work

Second verse, same as the first

I feel better today, although it’s questionable how much of the week I would have spent at home had I not been told to by my doctor’s office. I’m starting to feel a little squirrely, like I’m under house arrest, thanks in no small part to Very Big (and Not So Great) Things happening at the office, and my only being aware of them through the occasional e-mail. (There’s a meeting tomorrow to discuss it all, and what it means for us going forward, and I will be calling in even if I don’t make it to Manhattan in person.) For now, I’m taking the antibiotics, getting some rest — I slept ten or eleven hours last night — burning up vacation days, and trying to get myself in shape to go back in next week. But I’m really feeling disconnected from it all…at a time when disconnection is not what the doctor ordered.

Oh, by the way, it’s possible that there’s some redirect malware operating on my site. I’ve been noticing the occasional weirdness when accessing it (mostly on the iPad), and a scan suggested there are some scripts running on some posts. I haven’t yet been able to figure out how to find and clean them myself, so just be forewarned.

Just a super Tuesday

You may find this difficult to believe, but lying in bed all day, watching episodes of 30 Rock and taking antibiotics has seriously lost its allure. With some pretty big (and not particularly welcome) news drifting in from the office via e-mail, I’m starting to feel weirdly disconnected from my life. There’s never a good time to be unexpectedly out of the office for more than a week at a time, but now, at the beginning of the year and with so many changes underway, it’s particularly troublesome.

And though I’ve yet to shake this cough, and going back in right now would maybe just make me worse (if not also make other people sick), I can’t say I’m much enjoying this potentially costly (if only in vacation days) time off.

Brand pneumonia

So I stayed home from work again this morning. My doctor’s office called to confirm the pneumonia diagnosis and to schedule a follow-up appointment for this Friday. I’ve also been prescribed an additional antibiotic and told I should probably stay home this week and rest. Now is maybe not the best time for me to be taking a whole bunch of sick days all at once — which I’ll actually have to supplement with vacation days — but next week would probably be worse, as would not letting my body recuperate from the pneumonia at all. So, while this really isn’t the sort of “week away from the office” I like, I may just have to accept that it’s necessary.

Of course, I think I’d rather be at work than at home watching movies like Tiny Furniture on Netflix. (Everything Noel Murray says here is accurate, although I might have leaned more towards a C grade.

Sicky McSickerson

If you’d told me when I woke up this morning that, before the end of the afternoon, I’d be having a chest x-ray and getting a diagnosis of a little pneumonia, I’m not sure I would have believed you. But such is the way of things, eh?

I wasn’t feeling great this morning. As I might have mentioned, I’ve been tired and walking around with this nagging cough for the past couple of weeks. Most of the other symptoms of the cold that originally came with it (and kept me home sick one day already) have gone away, or at least subsided, but the cough got bad enough this morning that I decided to go to the doctor. (Not to be gross or too-much-information-y about this, but I did cough up a little blood.) So I called (or rather e-mailed) in sick and scheduled an appointment for later in the morning.

She started me on antibiotics for the throat, recommended fluids and some simple remedies, and gave me a prescription for a chest x-ray just to be safe. My breathing seemed fine, she said — “I don’t think you have pneumonia” — but since I’ve had these symptoms for more than a week, better safe than sorry.

Luckily, I was able to schedule the x-ray for this afternoon. (I have a limited number of sick days, and I’m not eager for this to eat into them all at the start of the year.) It was over pretty quick; I spent more time filling out paperwork beforehand and sitting in a tiny waiting area afterward. (And let me tell you, if you’re not sick going into that, sitting in close quarters with a bunch of other people getting chest x-rays for twenty minutes just might make you so.) And imagine my surprise when the technician told me there was a little pneumonia on the one lung. Didn’t he understand I was just here to play it safe? I was just dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s, so to speak?

Well, I have been a little more tired recently. And lord knows, I’m not just imagining this cough. But still: I knew I was sick, but apparently I’m more sick than I thought.

I still haven’t had it confirmed by my doctor. I was able to reach her office before they closed, but they hadn’t received the x-ray films, much less had a chance to look at them yet. It’s all complicated by today being Friday, of course, and the office being closed all weekend. Plus, I’ve already started the antibiotics I was prescribed. I’m going to try calling tomorrow morning, to talk with one of the other doctors in the practice if I can — that’s what the woman who answered the phone and made a note on my chart said I could do — and find out if I should be doing something else, starting another or different antibiotic, whatever.

That, plus plenty of rest, looks to be my only weekend plans. Exciting times, I know. I am hoping I can get this squared away — if not, you know, cured — quickly, without having to take more time off from work. Although I suppose pneumonia is a pretty valid excuse, even if it’s not the best time of year and job-wise for me to be taking sick.

For now, though, it’s plenty of fluids and an early night of it.

Hopefully when I call tomorrow, they won’t also tell me my throat culture was positive for strep. (I’ve had that once before, and it definitely knocked me out of commission for a week.)

Coordinated Monday

I should have known it was going to be a slightly odd day. After all, I left the house this morning with my belt not matching my shoes.

I know.

I overslept a little too, getting a later train for the first time in several weeks, if not months. And then I ended up having my performance review before the end of the day. On paper, none of it is especially odd, but…did I mention the whole belt and shoes thing? Gray pants, black belt…brown shoes. It was sheer madness.

I think the performance review went well. It’s kind of a weird time at the company, with a number of changes underway, but I enjoy what I do and I (and my boss) feel like I make a valuable contribution. And hey, if I wanted an industry with incredible stability, book publishing might have been the wrong way to go.

Tomorrow, I shall endeavor to better coordinate my outfit, but I make no promises.