My weeks: through October 23

On October 10-11, M and I continued our trip in Edinburgh. I came up with some lists about what I thought was more convenient in Scotland and what I missed from Germany, for your blog reading pleasure.

I went back to work on Wednesday and had a horribly sore throat. I could barely talk and was eating cough drops, Ibuprofin, and ice all day. I really just wanted to go home but stayed at work because there was so much to get in order. I just had to do it mostly in a whisper.

The next day I was massively sick. Burning up with fever, I was dreaming/hallucinating that I was writing the abstract and conclusion of a scientific paper. What a nerdy way to be sick, especially considering that I'm not a scientist!

I eschewed visiting the doctor and getting antibiotics because I've been reading up on antibiotic resistance. Last time I got a sinus infection, I was mostly better in a day and a half without antibiotics. This time around, I was feeling miserable so five days later, I visited the doctor and she prescribed me practically a pharmacy's worth of everything and I was grateful for it.

Even though I visited the American medical practice, the doctor I visited is German. The German system can be a bit liberally cray cray about giving time off. Seriously, if one has a sniffle, one could practically get two weeks off. She was going to write me time off for the remainder of the week. Even though I felt horrible and sick, that just sounded too unreasonable to me because I had already missed two days the week before. I told her to write my return to work day as Friday.

I felt guilty about even taking that much time off, but I ended up needing it. I've been mentioning (whining?) in the blog that I've been exhausted the last several months. I think that my immune system finally gave up and crashed. I slept probably about 14 hours a day during the week.

I worked a whole day on that Friday but by quitting time, I was completely exhausted and went home to read in bed until bedtime. I'm still not feeling the greatest; I'm tired, congested, and coughing, but back to work I go.