In the last few days I've gotten to learn just how badly all this has depelted me.  ABout 10 days ago, I came down with a cold.  No surprise, given the stress of my wife's suicide.  I was semi-functional on the weekend, but then ended up home Monday and Tuesday from work.  I thought I was doing better Wednesday and managed 8 hours at work, but Thursday I was only there half the day before I had to go early.  I went to the local urgent care place, where the doc told me the coughing was likely from a sinus infection.  He gave me prescriptions for amoxicillin and cough syrup and sent me home.

By Friday, I was wea, confused, hacking and in a bad way.  I'd been talking with my mom periodically, and she started getting worried by how I sounded.  It got bad enough she called a friend to come over a check on me.  By the time he got there, I was doing worse.  I agreed to go back to the urgent care place, as things were obviously not improving.  When I got there, I was also shaking/twitching badly enough to look like I had an advanced case of Parkinson's.  It evidently freaked the doc out pretty bady, as he sent us straight to the E.R.  I don't really rememeber a whole lot more than that.  From what my friend and his wife told me, they later said all of that was a really nasty combination of exhaustion, dehydration and a really bad cold.  Evidently, my lactate or lactic acid was really bad (which is elevated by all three of those conditions), to the point I was just about having a seizure.  That did not make for a fun night.

Since then, I've been laid up resting.  I slept for pretty much all of the three days after that.  Today was the first time I felt well enough for a constitutional....which was walking to the end of the block and back.  I'm going to be taking the rest of the week off of work to finish recovering.  Nothing has ever laid me out like this, not even pneumonia.  I had no idea Ariel's suicide had taken so much out of me.  It's going to be a long, LONG time getting past this.  As I said to my brother earlier today, I'm not concerned with feeling great or wonderful or excelllent......I'd just be happy with feeling "normal" again.