Being Sick

I haven't been feeling well this week. I've pushed myself to get out and do things just because I needed to do these things and I was in denial that I was actually sick but there is no denying it now because I'm running a fever. I'm so tired but I can't sleep but I can't sit here and do anything either. I started running the fever last night and am sitting here now alternating between freezing and sweating my butt off. All I really want to do is sleep but I was stupid and took my medicine that keeps me awake and now I can't sleep.

Last Friday I got up with a slight soar throat and a pain in my jaw. I don't have any teeth in the area where it was hurting so I felt under my chin and there was a lump and not a little one, a great big one. I mentioned this to the nurse when she came and had her feel it so she would know what I was talking about and of course she poo-pawed it and I couldn't get in to see my doctor till Tuesday so I had to deal with the pain till then. It was hard to swallow and putting in my bottom dentures hurt as well. My mother came last Friday to stay over and make cookies with the youngest son on Saturday and I had trouble eating dinner and the cookies that I made with them. Eating anything that requires me to have my teeth in hurts and now eating anything at all is just painful.

When I went to the doctor's on Tuesday she told me it was some sort of infection and put me on penicillin for 10 days. It's day 4 and I was hoping that I would feel better but now I'm feeling sicker than I did when I went to see her. She checked me ears and throat and even pressed on my face to see if there may have been a sinus problem but everything was fine. I think there is something infected in a salivary gland and that is what is causing the problem. I will finish out this course of antibiotics and see what happens then. If I still have a lump then I'll go back and demand more tests to find out what the problem is. I'm hoping it's nothing serious but in the back of my mind I worry it's cancer. I worry about that way to much. After losing Dad this past spring to cancer it worries me even more. Being a smoker I worry about mouth cancer, tongue cancer and throat cancer. I don't smoke more than 5 butts a day but not to long ago I was smoking about a pack a day and had been smoking for 40 years plus.
I started smoking at a young age and haven't been able to kick the habit for more than 3 months at a time. I have gotten it down to 5 or less a day and can live with that and so can my doctor at this point. I have tried every stop smoking aide out there and am currently on Chantix which I credit with keeping me at 5 or less. If I go off it between refills then I find myself smoking more. There are days when I crave them all day and no matter what I do to distract myself my mind keeps going back to when I can have a butt. Other days I may not have one till I've been up for most of the day.

So here I sit, running a fever, feeling like crap wondering what I can do to feel better and wishing that today will be over soon. Christmas is 4 days away and all I want to do is sleep through it. I do have plans, my friend from Worcester is coming with his new baby kitty to spend Christmas with me and I may have the oldest son here as well (I don't know what the plan is yet as he has that week off and may want to spend the day with the girlfriend) I don't think I'll see the youngest on Christmas Eve day this year as I'm seeing him tomorrow. Even if I do see him it won't be for his normal time (8 hours) it will be for just a couple of hours. We are going to start a new tradition of having Christmas in June but that's for another post.

Please pray that I'll feel better quickly and this lump in my neck goes away. I don't like being sick and make a lousy patient. I tell people I have no patience for being a patient. I just want to get better.