Poisoned

I'm pretty sure that I'm suffering from some form of mild food poisoning.

I'll spare you the details, of course, but it's not really pretty.

Here's what I know, from the beginning.

Last night I made burgers for dinner. I bought a box of Angus beef burgers from Walmart two weeks ago or so, and I'd eaten all of them but the last two, which I made last night. I also reheated a big bowl of chicken noodle soup that I took out of the freezer and thawed, soup I made months ago. I have a lot of soup, and make a lot when I cook it, so the remnants go into the freezer in tupperware bowls that I can pull out one-by-one if I'm in the mood. I ate the burgers and they were fine. I heated and ate the soup, and it was fine. I felt no ill effects.

Around 11PM last night, I was tired and achy. This is somewhat normal these days, so I didn't think much of it. I've been going to bed earlier than usual, and I thought it was my body telling me it was time to go to sleep. I was also really thirsty for some reason, so I drank most of a one-gallon jug of water and made some Kool-Aid, most of which I also drank. I told Daisy that I needed to get off the computer for a while, because not only did my ass hurt from sitting in my chair for several hours, but I was really starting to feel strange. I didn't tell her the latter part because I didn't want her to worry -- she had a long night ahead of her at work.

I was starting to feel hot, and I needed one, so I took a shower. That helped me feel a little better. I came back to the computer later and checked my email and the like before playing a game for a while in an attempt to get me tired enough to sleep. I finally went downstairs around 3 or so, feeling dizzy when I did. I had a mild headache, a nagging one, but I chalked all of it up to just being tired.

When I awoke next, it was around 10AM, and Pete was repeatedly gnawing on the plastic bag of cat litter I have sitting next to the dryer (because if there's something he can chew on, he'll do it). I yelled at him repeatedly before he went running upstairs, and then I went back to sleep. If I was feeling weird at this point, I didn't notice it.

When I finally got up around 1PM, I felt a bit wobbly and/or woozy. I'd turned off the fan next to the bed hours earlier, as I no longer needed it (it was really nice and cool downstairs) and noticed that my dizziness from the night before was still there a little bit -- along with a feeling that felt somewhat like heartburn or acid reflux, but not quite. I came upstairs and drank some water, and that's when the repeated trips to the bathroom began.

Again, I'll spare you the details. Suffice it to say that it was neither fun nor pleasant.

I felt a little better afterwards (again, attributing it to heartburn and indigestion), and I went outside to mow the grass -- the front grass, anyway. I needed to clean up the branches and debris left over from the storm, which I did, and mowed the front grass in about twenty-five minutes. The sun and constant movement of pushing the mower, however, rapidly made me feel ill again. I started coughing and gagging as well, no doubt brought on by my allergies choosing the most inopportune time to strike. The back grass is fine, I said to myself, and I put away the mower and came inside. That is when the big, bad headache and dizziness/nausea hit me full-force. After another trip to the bathroom, I knew this wasn't normal. I sent Daisy a message telling her that I thought I had a bout of minor food poisoning or something -- though since she had been asleep for hours at that point (and still is) she hasn't read it yet and doesn't know.

I truly felt awful. After yet another trip to the bathroom, queasy and pained, I laid down on the couch in the living room and tried to get the room to stop spinning. Pete and Maggie both realized I wasn't feeling well, and Pete jumped up to lay on my chest/shoulder while Maggie curled up in a ball between my legs. After laying there for an hour or so feeling sick, weak, and somewhat sweaty, the sick feeling gradually began to subside, as did the sweatiness and the weakness. The headache remained, as did the dizziness. I got up and very slowly made my way to the bathroom so that I could take another shower, as I'd mowed the grass and was feeling icky from that, and the shower made me feel a lot better.

Right now, at 7PM? I'm mostly okay. I think. My stomach is no longer going nuts, and I'm not dizzy or weak anymore. The headache, dull and probably related to allergies more than anything else, persists. My body aches also persist, though I don't feel stiff or sore or anything...just achy. I'm half afraid to do anything requiring a lot of movement for fear that I'll get sick again, or that whatever this is will fire back up full-force again as it did after I mowed the grass. This effectively puts nails in the coffin of doing anything productive this evening -- I do need to go to Walmart to pick up a few things -- and makes me feel somewhat useless, really. At least until I start feeling fully better, anyway. Typing here is about all I can stand to do right now while upright.

I told Daisy last night about the $32-a-day teaching job offer in Omaha and she said "Oh, wow, that's depressing," followed by "I'm sorry, baby."

"I know, right?" I replied. "I don't even know why they'd advertise a position like that."

The company must be really short-staffed, or, conversely, I'm the only applicant who passed all the background checks for working with children (aside from a speeding ticket eighteen months ago or so, my record is spotless).

One of my friends from the department who graduated a few years ago sent me an email this morning, telling me a job opened up in his department at a college in Iowa, and told me to look into it. I haven't really done a lot of research into it yet, since I've been, y'know, sick as hell all day, but it may be promising. From what I can tell, it's not a teaching position, but some sort of tutoring position. I'm skeptical that it would pay me enough money to justify moving to Iowa, but again, I'll have to look into it more once I feel better. It's about all I can do right now to sit here at my desk, let alone fill out more applications and/or forms.

I'll keep you folks updated if it gets better or worse, but for right now, there's not a lot I can do one way or the other except see if this thing (whatever it is) is going to run its course. At this point, I don't even know if I'm going to be feeling well enough to make the trip up to Omaha. Yes, this may pass in a matter of hours, but I don't know if it will or what it even is aside from a now-roaring headache and lethargy. Regardless, it may be a few days before you hear from me again one way or the other.