Tag: illness

On home remedies

On By Luther M. SilerIn Uncategorized9 Comments

220px-L-Ascorbic_acid.svg.pngDamn near every single human being I work with has lost at least a few days out of the last few weeks to some disease or another.  So far I’m the only one who has remained immune.  So naturally it just turns out that it looks like I’m just last.

Which is in keeping with my sales, but that’s beside the point.

Anyway, I’m going to bed insanely early tonight and mainlining a ton of Vitamin C in hopes of knocking this shit out before it has a chance to set in.  I’m juuuust at the beginning of a cold right now so I’m crossing my fingers that such a thing is actually possible.

What’re the best cold-prevention tips you have?  The more outlandish the better.  If your grandmother used to make you drink some crazy shit that smelled like it was made of durian and bat piss I totally want to hear about it.

aaaaugh

On By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching6 Comments

So sometime last week I scheduled this song to pop this morning, assuming that I’d be happily on my way to work to go teach some chidrens who I do, yes, actually miss by now:

But then, instead of going to work, I had another fucking panic attack this morning, and suddenly posting a video about how I’d rather be playing the drums instead of at work, when I really would like to go to work like a fucking grown-up now, seemed kinda rude and a little like mockery of the people who were actually at said job.

So I did something I’ve almost never done, and deleted the post.

(And then almost accidentally forgot to post today, because I was thinking I already had.)

I saw the doctor again this afternoon, and… actually, I’m not talking about it any more until I know more about what’s up.  But… yeah.  Not the greatest news I’ve ever been given by a medical professional.

I will not be at work again tomorrow, or this week again.  More later, when I know more.

Getting desperately tired of this.

#Weekendcoffeeshare: Halloween edition

On By Luther M. SilerIn Stories15 Comments

coffee2

If we were having coffee I’d be on my third cup of the morning already, because I had two right after getting up.  It’s kind of a sleepy, crabby morning around the Siler household this weekend, because Halloween tonight is probably going to be a washout and that’s putting all of us in a bad mood.  It’s already raining and the hourly chance of rain for the rest of the day bounces back and forth between seventy and ninety percent.  Should I be thanking Hurricane Patricia for this nonsense?  Maybe.  I know at least one actual meteorologist; maybe she’ll let me know.

Last Halloween, you may remember, we had a blizzard.  Tonight, a torrential downpour.  I’d rather have the blizzard; at least I got to stand outside in that, and there are few things that I dislike more than being outdoors in the rain.  I have no costume and I didn’t carve a pumpkin because my brain fell into this annoying feedback loop where I wanted to come up with something neat and creative and I couldn’t so I just didn’t do it at all.

I am starting to think, after several weeks of these posts, that I am not a very fun person to have coffee with, and I’m kinda tired of that, too.  Then again, if I remember right, I started writing these right after my medical bullshit started up and maybe I shouldn’t blame myself for all of it.  I’ve been less fun for the people around me, too.

If we were having coffee, I think you’d probably be able to tell that I start work again next week.  It occurred to me yesterday that if I made it through my mom’s surgery without an episode, I can probably get through a week of work, but I am noticeably blechy and jumpy at the moment.  I need next week to go smoothly, and I need to not end up in the hospital again, and in particular if the hospital thing happens again I need to just start thinking about taking an entire grading period off, because I have no idea what the hell’s going on.  For once, I want to go back to work.

I’m tired of writing posts where people feel like they need to wish me well in comments, honestly.

Later today or tomorrow, depending on my mood, I’ll talk about Searching for Malumba‘s launch.  The tl;dr version: surprisingly successful!  But more details later.

How are you?

Uncle.

On By Luther M. SilerIn Uncategorized10 Comments

Last weekend, a former student died in a car accident.  He was 15.  When I went to tell a co-worker who I thought had known him about it, he told me about a friend of his who had just the night before accidentally shot another friend of his, killing him, while cleaning a gun.

