About two weeks before Thanksgiving the thought popped into my brain that I would be well by Thanksgiving. The "pop" is a bit like a toaster and it's as if my unconscious fires things into my conscious. Yes, it's weird. But I don't care, because it works.

Well, I was and I wasn't well. My voice and trachea finally seemed better and didn't hurt every day. I no longer got hoarse within minutes of talking. But my muscles have still taken a terrible beating and I am out of shape and I get really really tired.

My chest hurts every day by three or four pm. Alcohol helps, but I am being very careful about that. One drink a day is the current recommendation for women, well, actually it's up to 7 drinks per week, no more than two in 24 hours and no saving it up for a binge.....

I have been doing more and I get wiped out easily. Weekend before last I did the Gallery Walk and all my muscles hurt for 48 hours. Tired tired tired. Like I'd been beaten all over. My muscles felt bruised. Last week I went to a 6 hour continuing medical education about ICD-10, the new diagnosis codes that go live in October of 2015. Our internist in town retired because of ICD-10 and it puts me in a rage. We'll go from 17,000 codes to 68,000 and it's all so that insurance companies can refuse more bills. Bastards. I should node that separately...

Anyhow, my PA went with me and she drove. I argued in the class a bit. Most of the people there were office people. One other Family Practice doctor and my PA and me. Most of the specialists and many family doctors aren't tuned in to this crap at all. They just tell their office staff to fix it. It is going to be an unholy mess. I'd quit if I weren't so stubborn. Instead, I am already figuring out how to turn ICD 10 to my patients' advantage...

I was tired again the next day and a little hoarse, but all my muscles hurt instead of just my chest. This is an improvement, though it may not sound like it. My appetite is back and I am gaining weight, am back to my pre-strep A weight. My muscles feel solid again, instead of feeling like they will dissolve if I use them.

It was obvious from the Gallery Walk and the class that I can't do clinic full time, and four hours is probably too much. I should start with two hours daily when I am released, because I will also have to oversee the PA. We are going to have a planning meeting on Thursday. I don't have a release date. We have started advertising again and I am showing her some of the electronic medical record tricks. I haven't trained anyone before.

I drove my daughter to the next town north on Saturday so she could take the ACT. She is a junior, but watching her senior friends freak out, she announced, "Mom, I want to do the SAT twice this year, the ACT twice and write two college essays, so that I can relax next year." I said, "Uh, ok." Our town doesn't put on the ACT, so thus the drive. I had breakfast with a nurse practitioner who is working for our hospital and is not happy (oh, big surprise) so she and her husband picked my brain. It was fun.

So my unconscious was right about Thanksgiving, though it neglected to point out that I was really out of shape and would have to build up again. The sign that I am getting better this week is that suddenly I don't want coffee. I was drinking tons and then it decreased and now I am weaning fast. I suspect that I will be back where I was 7 months ago: one cup of tea a day and then only herbal teas. The antibody level was back to normal three months ago, so it's not that. My theory is that this hammered my cortisol system and now it's recovered enough that I no longer need the stimulant of coffee. Weird, weird, weird. As long as I am getting better, I don't care. Maybe I'll be able to ski by March, hope, hope....

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