Thanks, Pikes Pickles, for my prize! It arrived today, on a day when I really needed a pick-me-up of some kind!!! It was a difficult day, filled with lots of work, lots of driving, lots of coughing, and not nearly enough eating! And my prize arrived!!! YAY!

Yes, friends of mine, I'm sick. Not sick sick, but allergy sick.

I called out on Friday, went to the doctor and was promptly put on a cough medicine with codeine to suppress my hacking cough, an inhaler (or "inhalerator" or "breathalizer," as Mr. Obama likes to call them!), and Zyrtec. Dr. C. confirmed that it's allergies settling in my chest; my lungs were clear and she wants to keep them that way, hence all the medication.

I must say, I feel a thousand times better, even while still coughing up a lung once in a while - gross though this might be, it's now a more productive cough, not just a wheezing, dry, make me gag sort of cough. And my sore abs/flabs? Not sore any more!

And I'm sure my cubicle neighbors are happy, happy, happy that I went to the doctor - what made me finally decide to go was the email from a girl who sits literally about 100 feet away, asking me if I wanted a cough drop. How embarrassing! I wonder how far you had to get to NOT hear me coughing...