I think I have pneumonia

Last week I had a couple of late nights due to prepping for our big moving sale on Saturday. Mom Kim was also due to arrive Thursday night, so I was also getting her room ready and cleaning the apartment. Saturday morning we all woke up at 6 AM and got things out and ready by 8 AM. Despite the 'no early birds' in my craigslist ad, people started showing up at 8:22. The first guy was a fast-talking guy from India who had highway robbery down to a science. Ah well, everyone else that day was civilized and nice about their bargaining. By 11 AM we'd sold almost everything of value. By 12:30 we closed up shop, loaded everything left and dropped it at Goodwill. Made good money, too!

All that day I had a scratchy throat, but no other symptoms. I was exhausted and went to sleep after we ate lunch. That evening, I urged Jrex and his Mom to go out together and have fun without me. I spent a happy, quiet evening journaling and trying to go to sleep while they closed out a local tapas bar. I kept coughing and having to blow my nose, which kept me up. In the midst of all this, the other development was that I started to trust that the tiny pings I was feeling in the front of my stomach weren't digestive, but were baby. It took until today for me to definitively 'know' that they were kicks. I'm at 21 weeks and obviously good at dismissing physical symptoms!

Sunday I was coughing up phlegm and stayed home from church. Jex wanted me to go to Urgent Care, but I felt silly after one day of coughing and phlegm to run in there like Chicken Little. I lay around all day while Jrex and his Mom went up to San Francisco to visit his cousin at the family restaurant. By the end of the day, I was feeling better. Yesterday I was barely coughing and had no phlegm (sorry for the TMI), instead it felt like it had all moved up from my lungs and throat to my head. I lay around some more and was up for going to dinner at a friend's house last night. We left there by 7:30 PM and came home. Jrex and Mom drove over to Stanf ord so he could show her the new building where he currently works (state of the art St em C e ll In st itut e). While they were gone, I tried to lay down. Each time I shifted position, I ended up coughing like crazy and spitting up phlegm.

It's now 5:30 AM of the longest night of my life.

Sleeping on the couch in a semi-upright position helped, but my brain has been going and going any time I'm awake. Each time I have to cough, or go to the bathroom, it takes 30-45 minutes to get back to sleep. Feels like I've had four cat-naps and that's it.

I'm due for my anatomy scan ultrasound this morning. (Did I ever mention that the amnio results came back totally normal?) Mom and Jrex will be joining me for that, and then we'll troop over to urgent care to find out if this is pnuemonia.

At least it's meant that the time with Mom hasn't been stressful AT ALL. I've barely seen her! And she and Jrex have had a wonderful time reconnecting with each other. Plus the baby is giving me a new understanding of the joy in the phrase, "alive and kicking". So what's a little cough and fleeting sleep?

Oh, wait, the fact that today, one of my new hires is starting? And that I still have to fill two more positions as well as nag my higher ups to make decisions on the three people who've accepted pending those decisions? AND that the account rep for my current project is on PTO this week and I'm 'in charge' while she's gone, the booth is being built at the moment and I leave for LA Saturday to supervise the graphics installation? Don't worry, I'm staying home from work today. I'll manage the call with the client at 2 PM, but otherwise not do a ton of work.

Great timing, right?

UPDATE: not pneumonia. Just a double whopper of major allergic reaction to all the trees around our apartment, combined with a virus. I've been hacking up my post-nasal drip. There aren't you glad you read this blog now? That's a visual for you to enjoy.