How long will this cold last?

1/6/09 Tuesday
Geese! How long is this cold going to last? Cherie’s still coughing and I’m as bad as I was when this started. It’s sure taking a lot out of me and I can’t believe how weak I’ve gotten, and I’m tired all the time. The one good thing about it is that I haven’t needed any pain pills at all this whole time, that I like. There is no doubt that much of the pain is directly connected to how much work I do. The headaches are back but the pain pills never touched that anyway.

Today I go to the VA to let a surgeon look at that lump in my armpit. Cherie will take some time off to go with me. We’ve both learned that that is a smart thing as when I come by myself I sometimes get things confused. We learned that lesson when I had my eyes examined and ordered new glasses. One of the strange little problems with the brain injury is my perception of things. The frames I picked out turned out to be women’s frames. I wasn’t able to tell the difference and picked out frames based on the size of lenses because these were going to be the first bi-focal glasses I’d ever had. The first thing Cherie said was “Those are women’s glasses”. In the drawer they went and they haven’t been worn since. Besides that I think the lens size was too small as I can’t see straight ahead without the bi-focal line being right in the way.

My old glasses broke the other day so now I wear the reading glasses I have. It makes driving difficult as I can’t read signs. Going into stores is hard too because it’s hard to recognize things till I’m up close. We took the glasses to Sam’s, where I bought them in Toledo, to see if they could replace the broken frame. Nope, the frame is discontinued. A new pair would cost something like $140.00. We don’t have that at all right now. In fact this is an unusually tight time for us this early in the month. He suggested I go to a jeweler where he said it would cost about forty bucks to have them soldered. If any of you know a good “cheap” jeweler in Midland send me his/her name. Yeah, I know, there is no such things as a cheap jeweler.

It’s still chilly out and on top of that there is a strong wind but I’m going to bundle up and try to get out and do something. At least I took our garbage to the landfill yesterday. There was some good tin roofing there but I just didn’t feel up to loading it so for once I came home from the landfill with nothing. Maybe it will still be there next week. One of the things I need to do is split some more firewood. Now that Cherie is home I keep a fire going. When she was house sitting I didn’t, partly because I spent much of the time in bed under the covers and thus stayed warm. I partly blame the TBI for not having more wood around. When I looked at the pile of wood I had it seemed like more than enough. There is a journal entry your can find where I bragged about successfully gathering enough wood for the winter. To my eyes it looked like a lot more than I had last winter but the problem is I can’t really remember how much I had last winter. What the mind sometimes does is mentally confabulate what is not clear, you know, just fills in the blanks.

I guess I should try to get moving. I remembered to fix breakfast so that’s done. I may not feel hunger but lately I’ve noticed I get real light headed when I miss a meal and that reminds me to eat. That kind of bothers me, it can be a sign of a blood sugar issue. If I remember I’ll bring that up with the doctor and have them run a test. Time to go now.