On Thursday, a former co-worker from my other job, a man who I’ve known for twenty years, passed away after a long illness.  He leaves behind a college-age daughter and a high school-aged son.

On Friday, my boss’ father died.

And last night, the wife of a co-worker from my previous school was struck by a car as she was crossing the street after a family party.  She passed away at the hospital.  They had two young daughters; I don’t know if the girls were present when she was hit by the car.

That’s enough for now, universe.

Everybody, go hug your families.  Right now.

Okay that’s enough now thank you

On By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching10 Comments

oyster+man_b7dd60_4657736So I’ve been sick since… Friday night?  Saturday morning?  Hell, I can barely even remember anymore.  I’d tell you what was wrong but it doesn’t seem to be able to settle on anything, so take your pick: aches and pains, eye-popping migraine-style headaches, chills, sweats, intestinal/digestive stuff, sore throat, coughing, heart racing, out of breath, but like never more than two or three of those at the same time.  I missed work at my other job Saturday night because it felt like my eyes were trying to leap out of my head and missed this morning just because of generalized suck.  I have no sick days left and may be out tomorrow anyway.  I don’t know what the hell’s going on but for once I’m going to actually make a doctor’s appointment; this shit has gone on long enough.

(My wife thinks, and I think I agree, that it’s entirely stress-related, and that I’ve been having mini panic attacks, thus the occasional out-of-breath moments.  Which means that they’ll probably want to prescribe some sort of anti-anxiety medicine, which will take more time to kick in than there are days left in school.  So… not gonna do that.)

I had a phone interview today.  This should be a “Yay!” moment; I’m not expecting to secure a new job until fairly late in the summer, so even getting a phone call at this early stage is rather surprising.  More surprising?  It was with District Four.  The interview was supposed to be on Friday afternoon initially and ended up getting rescheduled because some sort of hell broke loose at school; it was moved to today at 3:45.  Which meant that I had to do a phone interview sick and in the “out of breath and heart hammering” stage of the illness.  And in the fine tradition of District Four, it was standardized.  The principal asked me several scripted questions involving hypothetical situations with kids who aren’t real, which makes the questions, at least for me, almost entirely unanswerable.  I mean, hell, I said something, but… meh.  The principal even had to inform me that he was unable to clarify or provide additional details on any of the questions, and at least once I could have used some clarification.  Plus the whole thing was recorded and on speakerphone, adding that last little bit of alienation and distance to the conversation.

This is no fucking way to hire people, by the way.  Watch; District Four is going to end up offering me a job after doing nothing right during the hiring process.  I know nothing about this guy or his building; he knows nothing about me.  Blech.

I’ve got another book review coming but I think this is all I can handle today.  Maybe I’ll go to work tomorrow and maybe I won’t; we’ll see.  I’d like my body back to normal now, please.

Must be February

On By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching12 Comments

paperworkOh, Christ, I’m tired.

The following happened today:

