I survived my bout with whatever bug was ravaging my body this week. I went back to work Thursday. Since all I do at work is sit in front of a computer, I only need a clear mind, not a strong body. And with the fever gone, my mind was clear. My body can just catch up while I’m productive.

Sick days ain’t as fun as I remember they used to be. I remember sitting on the couch, watching TV, taking naps, and generally relaxing on sick days. This time, though, my sick days sucked.

I spent most hours of the day in misery. But even for those few hours, (in the morning), when my temperature dipped down below the delirious level, I was too freakin’ exhausted from the high-fever tossing and turning and trembling and not sleeping to do anything rambunctious like getting out of bed and walking down the stairs to the couch and big TV. Hell, it was an effort to lay in bed and click the remote for the little* TV in our bedroom.

There was nothing of any interest to me on TV during the day, anyway. I swear, cable gives us hundreds of channels, (of which I only ever tune into maybe a half dozen over a month’s time), but I ended up spending a couple hours in a row literally just surfing through the channels, maybe stopping on one for just long enough to determine, no, this show ain’t actually going to get interesting.

On Wednesday, Calfgrit10 stayed home from school because he said he wasn’t feeling good. We immediately thought he might have picked up whatever I had, (we’re a sharing family), but he never actually got real sick. And I was just starting to move into recovery from my nasty bug. So while Calfgrit6 went to school, (as “unfair” as he said it was), and Cowgrit did her volunteer thing at the school, my oldest boy and I were left to our own pathetic devices.

It shows just how tired and worn out I was that my first thought wasn’t that we could sit and watch some movies together that day. It took a few hours, nigh on to lunch time before the idea came to me. When the light bulb did go off above my head, I started mentally going through the list of my** movies I had tucked back in the TV cabinet.

There are several in my stash that immediately jump right out at me as obvious, and that I definitely want to watch with my boys, (Spaceballs, Ghostbusters, Aliens, Hawk the Slayer). But then I remembered a set of John Wayne DVDs that I recently brought home from my dad’s house. My dad and I were both big fans of The Duke, and we used to love watching his Westerns together. I decided this might be a fun tradition to introduce to Calfgrit10, who had never before seen a Western. And this sick day together is the only extended period of time we’ve had with each other, (without the littler boy), since he’s become old enough to watch with me. So I pulled out The Sons of Katie Elder.

To be continued. . .

Bullgrit

* “Little” — my how times (technology, economics) change. Our bedroom TV is a 26″ flatscreen up on top of the chest-o-drawers. When I was young, if we had a TV at all in a bedroom, it would have been a 12″ black and white CRT, (with NO REMOTE!).

** “My” — My movies are a collection of the really cool stuff that Calfgrit6 isn’t yet old enough for, Calfgrit10 hasn’t had time with me without his little brother to see, and Cowgrit doesn’t at all care about. These are separate from the family movies that Cowgrit exclusively picks out.

Around noon on Sunday, I started feeling a little bit achy and chilled. Although the feelings were just faint at that time, I knew it was some illness taking root in my body. I went to bed right after lunch. Cowgrit took my temperature: 99 degrees. Yep, I was coming down with a little something.

A couple of hours later, my temp hit 101 degrees. I spent the rest of the day and evening just trying to rest out the aches and chills. Sunday night was horrible. The aches were intense, and I just couldn’t get comfortable in any position. My fever had reached 103 degrees but the chills made my whole body tremor despite having a sheet and two blankets covering me.

Then around 6:00 a.m., I broke the fever with a heavy sweat. I continued to lay in bed all day, tired, drained, and weak. Fortunately, these flu-like symptoms haven’t included stomach issues, and I’ve been able to eat lightly now and then.

I spent all day yesterday in bed again, just trying to rest and wait out the illness. Aches and chills and fever (up to 103) come and go, and I’m keeping meds in my system to fight back. I took Benedryl last night to help me sleep, and it seemed to work fairly well. This morning, I again broke the fever with a heavy sweat. (Two mornings in a row we’ve had to change our bed sheets.)

Now, at 10:00 Tuesday morning, my temperature is down to 99 degrees, but I’m drained and worn out by this bug in my system. I’m hoping the worst of the ordeal is over and now all I need to do is rest for recovery.

Edit 9:00 Wednesday morning: Nope, it ain’t over. Temp got to 103 again yesterday evening, and I sweated it off again. Time to  change and wash the bed sheets for the third straight day. I am so worn out.

