Bad Salon.com! Bad!

I'm a 28-year-old woman, a registered Democrat, and a staunch enough liberal that I take would-be epithets such as "flaming," "knee-jerk" and "bleeding-heart" as compliments. (From here which may or may not be visible - I have a subscription.)

'Epithet' is not necessarily pejorative! An epithet can be good or bad! Argh! Those are not 'would-be' epithets, they are epithets, however she chooses to take them. Argh!

Dictionary.com does give a secondary meaning of 'An abusive or contemptuous word or phrase' but since sense 1 is "(a) A term used to characterize a person or thing, such as rosy-fingered in rosy-fingered dawn or the Great in Catherine the Great. (b) A term used as a descriptive substitute for the name or title of a person, such as The Great Emancipator for Abraham Lincoln." it makes no sense to use it in the limited sense when an expanded sense is more common!

It's true the word 'epithet' is often used to refer to negative descriptions, but the context often elaborates on that and avoids this confusion. The trouble with the usage above is that the author is using 'epithet' and 'compliment' as antonyms, which they are not.

Any comments?

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Robitussin and Co-codamol. Yes, yes, yes.

I feel sane. I am coughing a little, but gently, normally and briefly. I am tired, but I have been able to sleep a bit already. I do not have a blocked nose or a headache. My ears are clearing up. I can smell things. I don't feel sick. My throat is only a bit sore.

I feel fantastic. Wonderful. I love these medicines. I want to hug their creators. I want to shower weds and compilerbitch with all good things for recommending them. I am so happy.

Thinking about work

The drugs are becoming less effective on the cough, but it's still much less distressing than it was. I feel well enough in myself to work tomorrow, but my voice is definitely not all there, and I am coughing a lot; I wouldn't like to be answering the phone like this. (This also assumes I can sleep properly tonight - I have been sleeping over the last two days, just not enough or at the right times.)

If I were not at work on Monday it would count as my seventh day of absence (the weekends count) and from the eighth day I need a doctor's certificate.

As for giving it to other people; according to one hospital website flu is catching until about the seventh day of the infection. So if I was coming down with it on Monday night, I'm not very likely to give it to anyone if I go back tomorrow, which is a relief.

I'm just worried about this cough. I can do 90% of my tasks; I just can't easily answer/use the phone, or talk much. (I am responsible for answering the office enquiries number and for greeting people who come into the office, as well as, obviously, discussing other aspects of my work with staff and answering queries about my areas of responsibility.)

I have probably not spoken for more than five minutes total in the last four days. I've just tried saying that sentence out loud and I'm very hoarse. I am coughing a lot - really very frequently, about every minute at the moment - and I am concerned that I will disturb practically everyone on the Admin corridor with the noise. Gerry shares an office with me, and there are three other offices with connecting doors to ours, which are kept open.

If you're an office worker, what would you do if you had a very bad cough and slight sore throat (which would interfere with your work), but nothing else significantly wrong with you?

I really can't decide what to do. I no longer feel ill. I am plainly much much better. I'm just not entirely capable of doing my whole job. Even that is a matter of degree - if I had just a little occasional cough I'd be fine. Argh! I don't want to go and be a noisy nuisance or annoying because I can't do my job properly; on the other hand I don't want to look like a malingerer, sitting at home even though I'm pretty much better.

So, should I sit at home and cough, or sit at work and cough?

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Oh, so this is what the cough's like when I'm not taking the medicine. Mmmm. No thanks.

I thought I would delay my final bout of pill-popping and syrup-slugging till shortly before bedtime, in order to give myself the best chance of lots of sleep. Oh, that was a bad idea. I really hurt now. Really really. More drugs!

Well, I have eaten an evening meal anyway. I don't have clothes for tomorrow yet, I am not clean in my person, and I have yet to collect together my bag or sort out my lunch.

I know my cough is worse in the evenings, but not this bad, surely? I would reconsider work tomorrow if I didn't think there would be other general downsides to doing that.

I just don't want to be at my desk tomorrow feeling like this.

(Hurts, dammit. Want to cry. Robert watching Superbowl elsewhere. Lack of hugs. HURTS.)

See the negativity! Feeeeeeeel the negativity! Hear the negativity... COUGH!

I have just had a 6-minute conversation with my mother, on the phone, with her doing 90% of the talking, and I feel like someone's trying to stop me breathing by sandpapering my throat. I am less and less convinced that even trying to go to work is a good idea.

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medicine has had almost no effect. I think i am in for another sleepless night. I can't describe how much I hate this.

update: ooh, we're pretty nearly at cough-till-you-vomit stage now. Wheeee, fun!

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It's weird; I can do something concentrated (sit on the loo and read, for example) for a good ten minutes, keeping my throat very still, and only cough a little; but it puts a weird strain on my throat such that when I next want to move my throat muscles at all it sets off another total avalanche of coughing.

Ah well. I have hot honey and lemon now. If I cannot sleep at all by about 1.30/2am I will have to give up on work, as I have to get the bus in tomorrow (Robert is taking a day off) which will mean leaving earlier than usual, and getting up earlier than usual, which probably means 6.30ish, and doing this on much less than 5 hours' sleep would be totally stupid.