Vertigo'd

Fall semester: day sixty-two

Well, it's happened. I am officially sick.

Generally, I have a pretty decent immune system. I've always had a pretty decent immune system, despite the fact that I treat my body terribly -- I eat terrible food, I smoke, I drink gallons of coffee, and I tend to not get a lot of sleep most of the time during the semester. Despite this, I tend to take vitamins when I remember to do so, I very rarely drink alcohol, and I don't really get out much aside from driving to/from campus to teach my classes. I'm not generally put into a lot of situations where I'd be around sick people, so to speak, so I don't get sick that often. My average is about once a year, and most of the time that involves an ear/sinus infection brought on by allergies, and not necessarily a virus from someone else. I used to get sick like clockwork in October and late January/early February, though I've been able to stave that off for the most part over the past few years.

I felt a bit odd all day on Sunday. Not sick, just odd. I had nausea and felt queasy, and I was tired and lethargic all day long. This is generally par for the course for me on a weekend, especially if I was up late on Saturday night (I was; I had to create lesson plans and handouts for this week). I tried to go to bed early on Sunday night, as I needed to get up at 5 yesterday morning to get ready to go in to teach.

At 1AM, I woke up and was feeling really, really ill. Like, cold-sweats ill. I was also dizzy. This was new. I came upstairs thinking I was going to vomit, because that's what it felt like. I didn't vomit, but...well...let's just say I was in the bathroom for half an hour or more. I was sick. It was not pleasant.

I was finally able to go back to bed and sleep, though the dizziness didn't subside even when I laid back down. I've found that even when I'm more sick than not, usually going to sleep will help quite a bit; by the time I wake up, most of the time, I feel normal again. When my alarm went off at 5, I got up and almost fell over -- the slight dizziness had transformed into full-blown crazy vertigo, and had not gone away in my sleep but had intensified dramatically. Of course, I was still feeling queasy and ill, which continued in the bathroom no less than three times in the span of 90 minutes or so.

I had a choice at that point -- I could either cancel my class for the day and go back to bed, or I could take some Tums and a "stop pooping" pill and power through it, come back home, and crash (as is customary for me on Monday afternoons anyhow). As I have a lot to cover in my classes between now and Thanksgiving, cancelling class for a mild sickness that I can function through, especially with some medicines, is out of the question no matter how much I desperately wanted to go back to sleep. I felt like fried hell, but there was nothing else I could do. I couldn't justify cancelling class enough to do it -- especially not with my students already getting Thanksgiving week off. So, I got dressed and went in.

It was bad enough trying to teach when I was feeling ill, of course, but I did it. I was fine. When I got to school, one of my friends gave me two cups of peppermint tea, which helped soothe my stomach a little bit, but my vertigo didn't go away at all -- in fact, it felt worse. I almost fell over a few times because it was really hard to keep my balance unless I was leaning against something or sitting down, and sudden movements made the room spin. It was this vertigo that let me know that this wasn't run-of-the-mill stomach issues; something was wrong, something was making me sick. When I've had food poisoning in the past, occasionally it has been accompanied by this sort of dizziness and vertigo. What was worse was that I hadn't eaten anything different or out of the ordinary compared to my normal diet -- my dinner on Sunday night was a sandwich and some curry couscous, which I've made many times before. On Saturday I made burgers for football, which yes, were cooked perfectly fine and completely through, and had a beer with them. Nothing out of the ordinary for me. When I came home yesterday I made the same sandwich I'd had before, with no further ill effects, so really, I have no clue what it is or what's causing it. It is, perhaps, one of those 24-hour stomach bugs.

I taught my class and drove home, and I was feeling much better than before physically, but was still really, really dizzy -- which, in turn, kept me feeling queasy. I talked to Daisy for a bit on Skype; she'd stayed awake until I got home to make sure I was okay, and then around 4PM I went downstairs and went to bed. I got up at 3:30 this morning to find that yes, I still had my dizziness and vertigo, but it was much less powerful than before. Internally, I felt (and still feel) mostly fine.

So what is/was it? No clue. I mean, I'm okay -- I can function normally with no real issues, and most of the dizziness has worn off now that I've been awake for a while, but I still have a low-level icky-ness that I can't really shake. It's not something I like, obviously, but I can deal with it. It's not going to stop me from teaching today, or spending the twelve hours on West campus that I need to spend there.

