Monday, October 9, 2017

How Many Sick Days Does A Retiree Get?

I've been a little under the weather today. No. That's not right. I've been sick as a dog! Like when poor Puppy Jack was shaking and vomiting foam and wouldn't come out from under the first building on Shackytown Boulevard, that time we think he ate a bad frog.

I didn't eat a bad frog. I might have gotten a bad burger at the casino, though it was delicious at the time. Or a bad pizza from Pizza Hut's $7.99 special. Whatever it was nearly put me out of commission. It DID prevent me from driving to town for my 44 oz Diet Coke and lottery tickets. So you KNOW I ain't a-woofin'! I was really sick.

Last night I kind of had an inkling of what was to come. My head got all stuffed up and I couldn't breathe out my nose very well and my eyes burned. I thought it was just the after-effects of all that cigarette and cigar smoke in the casino. I'm very careful to wash my hands and not touch my face while I'm there. I'm not picking up swine flu or chicken flu or HN51 or whatever variety of flu is going around. No siree, Bob!

I fell asleep in my OPC (Old People Chair) and woke up at 2:00 a.m. with a headache over my eyes. My neck kind of hurt, too, so I figured I slept on it wrong. This morning I still had the headache, only worse. I used some nasal spray, and blew a lot of clear snot out of my nose. A hot shower made my head almost tolerable for about an hour, but it did nothing for my nausea. I NEVER have nausea. But today, I did.

That's the main reason I didn't get my 44 oz Diet Coke. Nausea. I forced myself to eat a little pack of peanut butter crackers. That didn't make it better or worse. I kept my medicine down. That was the main concern. Around 2:00, I settled in front of my New Delly with a regular lunch of my Chicken Bacon Ranch pinwheels. Wouldn't you know it? I'd finally found ACTUAL Chicken Bacon Ranch pinwheels, only two days past their expiration date, and I couldn't truly enjoy them!

I had a 20 oz bottle of Diet Coke (the hard stuff) and an acetaminophen. Within an hour, I felt slightly better. No walk tonight for me. The dogs may miss their snack. Farmer H is having leftover Pizza Hut for his supper. We'll see if he catches anything...

This being sick is not much fun. It doesn't seem like an actual cold. Maybe a 24-hour thing. I hope I'm on the road to recovery. I might have to break out another 20 oz Diet Coke and pour it over ice from FRIG II and add my Great Value Sugar Free Cherry Limeade powder. Just so I don't go through withdrawal or anything.

7 comments:

River said...

It sounds a lot like one of my hayfever attacks, if I've been breathing stuff I shouldn't, like certain pollens, excess dust etc and haven't had access to antihistamines, the pain above the eyes comes first, there are sinuses up there as well as in the cheekbones, when the pain moves to the posterior sinuses at the back of my head I know I'm going to get a migraine because it's too long without antihistamine. If I get home soon enough and eat something I can take the antihistamine with a strong painkiller and be fine. But if I don't and the migraine sets in, then the nausea comes along for the ride. It's difficult then to eat something, but I force down a peanut butter sandwich and a half bottle of water, because the strong pain pills can't be taken on an empty stomach. Then it's an antihistamine pill and 4-6 hours of sleep.

Anonymous said...

If it's a 24 hour thing, you should only have an hour or so to go!!

Hillbilly Mom said...

River,
I'M CURED!

Within two hours of taking the acetaminophen, I was much better. Normally, acetaminophen does nothing for me. But this time, the headache went away, and also the neck pain and nausea. Which were most likely a result of the headache. My knee pain returned, though! I guess I didn't notice it, compared to the headache.

I think the headache was caused by all that smoke in the casino. Without the congestion, I might have thought it was caffeine withdrawal! But I had several cups of free Diet Coke while at the casino, so that couldn't have been it. I don't think I have migraines. But I think The Pony does, since once he gets a headache, there's no stopping it without sleep and a couple of acetaminophen AND ibuprofen. He vomits, too!

***
fishducky,
It actually DID last right at 24 hours! Maybe the acetaminophen had nothing to do with my cure...

River said...

There are several different types of migraine, which I didn't know either until a chemist (drugstore) assistant explained them to me. So you could have had one and I'd say the casino smoke was the cause. Smoke is a big trigger for mine, as bad as pollens and moulds.

Hillbilly Mom said...

River,
There was a lady sitting almost in my lap (she pulled up a stool to watch her husband play) who was smoking like a chimney. I had waited a long time to play that game, and I wasn't giving up my machine when I'd just gotten started. On the way out, I walked into a big cloud of cigar smoke. We left at 1:15, and by 3:30 my head was all stuffed up.

I'd say you're right about the smoke. I thought once I got some sleep, my headache would be gone, but it stayed with me upon awaking, even got a little worse. Once the headache faded the next day with acetaminophen, so did the nausea and neck pain.

Anonymous said...

I get a weird kind of migraine. Sometimes I see zigzag lines. That's what my eye doctor said they were!!

Hillbilly Mom said...

fishducky,
Ooh! That's definitely not normal! Even for a fishducky! My eyes are sensitive to light, and don't like to move around...but I don't get any special vision changes.