Friday

Last night's sleep was successful. I feel rested this morning - miles better than yesterday. I have more voice than yesterday as well. Recovering, I think. Finally!

Here's what I did yesterday that was intended to influence sleep:

• Drove without sunglasses, to and from work. I know that one is supposed to get bright sunlight outdoors without glass in the way, for at least 30 minutes, preferably early in the morning. I can't really do that with my schedule and the solar options available right now, so I opted to get as bright sunlight as I could on my commutes. Including the sunroof - not open, but without the shade on.
  
• Took gelatin before bedtime, after dinner. It's supposed to help.
  
• Wore shorts in the evening, to get my body temp down.
  
• Took melatonin at bedtime.
  

The last thing works reliably for me. It might be too high of a dose (5 mg), and if I can find 3 mg or less quick-dissolve ones next time, I will. But if I take it around 9, by 9:30 I'm drooling, and by 9:45 I'm usually comatose. That hasn't been the problem much. It's the 3 am wakening that kills me. These days, it's almost always from a hot flash (body temp rise), and sometimes I can go right back to sleep after it, and other times I can't. Last night, if it happened, I didn't know it. I do remember a leg cramp, that also didn't wake me much.

159.2 this morning. Right now, I'm a bit more focused on getting health and energy back than I am on weight loss, and once I feel 100%, we'll get back on working at the whole ketosis and low PUFA thing. I need to design something that isn't quite so cheese-based, though, because honestly, I'm getting super tired of cheese. Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
  
• the usual supplements
  
• scrambled eggs
  
• bacon
  
• 3 pieces of cheddar
  
• walnuts
  
• 3-tortilla cheese enchiladas with 505 mild sauce
  
• peanuts/dried cranberries/dark chocolate chips (a sort of trail mix) - about 1/2 cup
  
• lemon gelatin water
  

Light on the veg yesterday, but not terribly mucky otherwise. I'd give it a 7.

Still no exercise. Hopefully this weekend. If the upswing continues, anyway.

Thursday

I feel like such crap.

No, I'm not sick still - or again. I'm just so effing tired. And I can't get enough sleep, even being exhausted. Woke last night before midnight and again around 3. Dog-related in at least part - Charlie ended up on the bed with us, as he does periodically. So I also have a backache, which could be part of what I'm interpreting as exhaustion - for whatever reason, I always feel exhausted with a backache.

Anyway, plodding along. I'm sure much of the exhaustion is still hanging on after the cold. I'm really hoping that we can get ahead of things this weekend. Hoping, not counting on it. Sigh. Maybe reverting to every other night Benadryl would be a crutch that would help. I really don't know.

159.0 this morning. So much for weight loss from being sick. Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
  
• the usual supplements
  
• scrambled eggs with ham and cheese
  
• walnuts
  
• 2 pieces of cheddar
  
• an apple
  
• bratwurst (2) with Dijon mustard
  
• sauerkraut (live)
  
• about 5 salted dark chocolate almonds
  
• a handful of cashews

That was it. That's pretty darn Paleo. It could be better, but really, not bad. PUFA from the nuts, obviously. Sugar in the apple and the almonds. 

I think I'll keep the sauerkraut coming for a while - see if maybe I'm gut flora deficient after all this fun.

Wednesday

I am over this cold. I have not yet recovered from it. I'm extremely tired right now. Getting decent sleep, but not enough - whether not enough quantity, or not enough quality, I'm not sure, and maybe it doesn't matter. I just know I'm tired.

It will pass. Lee's much worse, because he had it 2 weeks longer and harder than I did. I guess I should be grateful that I made it through quickly and relatively lightly, and if I felt more energetic, maybe I would be. Not so much right now.

158.0 this morning; here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
  
• the usual supplements
  
• scrambled eggs
  
• bacon
  
• an apple
  
• 2 pieces of cheddar
  
• a few walnuts
  
• 3 Taco Bell tacos supreme
  
• about 10 salted dark chocolate almonds
  
• lemon gelatin water
  

I think that was it. The tacos were so tasty - unimaginably good, last night. Not something I'd do frequently, but in our somewhat trashed state, they hit every spot we could think of. Nice, really, because we were neither of us interested in eating much else.

Sleep was okay last night - a goodish amount of deep sleep, which is what I think I need for healing. And without Benadryl, even better. No exercise, obviously.

I'm still taking Mucinex, but have stopped the Sudafed again. I am mostly done with coughing, but want to keep things flowing until it's all gone.

Tuesday

The coughing is subsiding, thank goodness. I am feeling like I'm recovering - not recovered, mind you, and I'm a little nauseated (probably from swallowing a lot of stuff) and limp this morning. But I don't feel like I have the active cold that I did last week, and that's definitely an improvement.

Sleep last night was mixed. I felt like I slept well until around 2, and then I had a hard time sleeping for any length - I used old radio shows to get back to sleep, and they worked fine (within probably 5 minutes each), but sleep would last at most a little over the hour that they were playing, and I'd be back awake again. I didn't cough much at all - and I'm eternally grateful that I didn't have to have a cough drop - but I did wake up with a very dry and itchy throat. So, blecch.

