I dislodged the offending pill Tuesday night. Talk about some protective coating! The thing was still half intact after being lodged in my throat for 20 hours or more.

We are getting ready to go to Pennsylvania for a wedding. It's a nine hour trip each way. Yuck! But we may get to visit the St Tikhon of Zadonsk Monastery Church on the way home and attend Divine Liturgy there. Woohoo! I love monastics!

Last night when I was taking all my medicine, one of my pills got stuck in the back of my throat. And I swear it is not dissolving. It bounced around from side to side in my throat all last night, and this morning its carcass is still there. It's horrible! I feel like I have a furball!

Lee has made his weekly trek up to Dayton this afternoon to work on cleaning his dad's house and settling his estate. This will probably be typical of every Saturday for quite some time, except for weekends when we will be out of town. It really sucks but somebody has to do it. At least I'm not in constant danger any more of suffocating on snot! Maybe I can accomplish something creative during this "down time".

OK, I need some motivation here! Last week I got so much accomplished. I wrote two news articles and put the finishing touches on my ACW monthly contest short story entry. This week I've done nothing. I keep telling myself I'm going to learn how to use the Gimp or start to read the stack of library books that has been gathering dust in my living room for months, but instead I sit in front of the computer like a lump.

I finished up my article today about the OCMC retreat I attended this past weekend. It deals mostly with the presentations given by Mother Ines, of the Hogar Rafael Ayau Orphanage in Guatemala, and by Presvytera Renee Ritsi, a representative of the OCMC.

I started writing a first draft of my OCMC retreat news article. I'm afraid I have a little too much information for the concise report I think I'm supposed to write.

Tonight is the deadline for entering the ACW monthly writing contest. I'm anxious to see what others have done with the title.

Today I went to a MDA clinic to get a special prescription for getting new electric wheelchair. The doctor I saw was in a wheelchair too, and I thought that was pretty cool!

I guess I'm recovered. At least my antibiotics are gone. I finished up my article for our Church newsletter, and now I have to write up a news article on the OCMC retreat held at our Church yesterday.

I had to get fingerprinted today for a criminal background check with the FBI. Yes, me! Can you imagine me as a criminal? (On second thought, don't answer that.) But since I'm one of the church school teachers this year, I needed to have it done. The fingerprinting technician marveled at how unpronounced the ridges of my fingerprints were. He had a hard time getting accurate prints. It probably wasn't good, but I was excited to find out that if I was a criminal, crime scene investigators would be hard pressed to find my prints at the scene of the crime. It was a cool experience though. I told the guy I felt like I was on CSI. One point was a little weird though because this cop came in that looked strangely like my late father-in-law. I don't know what was stranger though, seeing someone that liked like him so soon after his death or seeing someone that looked like him dressed like a cop!

I revised my story and finally sent it to the ACW monthly short story contest coordinator! Am I glad to have that done!!!

Just when I thought I was getting over my illness, I had another choking on snot and gasping for air episode last night. Of course, Lee was not home. He was at school. I had the girls try to squeeze the snot out of me, give me a dose of Claritin, and give me a couple squirts of my inhaler. Nothing helped. The minute I would cough up a lot of stuff, I'd start filling up with more stuff. I ended up calling Lee home early from his class to lay me in bed so I could cough. I'm beginning to feel like such a nuisance!

Celebrating my mortality, I found and enjoyed perusing this site.

I am slowly beginning to recuperate, enough so, that I was able to get a first or second draft written of my short story for this month's ACW writing contest. On my husband's suggestion, I am setting it aside for a few days so I can revise it with a fresh outlook. Now I must concentrate on writing up a children's book review for our Church's bimonthly (quarterly? semi-annual?) newsletter.

Earlier today I watched all the memorial services about the 9/11 anniversary. I think I'm dehydrated from crying!

I doped up on Benadryl this morning to keep the snot at bay. Hopefully I will not have anymore gasping for air episodes today! I really need to get some writing done.

Unfortunately, Lee thinks he's getting my infection now. I hope he isn't. It's miserable!

Well, I had to ask Lee to drive all the way back from Dayton today because I was so congested and needed him to help me cough. My wimpy, SMA lungs just don't do the coughing thing very well anymore. He was in Dayton sorting through the mess left at his dad's house so he and his sister, Lara, could meet with a lawyer this afternoon to start getting his late father's estate through probate. He ended up driving back up there for the appointment this afternoon. It's an hour trip each way. I felt like such a pathetic nuisance. Breathing through phlegm for an hour while waiting for him to drive back was a nightmare!

I hate being sick. I haven't been this sick in a long time. Unfortunately, there is no restful recovery time in sight. Lee still has to work. The kids still have school. I still have to pay bills. Maybe I'll veg out in front of talk shows for a bit today as a compromise.

I'm still sick. I have acute bronchitis. My doctor gave me this antibiotic to take called Levaquin. There is a full-fledged nuclear assault going on in my bloodstream. Need sleep...

I'm still sick. Now I've added Contact into the drug mix. Hopefully all these chemicals will not interact and turn me blue. If I'm not significantly better tomorrow, I'm calling my doctor.

I wonder if you can OD on Benadryl? I've been so sick and congested with allergies the last few days that I've been taking it along with my generic Claritin. Sometimes I even throw some NyQuil into the mix. See appropriate song lyrics here.

This is my official first posting on my blog. I also frequently post on my DeviantArt website journal and on my Kuro5hin diary. There will probably be a bit of overlap.