of the new cast iron pot, on the outside, seemed to have just chipped off on its own while it was in the sink, after what I think were just four uses, when I washed it again that night, after what I think was the fifth use, I saw a few small scratches inside as well, despite being really careful with it…
Moving on to last Friday, I woke up with a stuffy nose, and it felt like I had crap all the way to my left ear, and that area was also hurting, but I wasn’t exhausted anymore, my chest felt better, and that ear also got somewhat better after I managed to get enough crap out of my nose. So I stuck to the plan and ran, and then went back out in the evening, but seeing as I’m yet to even write about the last two runs from December, I’ll leave all of that for another time and just say that the run showed that my body wasn’t otherwise affected, at least not at that point, and I actually felt quite fine until I ate at night, at which point I started coughing and my nose started running, so I took two pills before going to bed. And coughing badly at night has pretty much been the rule since then.
I actually felt quite fine the following day as well, at least until that cough returned, at night, starting to take some cough syrup not seeming to make a difference. And Sunday was just about the same, until late in the evening, when I crawled in bed and ended up falling asleep, which led to only going to the kitchen at 1:15 AM, and then I also talked to dad a little, and there were things to wash as well, and I was occasionally coughing even while making dinner, not only after I started to eat, which made me even slower, so I ended up eating dinner between 3:20 AM and 3:55 AM, and the cough was really bad after that.
I added to the “treatment scheme” the next day, when a new problem also appeared, my right eye being red when I got up. Since dad had also had conjunctivitis, and it’s quite clear that I got this cold from him, it was to be expected, but by night it was getting really bad, with some crap flooding out of my eye, making it hard to keep it open at all and crusting over again within minutes of washing it. Plus that the cough was so bad pretty much as soon as I started eating dinner that it was hard to find moments when I could swallow, and my nose started running then as well.
Tuesday, I woke up with a bit of a headache, but it soon went away, and that eye was also much better, but my throat was a little sore again, though the feeling was different from what it had been during those first two days, making me think of tonsilitis… Which actually made me realize that I hadn’t had the usual reaction from those additional lymph nodes that I have all over that area. And that reaction didn’t come then either, since even that small amount of pain tended to go away later. And I was feeling better in general, compared to the previous day, though that constant cough returned while eating dinner and my left eye also started to sting a little at night, a little of that crap starting to seep out of it as well.
The fact that my left eye was also affected became very obvious while I was in bed, but after I got up the next day it got better. On the other hand, not long after getting up I spat out quite a lot, and while that didn’t continue over the course of the day, I was coughing more, without it being connected to eating or being in bed. So I finally took a bath that evening, in good part simply because I hadn’t washed since last Friday, but also because I hoped that it would help… But, at that moment, it definitely didn’t feel like it did, because I suddenly crashed while washing. I just felt really weak all of a sudden, and then I crashed mentally too, was whimpering and just wanted to curl in a ball and not do anything else. And the fact that the pulse oxymeter wouldn’t “see” my finger when I tried to check the oxygen level only made it worse, since I assumed that it was rather low and got even more worried. And I was already considering not making a salad, trying to see whether I’d cough less, in case the cabbage was irritating on the way down, so that settled it and I just had an onion alongside the slices of bread, eating in the kitchen again. And maybe that helped, because I coughed much less that night.
Less coughing meant sleeping much better and I definitely tried to recover that lost sleep, so Thursday I only finally got out of bed around 4:30 PM, feeling much better, even though I again spat out a lot after getting up. And I wanted to focus on the cough and its causes, so I improved the “treatment scheme” a little more and also made myself some soup. I only ate some of it that day, however, though I now plan to have some more tomorrow, maybe splitting what’s left with dad in order to finish it. Either way, once again having a normal dinner meant coughing a lot at night yet again.
And the original plan for this post was to write about all of yesterday, but between watching various things and making mamaliga again this evening, I didn’t even manage to finish this paragraph by midnight, posting what I had and then making many changes and additions to it, and also adding the last paragraph, while eating at night. So I’ll just say that, even though I didn’t run this week, at least I went out again yesterday, and that was despite only getting in bed at 5:25 AM and hardly getting any sleep, because of the cough. I barely got minutes of sleep before going to pee, just after 8 AM, and it was quite bad after that as well, but I did manage to get some naps and it was somewhat better after the second time I went to pee, around 11:15 AM, though I only noticed some actual relief when I woke up yet again, after dad did, and at that point I had to get up anyway. So I did, once again spat out a lot of crap, and then I went out, and wandered around, wearing an FFP2 mask, and I must say that I felt almost completely fine while I was out, in fact only coughing a total of three times, all of them while I was indoors. Admittedly, I felt like coughing more while I was on the metro, but I was able to hold it back, while on the other hand I coughed six times by the time I went to wash, half an hour or so after getting back, without eating anything or lying down, proving that the poor air quality is a serious problem in here… Not that any more evidence was needed… Nor that dad will care. But that’s another topic, so I’ll get back to last night and say that I replaced the second dose of cough syrup, which I had only taken the previous night, with something which I had just bought that evening, and that, while it continued to be quite a problem, I did cough a fair bit less than before.
As for today, I spat and blew out a whole lot, once again something just seeming to trigger it and then not having a second such moment over the course of the day. But I had to split that one instance into multiple parts, trying to regain enough strength to cough or even blow my nose again, and after a while it felt like I was pulling that crap from the depths of my chest or sinuses. And there was some pain in the roof of my mouth, towards my throat, and now I realize that the feeling might have actually started to appear last evening. In fact, something felt swollen in that spot while I was spitting that crap out, and while that’s no longer the case, it gave me the impression that at least some of those lymph nodes were reacting like they used to, for better or worse. But, with the exception of my left eye still bothering me just a little, after I was done spitting and blowing I felt almost completely fine, and since yesterday I finished a box of what I had started taking on Monday, I decided to stop taking the other two pills as well and just stick to the cough syrup and that other thing that I started taking last night, plus the vitamin C and zinc supplement that I had already been taking before getting this cold. Now let’s see what the night and the coming days will bring.