sick at home

this absolutely sucks. i hate staying home sick.

1- i'd like to think that it's a nice break from my clients and their problems, but it's so not, cos i know that when i go back into work that they'll have made decisions on their own and totally screwed any number of things up. so it just means more work when i get back, that could last weeks if not months to sort out, especially if it's housing.

2- i am losing money staying at home, despite the fact that i get paid sick leave. I get paid... hmm... not sure, around $230 a day before tax. Friday alone: i drove dangerously with an eye patch on to the local shopping centre, bought a coffee $4, bought macdonalds $7.50. then drove to the doctor's, bought iron tablets, eye ointment and eye drops $46. went home, was bored, bought André Rieu tickets in the Netherlands for 75 Euro ($147). so total expenditure for Friday alone was $204.50 which you'd think is ok - i'm breaking even BUT NO! because yesterday and today i have spent all day trying to work out flights from Rome to Maastricht and it's terrible, i'm going to end up spending around $600 to fly Rome to Brussels, take a train to Maastricht, then back to Brussels, then fly to Florence. Not to mention the $70 per night hotel in Maastricht. And the fact that I think i'm going to have to forward my large suitcase from melbourne directly to Florence as i don't think i will be able to take a local train lugging my large suitcase plus my hand luggage plus a handbag and stay on top of not getting robbed. This conjunctivitis is costing me an arm and a leg; it should know that when I am bored I do things like this.

3- I'm struggling to see because of my eyes, yet i've never blogged so much, spent so much time in front of my laptop, read so many travel brochures, studied so many maps in my life. I could have gone for months without doing all this, but the second i know it's difficult for me i suddenly REALLY need to read non stop for 12 hours a day. and i can't even tell if my eyes are hurting from it all cos i'm already in so much pain.

the trouble is - my eyes sort of feel okayish now, and i wouldn't mind going into work tomorrow as i have so many clients to see, but my eyes are blood red, i look like i've escaped from the set of 28 days later. so i might go to the travel agent and back to the doctors... have to stay away from shops and my laptop as much as possible; it only results in more spending.

tiger balm madness

oh god.

i just bought 8 new pairs of contact lenses; 2 violet, 2 light brown, 2 grey, 1 green, 1 blue. I have been wearing the violet ones for the past week with no problems. i wore an orangey-red dress on the weekend and decided it would go well with green eyes... so out came a new pack of contacts.

i tried to put them in my eyes and they stung like crazy, i could only get one in and i couldn't stop crying and my nose turned into a tap and i took it out and that was the end of that.

the next day exactly the same thing happened. i rinsed and re rinsed the contacts. still turned me into a bright red mess so i gave up.

third time lucky today... not. not even 1 second after i put the contact in my eye all the white turned bright pink. i took it out and dialled my optometrist furiously with water pouring out of my pink eye and bright red nostril.

'... i have rinsed them... several times, it's been 3 days of rinsing and rerinsing... no it's not because i'm not used to them, it feels like my eyeball is on fire, it feels like -'

OH MY GOD

'...deep heat...'

i nearly said tiger balm. it clicked suddenly that the contact lens problem coincided with me buying a new jar of tiger balm which i have been applying liberally every minute of the day to every dance injury area of my body.

'... not a problem Miss Bee, please keep your contact lenses and we will replace them free of charge, you obviously received a dodgey pair.'

i feel like crap. i'm now waiting for karma to come and bite me for being a stupid idiot.

come on karma.

purple disease

when the hell was my last tetanus shot anyway? prep? don't they only last 10 years? what if i have stepped on a rusty nail and i'm out of date for my injection by 8 years?

and that's the tetanus bacteria... it looks quite pretty. i'd like to have a disease that's purple!

54 HOTDOGS IN 12 MINUTES

temporomandibular joint disorder. that's what i have. basically, i have a sore jaw.
let's begin at the beginning.

i had bad dreams last night and the night before. horrible dream where i was at the dodgey IGA near work and there was a veiled lady behind me who asked which nationality i was and i replied 'italian' and she muttered something under her breath about arabs. then another dream where i was driving down kings way and when it became queens road there were roadworks and i couldn't work out which lanes were closed and i accidentally drove into the wrong lane and picked up a roadworks sign in my front right wheel and i had to stop in the middle of the traffic and no one would help me get it out. i know neither of these dreams sound too bad, but i had so many more, they were distressing all together.

anyway. this morning i went to work complaining that the left side of my jaw was aching. just after 10 i found... a piece of my tooth that i had obviously ground off during my dreams.

to stress me out further at work, everyone started googling 'sore jaw' to see what it would come up with. which is when i found out i had temporomandibular joint disorder. (well, that was the last thing i was willing to listen to after 'you have tetanus!' / 'you have lockjaw!' / 'you're just gonna die!')

except i haven't eaten 54 HOTDOGS!

confusing dreams with reality

oh my god. now that i've made up for all the lost sleep from last week, things are slowly drifting into my mind that i cannot believe actually occurred.

firstly, i would like to say i dreamt this afternoon in a 3 minute nap that i was paris hilton's personal assistant. i think need to have my dreams analysed. i'm the only one in my workplace who isn't paris obsessed and i really don't care to talk about her more than maybe once every 3 months in passing, and i'm having dreams about her. what the hell, anyway...

