Anatomy of a Night In

My nasty cold has turned into a truly nasty cough which kept me in tonight despite the fact that my boyfriend and my friends are downtown at this moment drinking St. Patty's Day beers and enjoying their evening. But I stayed home because I wasn't really in the drinking mood and also because my pharmacist friend from university has told us many times about how taking cold medicine after a night of drinking is like dropping a bomb on your liver.

Not like I'm doing my liver any favors with the amount I'm drinking these days anyway, but I choose to ignore that fact.

Back to the point. I spent my evening:

Wasting time on the internet. Also, my new internet obsession is Pintrest. You can find me here. This website is pretty much the coolest (and prettiest) website ever.

Boiling water for my Theraflu and letting the kettle whistle just a little more than normal as a thank you to our neighbors for that time this afternoon when someone stood outside and rang their doorbell non-stop for about 10 minutes. We can hear everything that goes on in the hallway.

A cup of medicine and a good book.

Snuggling under the covers on the futon. I have been kicked out of the big bed with Ryan until I can make it through the night without waking up coughing like I have TB. And believe me I am looking forward to moving back in because our neighbor in the building opposite ours leaves their light on full blast all night long so that when I wake up at 3 every morning the room looks like this:

No joke. The only nice thing about it is that I can be sure that no monsters are climbing out from under the bed. It's like the biggest night light ever.

PS - I forgot how much fun it is to take pictures that are black and white or sepia.

PPS - Just in case you were curious I wrote this post about two months ago and yes, I am just posting it now. It's partly due to not thinking about it and also partly because my Macbook got very sick and erased everything on my hard drive including all the fun pictures that I had been taking for posts like this one.

I get sick a lot ...

Thanks to a delightful sinus infection, I have spent the last two days at home in my bed with two fluffy dogs to snuggle me back to wellness.

Since high school I have been sick constantly. A cold, or walking pneumonia, or bronchitis. I am always coughing or sneezing or being generally run down and sickly. After so many years of being ill in one form or another, I have stopped going to the doctor because the colds usually resolve themselves and besides you can't take anything that will make your cold go away before your body takes care of it on its own. So I just deal with it. But after I didn't totally get over my last cold and getting hit with a sinus infection that made me miserable, I caved and went to the walk in clinic at my doctor's office.

He asked me the normal questions (when did you get sick, how long were you sick before this ...), told me that I did have a sinus infection and then ran down the usual reasons that people get sinus infections (deviated septum, polyps, smoking, etc.), all of which I have heard many many times before. But then he said something I have never heard before: acid reflux could be the explanation for the reason that I have been sick so often for so many years.

In high school I developed stomach problems. I would get really nauseous after every meal and I was treated for a stomach bacteria called H. Pylori that causes excess production of stomach acid, which triggers heart burn. I did a lot of research and found out that some people don't feel the burn of heart burn. Some people feel nauseous (like me!). While I don't feel sick regularly anymore, I do feel sick frequently. The doctor said that even one or two drops of stomach acid in my throat could cause my sinuses to stop draining properly and create an infection. He said that it could also explain why I was also getting bronchitis so often.

So now, in addition to my antibiotics, I am on a prescription antacid. The doctor also recommended that I raise the head of my bed about 6-inches so that I won't have to worry about reflux while I'm sleeping.

I am SO excited to have a reason behind my constant illness ... I am SO excited about the idea of being healthy for more than 3 weeks at a time. SO excited to not be the office joke anymore (yes, we joke about how I'm sick all the time at work. HIL-arious). SO EXCITED for a reason that makes sense. The long and short of it is ... I'm pretty excited. Even if it does mean that I might have to take an antacid everyday for the rest of my life. I would so much rather take a pill everyday than be sick all the time.

YAY!!!