Tag: sick

The Hermit’s Life

The Portly Politico9 Comments

During the long week between Christmas and New Year’s, I found myself struggling against some manner of illness (not The Virus, it seems, thank goodness).  I ran a low-grade fever for a couple of days, then suffered with a sore throat and some fatigue for a few days afterwards.  Fortunately, with the week off, I was able to hole up in Port Manor in Lamar, and regular reader and neighbor Bernard Fife brought me some homemade Christmas treats (and an at-home COVID-19 test, which came back negative).

I typically spend the holidays with my parents, or at least surrounded by family.  That was the case leading up to Christmas, but my mystery malady thwarted my plans to return to my childhood home.  Instead, from Tuesday (when the symptoms started coming on) through Sunday, I largely stayed home, with some occasional outings for groceries and the like as my condition began to improve (and once I realized I’d avoided the scourge of The Virus).

Needless to say, that is a lot of time at home.  I am very much a homebody, and like being there, but the demands of work, lessons, family, friends, and all the other social and professional obligations I get myself into mean I rarely get days alone at home.

Be careful what you wish for:  I had six days at home thanks to illness.  Had it not been for being sick, though, it would have been glorious.  Even so, it was pretty great.

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Make-A-Death-Wish

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UPDATE:  In case anyone missed it, The Make-A-Wish Foundation REVERSED their decision to require terminally ill children and their families to be fully vaccinated in order to receive their wishes: https://theportlypolitico.com/2021/06/29/decency-prevails-make-a-wish-foundation-rescinds-mask-requirement-for-children/

Read The Foundation’s statement here: https://wish.org/news-releases/reemergence

* * *

The Make-A-Wish Foundation, which grants children with terminal medical conditions a “wish,” has announced it will require all wish recipients and their family members to be fully vaccinated against The Virus.

No vaccination, no wish fulfillment.

Naturally, this requirement is absurd, and represents a new low in the race to virtue-signal in The Age of The Virus.  At this risk of sounding macabre and insensitive, The Make-A-Wish Foundation is requiring children who are already dying to take a vaccine against an illness with a 99.5%+ survivability rate.

It’s a purely symbolic action that achieves nothing beyond making it more difficult for dying children to enjoy one last bit of whimsy before they cross over into the arms of Jesus.

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Sick Day

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This past weekend I was sick with a low-grade fever, a cough, and some mild chest congestion.  I got home from work Friday and sat in a chair in my mudroom for about two hours without moving, thinking I was just worn out after a long week of work.

I spent most of Saturday and Sunday sleeping, and finally began feeling some relief Sunday evening.  I took Monday off, as my temperature was around 101.4 Sunday evening.

That doesn’t make for exciting reading, but every time I am sick, it reminds me of how thankful I am for the vast majority of days I am well.  God and genetics blessed me with a very hardy constitution, so I get sick a.) infrequently and b.) mildly.  Rarely—about once every five-to-ten years—I get very sick for a spell of a week or two, such as last summer’s bout of Maybe-The-Virus and The Great Christmas Flu of 2014.

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First Day of History of Conservative Thought 2020

The Portly Politico4 Comments

Today marked the first day of the Summer 2020 session of my History of Conservative Thought course.  Because I’m sick and awaiting COVID-19 test results, we held the inaugural session on Google Meet, discussing the big picture question “What is Conservatism?”

The session went quite well (and I was pleased to see that even with a fever I could last around 75 minutes).  The students hit upon these concepts as being key to conservatism:

  • Fiscal responsibility
  • Constitutionalism (in the American context)
  • Limited/small government and States’ Rights
  • Traditionalism in a cultural and religious sense
  • Opposition to Progressivism itself (certainly a feature of Buckleyite fusionism
  • Peace through Strength
  • Strict immigration enforcement

To that list I added the classically liberal concept of natural rights and the Burkean idea of “ordered liberty.”  We also talked about how the earliest conservatives of the Enlightenment Period were largely monarchists, and explicitly rejected the concept of natural rights (at least, rejected the concept as Americans understand it; that is, that all men are created equal and God gives them their rights).