It is, however, really cold. Yesterday it was cloudy and 60 degrees in the morning, but the temperature dropped like a stone in the afternoon hours. It was barely 40 when I went to bed, and right now it's 28 with a wind chill of 12. Twelve. It was snowing on Daisy yesterday in Omaha (according to the radar) when it was still 60 here. My car tends to like the cold for the most part, though such a rapid drop so fast may affect my ability to get her started and warmed up this morning -- and I may have to scrape ice off the back glass before I drive down south this morning in a few hours.

As for other stuff going on? Not a whole lot, really. When I got paid on Friday, I went shopping on Saturday and paid the bills I had (credit card and water bills), and ordered more cat food and other small things on Amazon because it's cheaper than getting it in the store, and now I'm back to almost where I was before I got paid. That's okay, I suppose. I get paid my next check on Black Friday, and can wait until then before I need to do anything else with my money (such as pay the rent again). Of course, since yesterday was Veterans' Day, the bills I paid won't even go out in the mail until today...yet I still received my Amazon stuff from UPS yesterday. UPS delivers on "holidays" but the mail doesn't? Ugh. I'll have another package waiting for me when I get home tonight -- Daisy's first Christmas present arrives today, according to the shipment tracking info. It's about time; I ordered it almost three weeks ago now.

The car is running fine; it seemed to love the dry, 60-degree weather yesterday and performed admirably and wonderfully. It will also cross the 230,000 mile mark on Thursday, so fingers crossed and all that. Especially since this is the coldest morning on record since, say, early May, if not late April.

As for my forbearance on my loans, I haven't heard anything yet -- but I'm expecting something in the mail this week to tell me it's been granted, as, well, I kind of need it. Again, my balance due as of my first statement is $0.00, so it's not like they're going to put it into collections or anything if I pay them nothing right now. It's also going to be delayed a day because of the Veterans' Day holiday as well, so, again, all I can do is wait and proverbially twiddle my thumbs.

Today is a huge day in both of my classes, as we're covering a lot of material in each of them -- we're starting the big final projects in each one today. In my 101, that's their final argumentative research paper, and in my 210, that's their Proposal/Request for Grant Funding. There's a lot to cover in those classes today, and both of them will more than likely run the entire time. Well, the 101 will definitely run close to the entire time. The 210 is three hours, and I doubt I'll be in there for all of it, especially because I never am, no matter how much work there is to be done. I had to make copies for my classes yesterday, and probably used almost two full reams of paper on the copy machine at work. 90% of those copies will be distributed in my classes today and covered. So, yeah. Lot of stuff to do today. On the plus side, I'm collecting my 101's papers this morning, so I'll have something to grade this afternoon in my off-hours. It's only today that will be super-crazy-long in my classes; tomorrow and Thursday things quiet down a bit as we get into the lessons and the like for these units we're covering. Still, with next week being the second-to-last week of classes for my students, this month is going very quickly.

I have begun packing my bag for Omaha, despite the fact that I don't leave for there for another two weeks. This is a force of habit of mine; I always pack as early as I can so that I don't have to throw it all together at the last minute. Daisy and I will have a short few days together up there, during which we'll be having our "official engagement photos" taken by her best friend, so part of what I've packed thus far are the dress clothes for that. Daisy's home is warm, yes, so I can wear normal clothing most of the time, but I also have to pack warmer clothing because there I have to go outside to smoke -- and if it's freezing all the time when I'm up there, that's not going to be pleasant at all if all of my clothing is lighter in nature. Today, because it's so cold, I am again dressing in layers; I have a layer of longjohns under a shirt and a fleece jacket in addition to my normal wool peacoat, thick pants, two pairs of boot socks, and my warmest shoes. I don't have much of a choice if I don't want to be freezing all day long. I also get more fatigued when I'm cold, as well. Being warm keeps me awake, ironically, at least when I have something to do.

Now watch there be a massive snowstorm while I'm gone to Omaha, or something like that. Ice storm. Snowstorm. Late-fall tornadoes. Who knows. Remember, that's why I don't like to travel during the holidays -- something like that almost always happens when I do. Last year at Christmas it was two snowstorms in a row, one of which I had to experience three times in the same day -- once here, before I got on the plane, then in Chicago when I changed flights, then again in Pittsburgh when I landed there that afternoon. And, of course, there was the second snowstorm that delayed my flight home by two more days.

And people wonder why I don't like to travel.

On that note, I'm going to continue to get dressed and warm myself up before I have to jump in the car to go to school. When I get home tonight, I will have to force myself to eat something small and then crash out so that I can get up early again tomorrow and do this shit all over again.

Sigh. The semester is ending soon, but not soon enough for my tastes.