April 20, 2014
5:19 p.m.

Wow. I just looked back at my last post, fifteen days ago! Fifteen days!

I last posted after 2 a.m. on the 5th of April. I went to bed, got up and dragged around the house until mid-afternoon, then went to bed before 8 p.m. and didn't come out of my room except for bathroom breaks and water until April 10th, when I went to my doctor appointment.

My doctor told me I had the flu, and there wasn't anything to give me except cough medicine, because it was too late for anti-viral meds to have any effect and antibiotics simply don't work. The side-effects are not worth the little relief they might give. However, all my other medications were renewed that day, so I came home with a big bag of pills. And I went back to bed.

Since the 13th I have felt somewhat better, but I still have a terrible cough and have not had a voice since about the 9th. If I try to talk too much, I'll get to coughing so hard that it sometimes makes me vomit.

A lot of this is probably less due to the residuals of the flu and more to do with allergy season. Ever since I got so sick in 2010 that I had to leave my job, my allergies can completely do away with my speaking voice for days and cause my asthma to be a real pain in the butt.

The reason I'm now blaming allergies is because the last day I had a fever was the 12th. Even accounting for that, though, I had the flu for a week. I also had the flu for a few days in February, and before that for about a week in December. This all occurred after I got a flu shot last fall. This is an average now of every other month for the last six months. It's ridiculous! I hate flu shots! I have skipped them a few times since 2006, and the years I've skipped the shot, I haven't gotten the flu, but the years I've gotten the shot, I've gotten sick. This has been the worst flu season for me in quite awhile. I'm really tired of it.

Here's the scary part: if I had gotten a job this year, I would already have had to take about fifteen sick days. I would have been fired already. Sheesh!

So I would like to hear from you out there regarding flu shots. Do you get them every year? Do you think they work for you? Or do you find that you have a rougher flu season after getting them? I really want to know what other people think about this, because I've really come to the conclusion that flu shots make me sick! And I'm sorry to feel that way, because as far as vaccinations go, I'd rather see people get all their shots so they stay well.

Maybe it's just me. Something about my constitution that makes the shots ineffective. Who knows?
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So today is Easter Sunday--Happy Easter to all who celebrate! We usually do a nice family dinner, but as I have been sick, we had a pretty laid-back day. The kids came down and spent the night, and the Easter Bunny found his way to my house this year to leave goodies. We ate Wendy's hamburgers and called it good.

My son-in-law's wonderful Mom, who usually is on on whatever we have going, broke her foot a few days ago, so she didn't come for Wendy burgers. After lunch, the kids packed up and went to spend the rest of the day with her. I hope they are taking good care of her, poor thing!

The good thing is, last weekend I was feeling somewhat better and we all went to dinner at Armadillo's Mexican Restaurant. I was unable to talk at all, but it was fun listening to everyone. That was in celebration of my granddaughter's 11th birthday, and I guess it will have to do for Easter family dinner, too. Hope fully I will have a voice by next Sunday, when we are supposed to have a small belated birthday party for her, complete with barbecue. That should be fun.
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Okay, I'm alone in my house right now, and the door of my bedroom just swung open and I heard footsteps coming up the hall. I called out to my son, then remembered he's not home. So, hello, ghost! I'm never sure which one is around--I have two--unless I smell perfume, but I went back there and didn't smell anything, so I guess it was him, not her. I reckon they must get bored here sometimes. It's not a very exciting place!
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Okay, I'm going to end with a promise to myself to do better at keeping up with this. For now, I'm done.
Good night!