Musings And Strange Searches

I'm still suffering some of the after effects of the myriad infections of last week.  The chest infection is still causing me some problems; every now and again, for no apparent reason, I start coughing and find it difficult to stop.  It's a real chesty cough and occasionally it catches me so much that I end up gasping for air and with stars spinning in front of my eyes.  I'm sure it will eventually get better but it is still draining me of what little energy that I have.  I also seem to have a lot of catarrh and I will be glad to be rid of that too.

I have also been having to sleep quite a bit over the last few days. I expect that is as a result of the infections too.  Most of Tuesday was spent in the arms of Orpheus and I managed to sleep at night too, yesterday was a little better with me only sleeping for most of the morning, and today I slept until about 9am.  I shall have to set my alarm tonight because tomorrow morning I have to get up early for my psychotherapy appointment.

On Monday I went to make the video that was postponed a couple of weeks ago because of the maker's illness.  It was decided that to protect my anonymity in view of the subject matter of the video that my part of the video should be done as a voiceover of my presentation.  It all went fairly smoothly and I am now waiting to receive a copy of it to give my approval for its use.  It should be interesting because with my voice being very husky because of the chest infection it will be almost impossible for anyone who doesn't know me exceptionally well to recognize my voice on the video.

Today is the first time that I have actually felt inclined to update my blog, and prior to writing this post I have spent a little time looking at who has been viewing my blog over the last few days.  It can be very interesting to see what leads people to your blog in the first place.  Depression and psychotherapy are often the search terms entered into Google, but over the last few days there have been a number of searches from one country which have used a completely different search parameter.  For some strange reason there have been a number of searches from India for the search term "Procrastination is the thief of time", something that I wrote a post about a few days ago.  I'm not sure whether it is a school essay or one for university students, but there have been multiple searches.  Unfortunately I don't think that my blog will have helped any of them to write their essays, but it has amused me to have my blog come up in these circumstances.  And I'm not easily amused at the moment.

Following The Doctor's Orders

I've been very good and followed my doctor's instructions.  I spent much of Friday and most of Saturday in bed, I've taken the medication as prescribed, I've spent a lot of the time asleep, and today I am feeling a lot better.

It no longer feels as though I have golf balls in my throat and the cotton wool seems to have been taken out of my ears although there is some slight fuzziness in my hearing.  The worst aspects of the cold seem to have disappeared for I no longer need to blow my nose every few minutes, but I have a cough which seems to explode from me every now and again and which has the ability to cause me to see stars and to become giddy and at risk of falling over if I am standing up.

This morning I have been out for a short walk to the local newsagent.  Fortunately the wind has died down a little from that of last night and early this morning, and while it is not overly cold I did make sure that I was well wrapped up.  I wasn't out for long, but this little bit of exercise has tired me out indicating how weak I have become over the last few days.  I am sure that I will soon start to feel more normal again and that there will be no lasting ill-effects from these infections, but they have made me realise just how difficult it is being ill when you live on your own and have no family near by.

So the rest of today is going to be spent taking care of myself and trying to ensure that I am as fit as possible for tomorrow because I have an appointment with a video camera tomorrow afternoon and it won't look too good on the video if I am coughing and spluttering my way through my presentation.

Something New

This week I am going to be doing something that I have never done before; I am going to be taking part in a video to show the benefits of the computer system that I demonstrated to some GPs a couple of months ago.  It is going to be a bit of a trial for me as I am not sure how I will stand up to something like this.

So today is going to be spent getting my presentation ready, and planning what it is that I am going to say.  This is not how I had planned to spend the day because I still need to get my TMAs written.  But I think that this is important so I am willing to spend some time on it.  I shall email my tutors today and explain that I am running a bit behind and ask for an extension on submitting the TMAs.

I am still feeling low with depression, but I have made the decision that I will do the best that I can over the next week to get as much done as possible.  I will get the essays written and the assignments typed up and sent off.  It may not be the best work that I have ever done, but it will be the best that I can do in the circumstances. Hopefully, by this time next week, I will have completed all three TMAs and made the video.  I think that can be classed as a week's work; we'll just have to see how it all turns out.