They’re reading Russell Kirk’s “Ten Conservative Principles” for next week, and we’ll check Kirk’s principles against their list.

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More Medical Updates

The Portly Politico4 Comments

My apologies to regular readers for the lack of real content this week.  There are race wars and Antifa street gangs to discuss, but I’m so weary with fever, I can only slam out these short medical updates.

I had enough symptoms—chills, fever, and headaches—to get test for The Virus.  I should find out those results in a day or two.  Fortunately, my breathing is unimpaired.  I spoke with a physician’s assistant from the neurologists office regarding my migraines, which increasingly seem linked to my fever (although I would still like to shell out for a scan to rule anything else out).  Everything is in a bit of a stasis, however, until I get the COVID results.

My appetite is doing well, though I have taken this bout of ill health (and the stomach-related issues I was experiencing last week) to begin correcting and improving my diet.  Primarily, I’ve been cutting down on salt consumption, and calories in general.  My blood pressure is elevated, and needs to come down substantially.

I am teaching my first session of History of Conservative Thought for 2020 on Wednesday afternoon—online, of course.  If necessary, I will take acetaminophen in the morning to help get through the discussion.  Here’s hoping I can meet with the three young men enrolled in person next week.

That’s it for now.  I just awoke after dozing on the small twin bed in my study (one of the darker, cooler rooms in the house) for over an hour.  My fever is coming down without medication—I last took acetaminophen around 6 AM—which is promising.

Thank you for your continues support and prayers.

—TPP

Extremely Lazy Sunday (Still Migraining)

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Hello again, readers.  As I noted yesterday, I am suffering from a gnarly migraine.  I thought I was recovering last night, but I awoke in the wee hours with more spikes.

I have been lounging like Goethe all day, trying to recover.  I know have some Excedrin Migraine and a cold pack for my head, and have been drinking plenty of caffeine.

Hopefully I will be better soon.  I am seeing a neurologist either Monday or Tuesday, so we’ll see if he can shed some light things.

—TPP

Delayed SubscribeStar Saturday Today: Migraine

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SubscribeStar Saturday is going to be delayed today, likely until tomorrow.  Earlier in the week I came down with a mild stomach virus.  That morphed into what may have been a mild fever—I’m not sure—and, around Thursday, sharp, stabbing pains on the right side of my head.

I thought I was suffering caffeine withdrawals, as I stopped drinking coffee after Thursday morning when I suffered some lingering side effects of the stomach bug, and also because I was struggling with terrible acid reflux that night.

After treating my caffeine addiction with some Diet Pepsi (which I called my “methadone treatments”)—and then returning to a weak couple of cups of coffee this morning—failed to resolve the issues, I began to despair.  Every thirty to sixty seconds I was getting sharp, painful stabs just above and behind my right ear, and even ibuprofen, that wonder drug, failed to have any effect.

Finally, my dear mom suggested I probably had a migraine, and I needed to lie down in a dark room.  That almost immediately provided blessed relief after nearly forty-eight hours.  I am typing this brief post with “Night Mode” enabled in Windows 10, which cuts the harsh blue light, and wearing sunglasses; I have not experienced a single “spike” while typing it.

Hopefully I’ll be back on the mend tomorrow—which I’ve been saying everyday since Tuesday.

Thanks for your patience.

—TPP

SubscribeStar Saturday: Fall Cleaning; TPP Hits 300!

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Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

The vicious plague that has swept through my family—and to which I succumbed late Tuesday night—seems finally to have run its wicked course.  After being unable to keep down even water, I am finally getting back to normal thanks to plenty of rest and ginger ale.

Being sick makes me appreciate my health even more.  It also helps me realize how much abuse I put this portly frame through—the bad diet, the long hours, the endless sitting.

But I’m sure all of that hard-won wisdom will dissipate by the end of the weekend, and I’ll be back to eating Wendy’s 4 for $4 meals and staying up too late.  Oh, well—at least today the blog reaches 300 days of posts!

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.