3190 Maybe it was flu, and I'm winning?

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Woot.com, describing an owl imprinted T-shirt:
“…the symbol of Mensa, the society full of people who
annoy everyone without regard to race, creed or culture."

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Yesterday was an allover bad day. I had gone to the old house to bring back another load of stuff, but I woke feeling bad. Aches, pains, hot flashes, back out, the whole smash.

Last week when Fred the minivan had the flat tire, the AAA guy had used a compressor plugged into Fred's cigarette lighter to pump up the spare. I didn't realize until several days later when I tried to use the GPS that he'd apparently blown the fuse. Tested it with the cell phone charger, and yeah, bad fuse.

No problem. Just locate the fuse and replace it, right?

Problem. The book said the fuses were under the dashboard, and you'd have to "turn the thumbscrews" to remove the soundproof cover. (Um, why do you need a soundproof cover over fuses? Oh well....) I found what I thought was the cover, but it was much larger than the diagram in the book indicated, so I wasn't sure that was it, and --- there were no thumbscrews. I gave up.

So yesterday, back in the land where I had relationships, I took Fred to his service folks and told them, "I have a simple problem that I'm embarrassed to admit I can't figure out." The mechanic laughed, showed me where the "thumbscrews" were (they were huge, flat, and required a quarter to remove, not at all what I would recognize as a thumbscrew), took the cover off, and then was confused for a moment because the lighter fuse wasn't there.

Turns out there's another fuse box under the hood, next to the battery. The book doesn't mention that one at all!

He replaced the fuse (free), then I went to the bank, and then back to the house. I felt better so I started packing some stuff, and then suddenly felt bad again. It didn't get better. It had just changed. Abdominal cramps, muscle cramps, joint aches, the long bones in my forearms ached. My fingers hurt. It felt like I'd been poisoned.

I seemed to be getting very sick, and here I was in the sticks where I'd have little assistance. So I headed south immediately. If this is a virus, if I'm going to be sick, I'd rather be across the street from Daughter.

One of the things I considered was carbon monoxide, because I felt better out of the house and bad again in the house, but that theory didn't hold on the drive south. About one hour into the 2.5 hour drive I had more and more pain. Those muscles on either side of my neck got so tight I couldn't turn my head. My right lower arm bone and elbow were pounding. The small of my back felt like I couldn't hold my upper body up. Except for pain, I was fine. No mental disorientation or nausea.

Then, the Garden State Parkway hit me.

Along about the Oranges, traffic backed up. After forty minutes of not once getting out of first gear or past 750 rpm (I had decided that since I wasn't carrying a full load, I'd take Hal so he could get some exercise), we finally passed the accident. But traffic didn't speed up. There was another accident several miles further down. And then a third. The 2.5 hour trip took me 6 hours.

Now I understand why The Man told me that if I was moving to NJ, I should get an automatic shift, not manual. After three hours of creeping, clutch up, clutch down, I thought my left foot was going to fall off. I had pretty much lost feeling in it.

When I got home, about 7 pm, I left Hal in the driveway because I had some folding tables in the back that I thought I'd get out, and the garage is too tight for unloading, and I needed to get something to eat. But by 8 I was so tired and hurting so bad I decided to go to bed.

At 9 pm, Hal's alarms went off. I have no idea why. So I got up and moved him into the garage.

I slept until 9 this morning (the HOTW post was pre-scheduled yesterday). I'm still very tired, my back is sore, my knees still hurt and feel weak, and there's an on-off-on-off pain in my left hip, feels like someone's twisting something in there, back and forth (may be due to working the clutch). But it's all minor compared to how I felt yesterday, so I expect it to go away, whatever it was.

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Daughter has left for work, but Hercules' car is still in their driveway. I wonder if he's sick? When Daughter comes back, I'll call.

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According to my sidebar widgets, it's 27 degrees F and snowing now at the old house. I hate winter.
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