Homo Sum:
humani nil a me alienum puto

There was a time in my life where if I “disappeared” off the Internet for two weeks, from my birthday through St. Patrick’s Day, it would have meant that I was on some sort of mad road trip across North America, having adventures and probably breaking a law or two.

Not so this year.

While I did ring in my birthday with a bit of a wild carouse, which I may say more about later, what followed was a 36-hour return from Australia during which I could feel a cold settling over me. My sinuses were quite clogged by the time I reached Singapore, which meant landing was pretty painful. I spent the entire stopover in the Singapore airport unable to hear anything, since my ears did not equalize in pressure–I couldn’t hear again until the plane took off for London. My experience in Heathrow was similar. By the time I got home I was well and truly sick, congested, coughing, and all around delightful in mood.

Naturally, I pretty immediately fell asleep on getting home–36 hours travelling, no caffeine¹, jet lag, and sickness.

What surprised me, though, is that I essentially then slept for the next two weeks.

Well, OK, not for the whole two weeks, but for a disturbing portion of that time: I had twelve consecutive days there where I was not awake for more than nine hours out of any twenty four. My wife was heard to comment that I hadn’t actually “returned” yet, as far as she was concerned. I don’t think I’ve ever slept like that before. Clearly I was completely out of reserves, and my body needed to more-or-less shutdown while it worked on recovery. And all this while I was continuously taking a stimulant!

Along with the sleeping was a complete mucus attack, and sinus disaster. Oh, and deafness. Once again, when the plane landed in Halifax my ears wouldn’t “pop”, and I had that sensation of pressure and muted sound. I figured it would clear up while I was asleep. But not so. It got worse, and worse, over a couple of days until I actually ended up taking a midnight trip to the emergency room.

To make an already too-long² story short I was completely deaf in my right ear for two weeks, with fluctuating levels of impairment in the left, and have only recently regained the ability to hear properly. I know way too much about the behaviour of fluid in my middle ear now, and about the function of the Eustachian tube (or tuba auditiva).

Along with the deafness and utter lassitude, there was a complete dearth of the creative impulse. Whatever tiny bit of energy I had went into getting me through the work days, resulting in complete enervation in the evenings. I have literally never been this levelled by an illness before–sure, I’ve been taken out by serious pain or things that required hospitalization, but never by what amounts to a serious head and chest cold.

Anyway, the consequence is no blogging for a couple of weeks. (And no poker, and no St. Patrick’s Day celebration³, etc.)

I actually still have the vestiges of the cold–as my dwindling Kleenex supply will attest–but I can hear again, I seem to be able to survive on a more normal amount of sleep, and I’m starting to feel more like myself.

So let’s see if I can get back on this horse.

1. I am normally highly caffeinated, but for long plane trips I try to avoid anything that dehydrates me–no booze, no caffeine. In theory this should also help me sleep on the long flights, but that never actually seems to happen.(back)
2. Is there anything more boring than reading about someone else being sick? I mean, not fatal illness, or anything, just annoying sickness?(back)
3. Although that’s OK, it’s been four years now since my last good one, and I get melancholy(back)

This entry was posted on Monday, March 19th, 2007 at 12:14 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.