it’s been a while since i posted and there are a few reasons for that. #1 is that i’ve been traveling all over the freaking place. i left boone to go home and stay with the family until christmas and i think it’s safe to say i spent the majority of that time driving back and forth between mom and dad’s houses and driving around to see friends who are unfortunately scattered all over the damn place. i did get to see a lot of my closest friends, ones i haven’t seen in ages it seems, so i’m thankful for that.

2 is that i flew to connecticut on the 26th to stay with adam and his family/friends. we stayed at his mom’s a couple nights, went to see his buddies for a night, went back to his mom’s, and as soon as we went back to massachusetts, I GOT SICK.

every time i go to massachusetts, I GET SICK. this time was a sweet combination… when we first got to holyoke, adam noticed the giant bump on my left arm that i had been griping about (it hurt like crazy and swelled up) and evidently he didn’t realize it had swelled up, despite my griping about it swelling. his words were, “i didn’t know you meant it was that swollen!” ha. yeah. so he yelled at me until i took a pen out of my purse and he drew a circle around it to watch it for a while to see if the swollen/red area got any bigger or smaller, whatever. evidently that’s what you’re supposed to do with a might-be-spider bite. it didn’t really change, it just hurt a whole freaking lot. and i looked like a 5 year old who just got their cootie shot with circles all over my arm. now, a week-ish later, it is still there, just not swollen.

so that was fun…!

let me also say that every time i’ve come to MA, i’ve either gotten really sick or a freakish case of pinkeye (my eyeBALL was swollen up with FLUID [gaaaag!!] to somewhere between the size of a huge grape and a golfball). that was not pleasant for me or adam, who had to drive me to the ER at 4 in the morning. next trip we took, i got pinkeye again. it was a slightly less severe case of it, but it was pinkeye nonetheless. and let’s not forget when i went up last winter and had a panic attack at his friend ben’s sister’s party and threw up next to her garage. adam and i both got really sick (mucinex, throwing up all night, bed-ridden, the works) winter 2006 when we went up for christmas.

it should not have come as a surprise to me when i woke up the morning (29th) after we got to MA with a hellacious sore throat and [worse than usual] sniffles. so i took benadryl.

…BAD IDEA. i do not remember the majority of that afternoon. i remember part of going out to eat mexican food. i remember adam having to hold me by my arm to keep me from tipping over in walgreens/cvs/whatever it was. i remember chowing down on cough drops and chocolate and soup all night until said benadryl wore off. christ, i only took 2.

basically, since that morning i have felt like crap. it comes and goes in spurts, now, which is more of a tease than a relief. i say that because i thought i was better on new year’s eve and in the midst of our activities in northampton, i started feeling like crap again and could not stop coughing to save my life. normally coughing wouldn’t be so bad except it makes my asthma go nuts and because my inhaler burns the crap out of my sore throat, it does more damage than good. so that’s out of the question.

i have been stuck with cough drops and that crazy benadryl which i told myself i could only take at nighttime before going to bed. which has been FANTASTIC!

i just woke up about an hour ago and i want to say that i’m feeling much better but i always feel better in the morning and get progressively worse during the day. i hope that is not the case this afternoon, but we’ll see. the biggest problem i’ve had since yesterday is actually moving around. due to my coughing for 4 days straight, throwing up for a few hours last night, and blowing my nose like it’s my job, every muscle in my body seems to have seized up and it hurts to even move my neck the slightest bit. my abs, chest, and back are tight as ever and i feel like i’ve been beaten with a freaking baseball bat.

i love how cheery this post is. it’s not so bad since adam’s been taking care of me pretty well. he’s stayed in curled up with me the last 4-5 days watching UFC, the first 48, and manhunters. he even drove the whole 12-14 hours home to NC. there’s been some tough love, too. he yelled at me at 2 this morning because i was crying (this is when i was in between throwing up and i was hurting SO bad) and he wanted to take me to the hospital. i reassured him that benadryl would put me out of my misery and sure enough, 20 minutes after he got it for me i was lights out. he’s a keeper. :wink:

for now, i’m just crossing my fingers that i get better before my flight on the 6th to LAS VEGAS AND THE CES! i will not let this crap ruin my fun.