Shakin' the Night Away

Well, it certainly was an interesting night last night.

I don't remember whether I fell asleep in the recliner or not, but at some point I wasn't asleep and couldn't get to sleep. I did what I usually do, and decided to go sleep in the living room, only when I stood up, I had this very sharp pain in my hip and what I can only assume was some arthritic pain in both of my thumbs.

I had been on the treadmill in the afternoon and had gotten my speed up to 2.1 mph, which is fast for me when I'm just starting to get back into the routine of walking on the treadmill again. I'd been going at 1.8 mph up to that point. I thought that maybe this was my body complaining. The thumbs problem could have been from grasping the rails of the treadmill tightly.

I limped into the living room and set up the couch and got under the quilt and the dog. But when I settled down, I realized I was shaking like I had palsy. Shaking so bad my teeth were rattling against each other. I wondered if it was kind of a "shocky" thing because of how bad the pain in my hip was.

I lay there and shook and shook and shook and tried to get my leg comfortable. I finally relaized that if I changed position on the couch, i.e., put my head at the other end (I almost never sleep on my left side), I would be able to stretch the leg out farther, because the leg would now be on the outside instead of the inside, so I tried that. In the process, I got another blanket to add to the quilt.

I still lay there shaking like a leaf, but the leg was more comfortable, and in time I finally fell asleep for an hour or so.

Around 3 I was wide awake, but at least had stopped shaking.

I hobbled out to the kitchen and got the thermometer to see if just maybe I had a fever. You might say that. It was 101. I climbed into the recliner under a blanket and the dog and went back to sleep, disappointed because Walt and I had tickets to see the Impressionist exhibit which is at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco, and which is leaving at the end of this week.

By the time Walt woke up, my fever was down to 100, and my hip was feeling better, but I knew there was no way I was going to the exhibit.

Before he left, I had a call from the lady who had come to Petco the week before Thanksgiving, interested in adopting Polly. My heart sank...did she want her? But she was calling to tell me why she didn't want her and when I told her that Polly had been adopted--by us--Walt, who had just come into the room, came over and robbed Polly affectionately on the head, which I assume is the same as "yes."

Walt went off, giving Polly and me a pat on the head and a sad look as he went out the door, and I settled into my sick chair for the day.

Near as I can tell I pretty much slept almost all day long. The Today Show morphed into the last half of Regis and Kelly and then back to The Today Show again. I don't remember anything about any of them.

At one point I was watching a taped episode of "The World's Worst Cooks" and fell asleep so that when I came back to consciousness again it sounded like the cooks were all attacking each other, and I had some mental picture of a knife that was transparent and all you could see was the outline...but it was just that some crime drama was on now and my brain had somehow combined the two.

Around 3, I got up to get a bagel to eat, and then stumbled to the computer, just intending to check e-mail, but I had some messages that involved setting up some interviews for the next couple of weeks, so I was at the computer longer than I expected.

I turned on the end of Chris Matthews but slept so long I completely missed Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow and there was some other news show on when I woke up. I had missed Jeopardy entirely.

I never read a thing or listened to any book, or used any of my gadgets for anything. I just slept all day.

Walt got home around 9, I guess. He had "lunch" at 5, so didn't need dinner, which was nice because I didn't feel like cooking anything. He had wonderful tales of the exhibit, but I was glad I hadn't gone because I don't think I could have handled 2 hours of walking through crowded rooms.

It is now 10 p.m. and about time to go to sleep, and I"m wondering how my night is going to go. But that's OK because I never got to see any of the evening dramas that I usually watch because I slept through them, so if I can't sleep, I have a whole night of DVR stuff to watch.

But my fever is gone, finally. It's not that I can "sit up and take nourishment" again, but I can "sit up and write a journal entry again" !!