Thoughts of the Lady in the Tower

2004-01-30 - 11:32 p.m.

My job freaking rocks!

The first week has been a bit rough. First there was that crazy snowstorm that kept people away for a few days, and now I seem to have caught a cold. I've been trying desperately not to snot on my coworkers for the past two days. That's not the way to make a good first impression.

The good news is that I'm fitting in and my supervisors are VERY pleased. Yay!

There's been a bit of disscussion on diaryland about dealing with physical pain, so here's my thoughts on it.

Depends on what type of pain it is. Generally, I'm a wuss and I'll take the pills.

For extreme pain, I suppose diminished capacity doesn't bother me because the pain meds make me not care that I can't even use the English language (really, when I'm half asleep or drugged heavily, I slip into my own language).

I don't really have chronic pain, but I do have repetitive pain. I get headaches that the doctors can't figure out that are so bad I vomit. I don't like to take pain killers for those because they actually speed up the vomiting process (Tylenol doesn't work, it has to be Motrin or Aleve, which irritate the stomach).

For injuries and such, I generally suck it up. It'll heal over time, and pain tells me when I'm stressing it too much (I've overstressed healing joints when on pain killers before, so I don't do that anymore).

But illnesses, such as this freaking COLD I am currently suffering through, Drug Me Up. I have weird reactions to cold meds, though. Last spring I had a cough that kept me up all night. In desperation, I tried NyQuil. It made me hyper. I tried DayQuil. It made me hyper and sleepy in 15 minute swings. Robotussin didn't do anything. So I went to the doctor. Hadn't slept in 4 days and exam week was just starting. I begged the doctor for something to let me sleep, so she gave me Tussin with codiene. Told me not to take it until I wanted to sleep, because it would put me DOWN. Well, she was wrong. It soothed my cough and had absolutely no side effects.

Well, I'm off to drug myself into a hacking, snot interrupted slumber.