  • School counselor dropped off a new student, halfway through class, while I was teaching, on absolutely no notice.  The new student is blind.  What is this I don’t even.  How the hell am I supposed to accommodate a blind student on no fucking notice?  What?  Are you kidding me?
  • NO, really, are you kidding me?  You didn’t really just drop off a student with a major disability into my classroom with no notice, right?  Because, maybe you don’t know this, but I don’t have a large-format photocopier in my classroom.  Which means that the kid can’t do a single thing I’m doing today, not to mention that I mostly teach from the board and he can’t see the board ever, and no there aren’t any notes I can give him because you didn’t tell me he was going to be in my class.  
  • Fuck.
  • At least three different union issues dropped into my lap today, after an extraordinarily quiet school year.  Three in one day.
  • A parent who has– and I just checked– literally never emailed me about her son apparently spent half an hour in the office during seventh hour griping about how she’s been “trying and trying and trying” to get ahold of me for help with her son’s math grades. This is manifestly untrue.  If her kid would turn in his fucking work he’d be fine.  She knows this.  That’s the answer to “how do I get his grades up,” he needs to turn his goddamn work in.
  • Italics.
  • Just took a closer look at the kid’s grades from last quarter and holy shit I dare her to try and make this my fault.  Bitch I will destroy you.
  • Right after finally remembering to email someone to tell them that I can’t attend a meeting with them tomorrow afternoon because I already have another meeting scheduled outside of my building, I got an email from my first meeting canceling that meeting, so I got to email the first person back and cancel my cancellation.  I have literally thought to myself “dammit, remember to email so-and-so and let her know you can’t be at her meeting” a dozen times today and as soon as I do it my reason for not going falls apart.
  • I am still sick.  That’s not a “thing that happened,” but I don’t care.
  • Had to meet with the DC kids today to tell them that the price of their trip has gone up because sixteen of the forty-two kids who signed up for the trip didn’t actually bother to pay for the thing.  One of the sixteen is the child of the parent who was griping about me in the office; she has also complained to me that we didn’t do any fund-raisers to pay for the trip, ignoring the fact that a) her kid didn’t so much as mow a damn lawn over the summer to raise any money, that b) I applied for over forty thousand dollars in grants for the trip, which I didn’t get, and c) there is scholarship money available to her through the tour company which– wait for it– she did not apply for.  Also d) I’m not the motherfucker who signed my kid up for an eight hundred dollar field trip with no fucking clue how I was going to pay for it.  Pretty sure that was you.
  • I am expecting much drama tomorrow from the DC meeting.  I can even predict which parents it will come from.
  • Untold idiocy after school with a parent trying to get one of her kids brought to the office instead of riding the bus.  I can’t even describe it.  This should be a simple thing for everyone involved and instead it was a massive screamy idiotic clusterfuck.

Third quarter always sucks.  It is an iron-clad stone-cold unavoidable undeniable rule of the universe.  But holy shit is it coming on with a vengeance this year.

Fuck.

In which a good idea is a very bad idea

On By Luther M. SilerIn Cooking, idiocy1 Comment

IMG_0880Yesterday was kinda weird.  Right after waking up in the morning (in fact, what woke me up in the morning) I got sick again.  At least as sick as I’d been the other night, but… uh… different directionality, if you know what I mean, and if you don’t feel free to make something up.  I spent all morning lying around and moaning, with my wife alternately telling me just to go back to bed or to at least try and take a shower.

Then lunch happened.  I had to force myself to eat something; I don’t even remember what I had.  And suddenly, wonder of wonders, I felt a hundred percent better.  In fact, I felt so much better that I ended up making dinner:  farfalle!  Nothing super complicated; pasta with onions, garlic, red pepper, and spicy Italian sausage sautéed in olive oil, with a  sauce made from heavy cream and crushed tomatoes, topped with fresh basil and pecorino cheese.  I’d not had farfalle before; it’s delicious and I may well reach for it instead of spaghetti the next time I want pasta.

This is how healthy I was feeling, by the way: it seemed to me a good idea to make spicy food for dinner.

It was not.  It took about an hour after dinner to be certain of that.  But trust me.  It was not.

I went to bed weak and shaky again and not sure if I was going to work today; waking up at 4:30 in the morning with urgent needs answered that question, and I’m typing this at my desk in my office, back in “completely fine except for five minutes out of every sixty” mode.  I will be at work tomorrow and for the rest of the week if I have to install a Port-A-Potty in the hallway outside my room; putting a sub into the last week before Winter Break is just not fair and it would probably be good if my kids actually learned something during this window.

I am making Experimental Dessert tonight; I shall report back on that tomorrow.  Assuming I can walk and breathe, which I ought to be able to.  (I’m eating the rest of the pasta for lunch, BTdubs; digestive issues be damned, it was good.)

More later; I have a Real Post planned but 350 words of lead-in about illness and food doesn’t really seem right.