Category Archives: Sick

Ugh!

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Feeling so drained.  I have been working on the Cooking Page revision project, and if you have noticed, there are some shifts and changes in my blog.  Comments and suggestions are appreciated.  While I am not done yet, the structure is coming along, I am pleased with it.   I have a lot work on, and blog about but THAT is not going to happen today. 

I have been fighting a sore throat for a couple of weeks on and off, and it has evolved into a full on cold.  Pretty typical to get ill in the first 6 weeks of the semester.  Thankfully the worst of the sore throat is gone, but in its place it left congestion, a cough and fatigue.  Honestly, I am just waiting for my cleaning lady to finish ironing so I can pay her and then take a nap.  If that wasn’t the whiniest, #1st world problems, annoying sentence I don’t know what is.  Seriously, reading that sentence again I want to smack myself. 

But lets talk about fatigue.  I know that today it is mostly coming from a cold, but I have been having issues sleeping lately so it is becoming more of a standby state.  For the last few months I have been waking up in the middle of the night.  While that is pretty standard for me, NOT being able to fall back asleep is not.  I often wake up 2 or three times a night, starting around three and will be awake for an hour or so.   I have to say the winner was last week when I went to bed at 11p.m., woke up around 3 a.m. and then fell back asleep at 6.  Half an hour before I had to get up.  That day was awesome.  Thank goodness my students are sweet and reasonably well behaved.  It could have been an ugly day.  I have been taking melatonin and hot showers before bed, and started to work out 3 or 4 times a  week at new gym I joined, but it does not seems to be resolving itself. 

How about you all?  Any remedies or approaches to sleep through the night?  I am getting really tired of just watching my husband do that. 

sleeping

My Excuse for Not Blogging

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I have not been writing lately.  As usual I have an excuse.  I have been sick.  I developed a fever in Antalya which morphed into nightly fevers and a nasty cough.  Some of the kids in the first row of my classes started donning masks.  Seriously.  The doctor prescribed two days of rest, so I do not have to get up and function normally tomorrow.  This made me have tears of gladness, I have lost m voice on and off for the past two weeks and alternate between wounding like a person on their deathbed and someone who has smoked unfiltered cigarettes for 50 years (neither is ideal.)  Do you know how children act when you can not raise your voice?  Soft whispers do not encourage discipline. 

I will be fine in a day or two, and I always like to look on the positive side.  I have not wanted to eat alot, and mostly have been eating yogurt, so I lost a couple of pounds.  I also have been coughing so much that I am developing a 6 pack. It helps distract me from the feeling my muscles are ripping apart. That is called an Ouchie Booboo.

Whoops…Diagnosis: Googleitis

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You know you do it.  You start sniffling, coughing, get a symptom that you are not used to and…using Google, self diagnose.  This activity can go two ways, you can decide you have some benign virus, or convince yourself you may die before the sun comes up.

You know you do it.  I do it.

Like the time I thought I had a brain tumor.  In my defense my pupils kept dilating unequally.  Funny—later I noticed a warning on my allergy eye drops that they may dilate the pupils.  Oops.

The other day I thought I was developing sun poising, I had had it before and knew what it looked like.   I did not have all the symptoms, but the rash on my chest looked like sun poisoning.  So there I am, researching sun poising, thinking over my day trying to figure out how much sun exposure I had.  And that was when I realized I was trying to diagnose whisker burn.  Oops.  But in my defense Bülent does not come with a warning label.

ish–Definition: experiencing trouble or difficulty

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I am having Potty-ish. As many readers know (all 5) I no longer have a laptop and have been spending copious amounts of time in Internet cafes. While this has made me appreciate my laptop even more than İ already did–İt has also caused me to ponder the bathroom.

I know the correlation is weak, Internet and toılets, but hear me out. The Internet cafe we patronize has the most functional keyboards and stronger air conditioning than any of the others in town. However, as İ found out the other day, it is sorely lacking in the bathroom department. As has already been over shared–İ have İBS. This means sometimes İ have to USE the bathroom in less than a dainty way. İ have already learned to overcome many challenges, such as the shame of using the bathroom several times–or the FEAR that İ might be overheard. Fuck it. İ know everyone does the same thing—maybe not as frequently, but that just means İ am better at it for having more practice! However the gross-out factor is not one İ can overlook. By no means am İ a prissy, picky pottier. İ go places others will not, if need be and İ have tissues with me İ will go behind bushes. Nature is way cleaner than many gas stations. İ don`t even have any issues with the ”Old Fasioned” toilets here. However- this bathroom reeks of urine, the toilet is stained and has no seat and there is NO TOILET PAPER…EVER. The ”ish” are too many and İ had to search out alternative means. Thankfully the Turkish are much more understanding about the need to use the bathroom and pretty much every hotel or restaurant will let you use theirs without purchase. Bülent likes to only use 4 star hotels when we are out and about which leads to many high class pit stops. All of this made me ponder bathroom-ish.

For example when you are stranded without toilet paper–What do you do??. Well in response to that, I try to always have at least a tissue or two in my purse. If no tissue and desperate, use the inside of the empty roll–better than nothing. Other related ish–the 5 second light. İn Turkey electricity is MUCH more expensive than in the States. This has resulted in some very Eco-friendly solutions. Most bathrooms have motion sensor lights. This is wonderful, it saves money and electricity. However, some people are either trying to save too much money or have no idea how long it takes to pee. İ was in this situation just today. İ walk in to the bathroom. Light comes on. Good. İ walk into the stall, the light comes on. Good. İ sit down, the light turns off. Not good. When İ was peeing it was like İ was at football game leading the wave. Every 5 seconds İ fling my hands up in the air to activate the sensor after being plunged into darkness. What is even more fun is sometimes your hands do not reach up far enough to activate the sensor and you have to just finish up in the dark. Then when you stand up, the light is like…Oh, you`re still here? İ realize this is way more potty talk than many of you will want to read. But come on, in the first sentence İ reported İ had potty-ish. You KNEW I was not going to talk about food or give a recipe. Or at least you hoped.