in the following order

In order:

Winterlive!

winterlive has Merlin icons up here with many pretty icons, including the one I snatched that I am using now, which is tentatively Prince With Migraine in Repose, or Right After Merlin Discovered the Deliciousness of Wine. As one does.

Fiction!

shinetheway wrote a whole bunch of potential endings to Efficient here.

transtempts adds one here.

thearchpoet writes a lovely Morgana one here.

The Plague!

I went to the doctor to slump sadly in a chair until I became bored, then played with the reflex hammer. In case anyone is curious, my knee reflexes are in fact working quite well. After kicking for a while, I kept using the foam to clean my hands off so as not to transport my death germs to other people and I think started getting a skin-related high from the alcohol content and carried on a spirited conversation with the doctor that in no way required her to actually answer. Bet that was fun for her.

So here is what we know. I have no lung congestion ("You have no congestion in your lungs!" she says in surprise. "I had pneumonia," I say grimly, leaning over to cough deliberately into a paper towel. "I cough." "Still..." "I cough with a torture device from Seton," I say, coughing again. "There will be no lung congestion. The food was terrible there." That's a lie. Their chicken lasagna was quite acceptable.) I have head congestion and sneezing and a note for work about my tragedy. I have bronchitis, which--okay? I mean, I am not going to argue or anything. I start something called Z-Pack antibiotics, but first I need to find my very special anti-nausea medication, because that shit is not on, and I remember the last time they gave me mysterious antibiotics and the death-nausea. I think this is throwing off my thyroid medication, but honestly, my entire immune system is in some kind of rebellion, so the only surprise at this point is that no one started making worried noises about x-rays so there could be more marveling at the odd that is my body.

Fool-proof way to cough is to laugh, and earlier, I told my mom the bear joke that svmadelyn told me. I am not in fact insane; she laughed very hard and I coughed. It's very hard to explain, but just, "you live like bears" is for some reason the funniest thing in the world.

And that concludes my Friday. I'm going to go look for merlinrps now, because I discovered my feelings on rps are like, directly proportional to how much non-rps I have to read and I am running out of things to read.

I also have tissues now a day after using paper towels and my nose hates me like some cats hate water. (My cat never did. So it's weird to say that.)

ETA: Sweet Child o' Mine by Taken by Trees is literally now the creepiest song I own. Also, it should be vidded.

Comments

[paradox-dragon.livejournal.com]

So, I have what my doc affectionately refers to as "Chronic Death," meaning that any form of illness that it is possible to contract will eventually make its way into my body. There was a memorable episode last year in which I coughed up cups and cups of blood for about a week for no apparent reason. X-rays, MRIs, nothing ever explained it. Anyway, this is all going to say that I have had pneumonia twice, and I have chronic bronchitis which means I get it about four times a year, and I don't really have lungs anymore and so I really, really feel your pain. Although, of course, no pain can actually compare to the fresh and terrible agony of experiencing it all over again in the moment. But Z-Packs made me totally loopy; I tried to drop out of college for reasons of utter misery but my advisor would not sign until I gave him a better reason than, "I am ill. I will always be ill. I am destined to be unemployable because of illness, and, oh yeah, my imminent death," which was quite lucky for me. I have found that ingesting copious amounts of honey (via tea or spoon, or both) soothes the paranoid-coughing-induced throat irritation without adding more wonky meds on top of what you're already taking. Also, my mother who has been a nurse for a gajillion years told me about the BRAT diet for sickness and nausea, which stands for bananas, rice, apples, tea/toast, all of which are very mild on your system and will allow you to eat with antibiotics without triggering the food aversion thing so much. It has always worked for me. Hope you feel better soon.