ok, back to my original story, i remembered today while at work what i did last week in my psychotic non sleep period due to coughing. i went to sleep taking cough medicine, it looked like there was 10 mls left in the bottle, so i just poured it down my throat. a drop touched my tongue. literally. i pulled the bottle away from my mouth and looked again. it looked like there was medicine in there... by this time i was nearly breaking out in a sweat because it was too late to go out to buy more and all the shops were closed. upon inspecting the bottle under the light i realised that it wasn't medicine it was the thick glass base.

then i really started sweating. i was so tired and i needed that medicine.

ok. let's try other things to stop coughing.

as much as i am anti-tablets unless they're herbal, i didn't care that night. i took panadol even though i know under a normal rested condition that it does s**t all of coughs.

i went to bed... i coughed... i sat up in bed with pillows propped up behind me... i coughed... i got up and made tea with lemon and went to bed... i coughed... i got up and drank boiling water with lemon... i coughed... i got up and found in an old handbag a dubious looking sachet of lemsip, i drank it and went to bed... i coughed... i got up and poured honey into my throat... i coughed.

then i figured the only time i stopped coughing was when i was eating or drinking. aha! i jumped up for the millionth time and went to the pantry. the only lollies i could find was a 2 year old jar of castlemaine rock, which are hard boiled lollies. my plan was to suck on it and fall asleep. i wasn't even afraid of choking on it and no one hearing and dying... death at that stage was preferable to coughing any more.

the lollies were stuck.

because they'd been they're for so long they'd fused together into one giant rock. i grabbed a pen and tried to prise one of the lollies off the others. the pen broke. i tried with the other side of the pen. it broke too. i then grabbed a pair of scissors (this was a 4.47am) pushing...pushing...pushing...POP! a massive lolly flew out of jar and onto... i have no idea. i heard it land somewhere in my room, but the lollies are the same colour as my carpet. i finally gave up and went to bed and waited for 9am to go buy more cough medicine.

so now i'm in my room trying to find a trail of ants that will lead me to the much anticipated lolly.

cough suppressant

pharmacists are psychotic. why would a pharmacist argue with me when i haven't slept in three nights because of my cough from my bronchitis? i know i wouldn't argue with me, i would just give myself what i wanted and shut up.

thursday i went into work after not sleeping the entire night because we ran out of cough medicine. i went to my desk, threw my work down, and announced that i was going back out to the chemist to get cough medicine.

i was coughing so much i nearly had several accidents driving there. i ran from the parking space into the chemist and asked the nice looking lady for cough suppressant. And it began...

Lady: is it a chesty cough?

Me: yes, but-

Lady: well then, we'll just give you the expectorant then

(note - expectorant MAKES you cough, not stops the cough)

Me: no, i really haven't slept in-

Lady: well, you need to break up what's in your chest! so here's a bottle of-
Me: no, you don't understand, i haven't slept in 3 nights and-
Lady: i can only sell you the expectorant if you have a chesty cough-

Me: I NEED TO SLEEP! I HAVEN'T SLEPT IN 3 NIGHTS! I DON'T WANT EXPECTORANT, I WANT THE SUPPRESSANT!

Lady: (shrunk in size) ahem, well, i just talk this over with the pharmacist, shall i? (ran to the pharmacist)

Pharmacist: here you go, here is some suppressant

Me: thank you. i just really need to sleep. thank you so much. thank you

i went back to work for three hours, but after having taken the medicine i was still coughing to the point where i was sweating. i made an appointment at the doctor's and left work, suspecting bronchitis. upon going home i actually read the medicine... EXPECTORANT! aaaaagggggghhhhh those sneaky *****

after the doctor's appointment, where he confirmed that yes, i did have bronchitis and gave me antibiotics i went back to another chemist to pick up suppressant. by this time i felt like an absolute lunatic and i was ready to get into a physical fight for the correct medicine. i approached the counter.

Me: I need cough suppresant. I haven't slept in three nights. I can't get better if i can't sleep. I have a chesty cough but i cannot take any more expectorant because i NEED SLEEP.

Lady: well, if you have a chesty cough-
Me: NO

Lady: i'm sorry, suppressant is for a different-

Me: I need to sleep! I need suppressant! (all the workers were looking at me by this point)
Lady: well, how about i go and grab the pharmacist for you... (ran away like previous lady)

Pharmacist: all we can give you is the-

Me: Please. i'm taking antibiotics. I need sleep. I really need sleep. I'm turning into a lunatic (her face looked like she agreed with me on this point) please please please
Pharmacist: (went behind the counter and produced a small red bottle that looked like a saviour) you can only take this at night. it is a suppressant, but it will make you very drowsy. is that ok?
Me: (nearly crying from happiness after seeing that the bottle actually did say what she said) yes that's ok, thank you so much, thank you.

i went home and took it immediately. whithin 20 seconds i had stopped coughing. completely. i lay my head down on the pillow and fell asleep in seconds with an enormous smile stretched across my face. what bliss.

now that i've slept 14 hours non stop and feel quite human again, i am seriously considering going back to both chemists to sincerely apologize.