Das Tagebuch Murnaus

I was going to post today about being sick all week with grippe, or the agues, or epidemic catarrh, or whatever it is I got last weekend, but here's a meme instead From the altfriday5:

1. When was the last time you were sick enough to stay home from work/school or get help with your at-home duties? What were your symptoms?
Last Saturday/Sunday. I had fever, body aches, chills and sweats, and a cough that developed later into laryngitis. I haven't taken a sick day off from work for some time, probably most of a year or more.

2. When you're sick, do you like having people fuss over you, or would you rather be left alone? Why?
I like people to come in and fuss over me at intervals, just so I know I'm not forgotten, and left alone otherwise.

3. Do you have health insurance, and if so, through what means? What is your view on how health insurance should be handled in this country?
I have public health insurance, like everyone else in my country, and my work offers a good illness & injury plan too. I like the way health insurance is handled in Canada, in that services are there when I need them and I won't go bankrupt if I get sick or injured. I do think though that the banquet of services available under health plans has gotten a bit too broad and thus is endangering the viability of the whole scheme, for everyone - I also think people need to be more conscious of the true cost of the services they are accessing, and be more responsible for their health and how they use health services. But that's for another day.

4. Do you ever call out sick, even when you're not really that sick? Do you ever feel guilty calling out sick even when you are sick?
I have never called in sick when I wasn't genuinely too ill to get out of bed. It's far more likely I'd go into work while sick enough that other people would stay home.

5. What's your favorite thing to do when you're sick, if you're not sleeping (or, you know, throwing up)?
I like to watch bad videos, usually from the 80s, but this time around Turner Classic Movies and American Movie Channel had some good stuff going. I saw The Horse's Mouth, Bell, Book and Candle, It Happened to Jane, Operation Mad Ball, and The Caine Mutiny.

Well, what do you know - Tuesday night I got food poisoning (avoid the White Spot on Douglas Street!) and spent the next two days at home, thinking I was either going to die or snap in half and then die.

Friday today, and I am back at work, kinda.

And so what if I'm not always Mr. Happy Jolly Fun-time.

"I'd rather be myself. Myself and nasty." - Bernard Marx, Brave New World

Well, some slight improvements to report.

- Sputum Condition has changed from BLOODY to LUMINOUS.

- Body Ache Index has changed from BEATEN UP BY SECRET POLICE to OH, WHAT A NIGHT.

- Thought Process Scale now reads DELUSIONAL, so no real change there.

I'll be OK in a day or two.

But honestly, if you want to hear a grown man whinge and grizzle like a baby, give him some relatively minor illness like this. I never made such a fuss all the time that my leg was a bag of assorted bone chips....

The remaining swelling did not faze the Doc (or should I call him the Dent?) and we boogied at 8 am sharp. After 45 minutes he had drilled open the leaky filling on my 2-5 (left forward upper bicuspid), pulled out the old gutta-percha (whatever that is), drilled out the canal to a nice roundy circle instead of a flattish bacteria-admitting oblong, cleaned and restuffed it, and put in a temporary filling.

After a break he cut open my gum, sucked out all the putrid nastiness, did something to the top of my tooth, installed a cap to seal off the end, and sewed me up. He told me that the bacteria had been up there for a couple of years, eating away at the jawbone, so there was a big hole in the bone there now and the only reason why I had pain at this point was because there was nowhere else for the nasty stuff to go.

So, I am OK to travel to Phoenix and when I get back I will have the sutures out and a proper filling done. Then that should be it, until some ruffian punches me at that exact point and caves in my entire skull....

My pain is a little less today, but I still had a bad night. I am staying home from work today because my left cheek swelled up to twice the size of the right, and I look like a Poster Child for Something. ( Evidence behind the cut. )

Hopefully I will look less like a bespectacled pumpkin by Monday morning, which is when the dentist will clear this up for me once and for all (I hope).

Bad night. Probably less than two hours of sleep all told; I finally got the pain under control about 5 this morning with Advil and hydromorphone, after walking in little circles in my driveway for half an hour to help it take effect.

In talking with dzherzhinski yesterday, he noted that since the tooth is not sensitive to heat or cold, it is probably not a nerve problem and what it probably is is an infection or abscess under (above?) the tooth. I need antibiotics, not another drilling session. Makes sense to me.

One thing I am thinking about doing at the expo in Phoenix is a large-scale demonstration game of my design Battle of Seattle, a game on the anti-WTO riots in December 1999 available free from my website (some kind of downloading problem with the rules right now, though).

Last year I found some policeman playsets at a local dollar store - 35 little blue cops, each 2" high, for a buck. I bought a couple of bags and converted some of them into civilians by trimming hats, cutting off revolvers, ponytail headpieces and Mohawks made of DAS clay etc.. Last night Aki and I painted them up with colourful clothes, green hair, red boots, black hoodies and so forth. Aki also made up some little signs on stickers for them to wear - "NO WTO", "EAT THE RICH", and so forth. Maybe I'll take some pictures.

Next we will make up a large map and use the figures in the demo game. Should be fun!