On and on, it seems

Thursday. Pay day. I had a pretty good day yesterday, Ms J, despite the inauspicious beginning. As I said yesterday, I slept until noon then got up and puttered about. I went shopping and made a casserole to take to an elderly friend whose wife is in hospital. Bill Chapin. I'll tell you more about old Bill another day.

I spent a good part of the day on the phone. Mum. June. Jill. Linda and Pat. Kirk. Bob King. Rev. Linda, Pat McPhail, Larry. One of those telephone days, you know? When the phone won’t stop ringing.

I felt pretty good in the afternoon, so I called work and booked on again. But at bedtime, my symptoms returned. Sore tongue. Sore throat. Saliva glands pumping furiously. It wasn’t as bad as the night before, but I was afraid it might get worse. And this time, it was my lower lip that swelled. The doctor had given me a prescription for prednisone at the hospital, but I was still too dazed to fill it when I left to come home. I just wanted to get home and go back to bed. The prescription sat on the shelf in the hall all day. By 11:30 last night, I was regretting my decision not to visit the drug store. Why does this always seem to get bad at bedtime? I got out of bed and raced to the drug store where I got five pills in a plastic bottle.

Take one pill each day for five days.

“If I had taken a pill this morning,” I asked the pharmacist, “would I be experiencing these symptoms now?”

“Probably not,” he said dryly. “Not as severely, anyway. You should always fill a prescription and get started immediately.”

Right, then. Lesson learned. The hard way, as usual.

One of the side effects of prednisone is insomnia.

“Great,” I thought as I swallowed the pill at midnight. “I’ll still feel like crap and I’ll be wide awake. I hope the pill helps soon.”

As it turned out, Ms J, I was awake all night. I called work and booked sick again. I sat and played on the computer all night to keep my mind off my troubles and around 4:30, I began feeling better. Not sleepy, particularly, but my throat and tongue felt much better. I could have gone to work except for the fact that someone had already been called to replace me. So that’s two days wages I’ve lost.

But at least I’ve started taking the pills and I am feeling better. I’ve booked on again and hope to return to work on Friday. I also spoke briefly with old Bill Chapin. He and I are going to visit Winn at the hospital tomorrow. I’m collecting him at home at 11:45.

Well, it must be near bedtime. My lip is sore and beginning to puff out again. Swell. That's just swell, innit?

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