158.8 this morning. Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
  
• the usual supplements
  
• scrambled eggs
  
• bacon
  
• 2 pieces of cheddar
  
• leftover chili from Saturday
  
• mongolian bbq at Genghis Grill
  
• a handful of cashews
  
• a smallish praline
  
• lemon gelatin water
  

I think I had the nausea last night as well - I really didn't want anything to eat that was paleo; I wanted sugar. So I had the praline. Whatever.

Sleep last night was with the aid of gelatin/collagen and melatonin only. I'm really trying to get away from the Benadryl.

I may try my shoulder exercises again tonight. We shall see. Not doing very well at making them a routine. And I'd really like to get feeling well enough to walk again. I suspect we will have to start with very short walks - unless I stop being so limp, that is. This has been one nasty cold.

Monday

Two days of rest. As complete as we could make them. We had breakfast out yesterday, but stayed home the rest of the day. Saturday, I went for a few groceries, but otherwise stayed home. And apart from chasing Charlie around to prevent him from tracking mud all over the house last night (complete fail, by the way), I spent most of the weekend in a recliner or on the couch. Lee took a few naps.

Do we feel better? Yes. Are we fully well? Not quite - but on the mend, definitely. And my cold didn't turn into an infection of any sort. So far, anyway. I'm still a bit congested; my ears are stuffed up and my sinuses nasty. But nothing is green at the moment.

158.2 - my weight has been all over the map the past 2 weeks. So I'm good with that. I ate enough carbs with a gluten-free pizza Friday night to stop the leg cramps, and I had a few corn tortillas in the course of breakfast yesterday, along with a lot of cashews and cough drops (nasty things, those!), which has kept them from coming back.

I got decent sleep for the first time in about 2 weeks last night - without Benadryl. I've had to take a full dose a couple of times just to get to sleep at all, and even that was starting to fail. 

No exercise, obviously. Saving that for when I'm over this mess completely.

Friday

Got sleep last night. Per my wearable, over 5 hours of it deep sleep. It took 2 Benadryl to get it, but I got it. I feel more rested, and at the same time, wobbly and weak. Drained. This is one NASTY cold.

I think I was running a mild fever on the drive home yesterday - my eyes started burning, I was clobbered with a headache, and started freezing in the car - actually, I couldn't get temperature stable. Also nausea. Seriously lovely time. I made it home, crawled into sweats and under a blanket on the couch, where I pretty much stayed put. By the way, that's the bulk of my weekend plans.

Lee says he lost 9 pounds in the past week or so with this thing. Well, I'm having the same thing - down to 155.8 this morning. More leg cramps last night, despite eating pizza for dinner, with a carby but gluten-free crust.

Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
  
• the usual supplements
  
• sausage patties
  
• cheese (6 pieces of cheddar, I think)
  
• half a gluten-free pizza with pepperoni, bell peppers, mushrooms
  
• a Gatorade
  
• a handful of cashews
  

I think that was it. It's always hard to recall accurately, and worse when your mind is mushy from being sick.

I'm happy to report that I managed sauerkraut this morning for breakfast. It tasted pretty darn good, and I drank the juice as well. I don't imagine it will be a cure, but it did settle my stomach pretty well. 

Anyway, if I can get through today's workday, I have a fighting chance of getting over this thing. I will certainly be fighting my hardest over the weekend.

Thursday

I'm quite grateful that this week is going fast, because it's been relatively unpleasant. Sleep last night was horrid - well, the attempt to get some was horrid, and what I got was short. Maybe 3-4 hours if I was lucky.

The cold or whatever it is has taken my appetite much as it took Lee's. I'm hungry, but things don't taste good, and eating is an effort, so I don't much. 157.4 this morning, and leg cramps beyond belief last night, as a result. Here's yesterday:

• tea with cream
  
• the usual supplements, with added Vitamin D
  
• an egg custard thing (eggs, cheese, bacon, heavy cream/milk)
  
• 6 pieces of cheddar
  
• half a ham steak
  
• a baked sweet potato with butter and sour cream
  
• a Lindt truffle
  
• a handful of cashews
  

Spent quality time in a bath of Epsom salts last night before bed, and basically did nothing else. I got home from work late, cold, and very tired. The bath helped with the cold, but nothing helped with the tired. I've stopped taking Sudafed as of this morning, because it probably kept me awake, and because I don't have anything to dry out - my head is fairly clear. The cold is on my larynx, and a little bit below it. So I took Mucinex this morning to keep things fluid so I can cough it all out. I'm also watching for the need to take extra anti-inflammatories, to keep my bronchial tubes from excess irritation. Don't know what else I can do. This is at least half caused by the stress from moving and everything else, and we may just have to get through it.

I keep meaning to eat live sauerkraut, and I keep not getting around to it. I need to do that. And maybe get half a cabbage and start a small jar full, to get a better mix of bacillus.