Who Knew?

It's been a strange summer.  Right around the time that school stopped for the holidays, the diggers arrived on the plot at the end of our road and started to rearrange the mud.  They've been at it for 16 weeks, so far, and they're still going, like little boys in a sand box, driving their Tonka Toys around and around, beeping and grinding gears and revving their engines for all they are worth.  The noise pollution alone should be against the law! 

The dirt, the dust, the mess, that's a whole other story, and it was this mess that I've been blaming, all summer long, for the fact that I wake up every 3 or 4 days feeling like I have a headcold.  Other days I may have a headache, or an earache, or a cough and, recently, my chest has been tight, the cough more wheezy, the ability to take a deep breath more challenging.  Some days I can run up the stairs, others I barely have the energy to get off the couch.  I was beginning to wonder (usually at 2am when it's dark and lonely and cold) whether maybe there's something serious going on here (there's not!). 

So I did the decent thing, and went to tell my doctor about the boys and their toys. 

The doc said 'it's a virus, you just have to wait for it to go away.  It's aggravating your lungs, here, have an inhaler so you can get a deep breath.'  And that was it.  Bye bye, go home, and enjoy your headache.  'Take it easy' she said, like I had a choice about that. 

So I came home, and puffed on my inhaler, which helped a little, but only with the breathing thing, not with the dizzy, or the earache, or the sinus pain.  On Sunday morning I cracked and took a Sudafed, felt better, but haven't really slept since - Sudafed does wonders at keeping a person awake!  I wish I'd known this when my children were younger, it would have helped me a lot some nights! 

Today Brian went to do some work with his friends at the research center - they're all doctors of one sort or another, mostly specialists who do research for part of their week and see patients for the rest.  He asked them about my weird ailment, and not only did they produce a diagnosis (without ever having met me) but they have a cure, too! 

The treadmill!

I know, I know, it would have been more fun if they'd said 'a week on the couch with movies and cupcakes', right?  But alas, it is their considered and most well-educated joint opinion that I do, indeed, have a virus, that it's living in the membranes of my lungs, and that the only way to shift it is to exercise it out!  Snore!

I hate the treadmill, it's really boring, but it's been raining for the last 24 hours, everything is wet and heavy and all the leaves on the ground are every so slightly rotted, maybe even a touch mouldy, and so outside is just going to add 'damp' to the list of things that are aggravating my lungs. 

I wonder how fast I could walk whilst knitting...  I'll let you know tomorrow! 

P.S.  Nothing much to tell in the kitchen department, more sanding, more mud on the walls, tomorrow there's probably going to be more sanding, and then more mud on the walls!