Bullgrit

It’s been two and a half years since I bought my first pair of prescription eyeglasses. My experience with the eyeglass shop was frustrating.

I intended to get progressive lenses, so I could wear the glasses all the time and they’d be good for reading and distance vision. (No having to constantly put on and take off anything.) The doc examined my eyes and gave me the prescription. I picked out some nice frames and waited the week for the process of putting the lenses in the frames.

When I went to the store to pick up the glasses, the frustration started. The first thing I noticed with the glasses on was that there was a distortion. Square things, like paper, books, computer screens, (you know, those things I’m looking at for the vast majority of my day), were trapezoidal. The eyeglasses person, (salesman? representative?), said I’d get used to it. But I didn’t. I gave it a week, but the distortion was just too great, too distracting. The square-to-trapezoid shapes were not subtle; it felt like being in some weird, non-Euclidean dimension.

I took the glasses back and told them that I apparently just can’t handle the progressive lenses. I explained how the trapezoidal distortion bothered me too much. So I had them just give me my prescription in a reading lens. I’d just live with having to put them on and take them off as needed. I waited another week for the process.

When I went to the store to pick up the glasses again, and tried them on, I immediately saw the trapezoidal distortion, still. “It’s still got the distortion,” I said. “Are you sure these aren’t still progressive lenses?” I asked.

The salesrep took the glasses back to their room and tested the glasses. He confirmed the lenses were not progressives. They even sent me back with the eye doc again to confirm my prescription needs. During that second exam, I mentioned to the doc that the trapezoidal distortion was a problem. She acknowledged the issue but gave no explanation for it. This seemed to me as confirmation that the distortion was due to the progressive style lenses.

Then I went back out with the glasses salesrep, with my prescription confirmed, and we discussed my issue. I was still unbelieving that the reading glasses didn’t have progressive lenses because of the obvious trapezoidal distortion. Throughout all of these conversations with the salesrep, (2 of them over the visits), and the eye doc, no one directly said what was causing the distortion – the distortion was the only problem I had with the lenses. I assumed it was due to the progressive lenses, but with the salesrep sure these new lenses were not progressives, I was confused.

“So why the distortion?” I asked.

“It’s your prescription,” was the answer.

I couldn’t understand that concept. Why would my prescription, to make my vision better, cause such an obvious and distracting distortion to my vision? But no further explanation was given, and I didn’t know enough about vision correction to know how to ask deeper questions.

Then something came to mind: During my first examination, three or four weeks earlier, the eye doc had mentioned, just sort of off hand, that I had a bit of an astigmatism. I don’t know anything about astigmatism other than it’s some form of “blurry vision.” My vision is blurry, (up close), and that’s the reason I was at the eye doc, so hearing the word didn’t really register as anything unusual to hear at the time. But I was grasping at straws to figure out my problem.

“Does astigmatism cause distortion like this?” I asked.

The salesrep nodded, “The correction in the lenses can do that depending on the angle of the astigmatism.”

I stood there staring at the salesrep for several seconds. “So this trapezoidal shaping is caused by the astigmatism correction in these lenses?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “Most people get used to it pretty quickly.”

I couldn’t believe this shit. Through all these conversations, with me complaining about the trapezoidal distortion, with two salesreps and a doctor, no one thought to explain to me that it was due to astigmatism correction. I had told them all that this was my first pair of eyeglasses, so they should have gathered that I wouldn’t know how corrective lenses work.

“So,” I started, “if you take out the astigmatism correction from these lenses, the trapezoidal distortion would go away?”

“Yes,” the salesrep said.

I stood there a few seconds, thinking, I can’t believe I’ve actually got to say this myself. “Well, let’s take out the astigmatism correction.”

The salesrep wrote up the order and I left the store to wait another week. When I returned to pick up the latest version of my glasses, they were just reading lenses with no trapezoidal distortion. Yay!

But originally, I had wanted progressive lenses so I could wear them all the time and not put them on and take them off constantly. Now that I learned that the one and only complaint I had had with the previous attempts was nothing to do with the progressive lenses, I was wondering if I should go back and give the progressives another try. But that would mean reordering and having to wait another week for the process. I was tired of this whole damn thing, so I just said, “These are fine,” and I left.

I lived with those glasses for over two years, putting them on and taking them off as needed. But lately, I’ve noticed some more blurriness in my vision. Either I need a slightly stronger magnification or the lack of astigmatism correction has started to be more noticeable. I decided to go to another eye doc for an updated examination and prescription.

Bullgrit