Black Holes before breakfast

Einstein and Hawking before breakfast?
Why not?
Well, I can either be writing the blog here, or listening to Steven Hawking over HERE.
Topic, Do Black Holes have No Hair?

It requires total concentration for me to listen to Hawking.  Not just his voice, but the way one sentence takes me totally outside my personal life.  Totally!

The link to the BBC broadcast that I'm using (above) includes a rather comical, and maybe helpful, black board illustration of what is being said.  It's through "Open Culture" which often has some interesting ideas, scientific or literary.  Honestly I don't listen or look at many of them, though the topics do sound intriguing.  Instead I usually go do something mind-numbing.

That's been part of the illness process I've gone through lately.  My body and mind and spirit have been dumbed down.   I've been watching daytime TV even!

But as I somehow am recuperating, I am finding an appetite again.  And I am having a conversation with myself.  You would find it pretty dull, but I can only set one goal for myself each day, and often fall short of that.  I want to do a bit more.  How?  This old body just is so tired so easily...oh yes, coming back isn't just waking up and getting out of the other side of the bed one day!

I imagine now that I'm in rehab from the mysterious virus which laid me out for so long; I now need to rebuild.  Every muscle of my body has barely done a thing for over a month, just survived. I can barely write, let alone model clay or paint glazes.  So I need some kind of routine to actually work my muscles.  No young spring chicken who can just go hike a mile and even do my yoga stretches here!  Nope.  I have to make a plan to do this gradually.

So I'm searching the internet.  Maybe there's someone else who spent a month in bed and is 73 and wants to be able to do pottery again someday.  If not, I'm devising my own routine.

I do have some memories of my physical therapy routines from when my shoulder was frozen last year.  And I can start slowly.  Very very slowly.  But how can I keep at it?  That's always my biggest problem. 

Well, today I got up early with the sun, and yesterday I did also.  That is a new and wonderful feeling.  Perhaps I'll be lucky enough to continue to feel better, and that in itself will help me keep going on a rehab routine of some kind. 

I'm so very grateful to be feeling better.  I am jumping for joy (figuratively speaking of course!)

Any suggestions are welcome.

Where I have been...

It would be fun to say Japan.  Or perhaps Australia.  Or even to some favorite shops here in Black Mountain or Asheville, NC.  Sigh.  I've been to the doctor's office again.

Last Thursday I patiently awaited the medical records of our hospital to be sent from my visit THREE WEEKS prior to my doctor's appointment.  They never arrived.

So my doctor again took blood and got a pee-test.  I'd also had blood drawn by his office the day I went to the emergency room.  He apparently didn't like his own results.  Of course there were more things done to my blood at the hospital.

But for 2 months I've been experiencing extreme tiredness and fevers and chills, and some lung-related chest pains. (I did spend 3 days hospitalized with Pneumonia in early November.)

I'd even been asked by the ER doctor to keep a journal of the fevers and other symptoms.  So I read off the 3 weeks of results to my own doctor last Thursday, and he entered them into his chart.  But he didn't know what I had.  Since twice in that 3 weeks I'd actually felt good, almost normal, he said I'm getting better.

I contradicted him.  I'd just concluded that I was getting worse before I'd get better.

Since I've spent most of my time horizontal, I have no stamina for standing, walking or even sitting.  I haven't done any housework.  There's a pile of bedding on the floor waiting till I have energy to haul it to the laundry across the parking lot from my building. 

I was so grateful last week to have a friend from church volunteer when I asked for a ride to the doctor's office over 20 miles away.  I didn't think I would have the stamina to drive there and back.

I've run out of silverware and dishes because standing over the sink is so overwhelming to me.  As a potter, I've got more kinds of dishes on shelves, so I'll probably never run out of them.  And for some reason (am I a hoarder?) I have a small collection of plastic-ware forks and spoons.  (I've just about used them all up however!)

Today's early morning doctor's visit finally had the ER blood work results.  The doctor said I had negative results from his test for Mono. There was only a small possibility of a Urinary Tract Infection, which I've had no symptoms for, so we're not treating that.

He didn't have the results back yet for the test of Lyme Disease...but will call me if that is positive.  When I asked about the treatment for it, he said it's the same antibiotic which I just took for 10 days...which his Nurse Practitioner prescribed on the day she sent me first for a chest X-ray and then to ER.

I also have had some nausea, and lack of appetite.  Cooking has not been something I felt like doing, so I've been eating pretty light, except when I go pick up a meal and spread it over several meals.

The doctor said I have a "Mysterious Virus."

I just about jumped on him.  "What do you mean, 'Mysterious Virus?'"

He said, "There are a lot of viruses in a cluster similar to Mono, and it looks like this is one of those.  There are so many they haven't got names, or have been studied yet. Of course we'll see if the Lyme test is positive.  In the meantime, you're doing the right things to get better.  Rest, do as much as you feel like. Let me know if anything suddenly changes. I'll call you with the results of the Lyme test."

So I posted on Facebook that I've got my very own Mysterious Virus.  I even named it after myself. 
"Mysterious Barbara's Virus, MBV." Why not?