My adventures with pneumonia!

This all began last Wednesday the 16th when I was feeling kinda crummy. Very slight fever symptoms, a bit weak, etc. I figured it'd pass since this kind of thing happens every now and then. I went back and forth from feeling fine to feeling not-so-fine until Friday, which I spent almost all of on a train traveling to Charlotte for a Crown camp. The end result of all that traveling, truck-crawling in the dark and rain, and rehearsing Friday night, was that I felt dead. I didn't stay up and talk or anything, I just slept.

Saturday morning I'm feeling a bit better, though still nauseous, so I don't eat much for breakfast. The block feels insanely long, I'm still nauseous at lunch so I don't eat much, but I feel pretty good during that next block, almost better in fact. However, come dinnertime and the meeting, I'm feeling worse and worse, and I'm shivering like crazy during the next block despite wearing two shirts and a sweatshirt (looking back at symptoms later, this was a telling one). My nausea and weakness (and resulting terrible playing) keep getting worse during ensemble with the battery, and eventually I tell Steve that I'm sick and need to leave rehearsal. I go find Megh to get my temperature taken for the first time since I felt sick on Wednesday, and I'm at 101! At that point, she gives me the "temperature breaker" from the summer sickness (two advils and two tylenol) and puts me up in a classroom to sleep early.

I wake up late Sunday morning seemingly much better. I don't feel awesome, but I feel passable. No breakfast unfortunately, but I get out to the commons just in time for ensemble, and I make it through the rest of the camp, truck loading, and ensemble to wait in the cold for my shuttle to the airport. Unfortunately, as the day went on, I kept getting progressively sicker/weaker, and the airport doesn't help. It's ridiculously crowded, probably because people's flights are getting cancelled by the snow. I'm getting back to DC via Atlanta, and both my flights are delayed. Long story short, I somehow deal with flying while feeling absolutely sick and manage to get home ultimately at about 1:00. Mom gives me some Tylenol before I sleep and takes my temp - now 102.5!

I wake up Monday morning feeling kind of meh, reading a 103 on the thermometer (if I remember right, it might have also been 102). I go on a regular diet of Tylenol, cough syrup, and saltines/ginger ale throughout the day though, and I'm starting to feel pretty better by the evening. Eventually, however, that slips away. By about midnight when I try to actually sleep, I'm feeling terrible. Really terrible, probably the most just plain sick I've ever felt. At this point, I'm so weak that it takes me god knows how long to summon the strength/will to get up out of bed and go to my parents' room to ask for some more medicine. Mom takes my temp again, and now I'm up to 104. At this point, they decide enough is enough and take me to the ER.

Rather than narrate the story of what it's like to be in the ER late at night with a fever, I'll give you the short version - it's boring. After some x-rays and blood tests, they determine that I have pneumonia! This is a learning experience for me. I always thought pneumonia was something your parents threatened you with when you were playing in the cold and rain, and to be quite honest, I didn't really know what it was. Turns out pneumonia is a big build-up of gunk in your lungs. Thankfully, I got to go home that "night" at about 6 AM (5 hours in the hospital = not cool).

Right now, the original flu/cold virus thing I had has gone away, so my fever and nausea are gone, but the pneumonia still really sucks. Since it's a lung condition, I'm coughing quite a bit, and I have to be careful since it's harder to breathe than usual. For one, lying down makes it much worse, so I have to sleep as propped up as possible, essentially sitting up straight in bed. Also, even though I pretty much feel better, I can't really run around too fast or do anything requiring a lot of physical exertion, otherwise I'm out of breath and in chest pain pretty quickly. Thankfully, the antibiotics are supposed to start really kicking in tomorrow morning, although I've heard the cough can linger for weeks afterwards (hope not!).

TL;DR I thought I had a slight flu, fever went up to 104, I went to the hospital, I had/have pneumonia(!), I'm getting better

Nostalgia!

So I was flying home this weekend via Airtran, and they had XM radio with headphone jacks in the armband, which was great because you could listen to it during takeoff and landing, which are always the parts of flight when I'm tragically separated from my otherwise-constant iPod intake. Plus, you could use your own headphones, you didn't need to buy their shoddy ones for $5. Thumbs up Airtran!

Anyway, as I was browsing through the stations trying to find something interesting to listen to, I came across something I hadn't heard in forever: Headstrong by Trapt. It was a classic angry white boy rock song that came out in 2002, an anthem for pent-up middle-school angst across the country. Hearing it brought back memories of a few kids from middle school jumping around yelling BACK OFF, I'LL TAKE YOU ON, HEADSTRONG, I'LL TAKE ON ANYONE. I wonder if this is what "oldies" radio will end up like for my generation?

More music

First up are the winners of the 2009 International Barbershop Quartet Competition - Lucky Old Sun by Crossroads. I can't say I listen to tons of barbershop, but I was absolutely captivated by this song. Their cohesiveness as an ensemble is amazing, and the sound is gorgeous. Listen closely, and you can hear what sounds like a fifth voice singing extra high on the last chord; they're so in-tune, they managed to produce an overtone! Oddly enough, I came upon this one on a drum corps forum.

Williamsburg Weather

During freshman orientation, one of the many cheesy slogans they gave us was "If you don't like the weather in Williamsburg, come back tomorrow". Silly as it sounds, it's completely true! This morning, I walked out of my dorm at 8:30 to get breakfast, and walked right back inside to get my umbrella because it was cold, pouring rain, and half of the ground was taken up by puddles. When I went to get lunch at about 1, it was sunny, slightly breezy, and the temperature was in the upper 60s. Crazy!

It's December!

So I've shaved! Actually, it's been December for a while now, and I've just been lazy about updating this blog. I'm going to try to rectify that in the future. So since November is finally over, that means Beardvember is finally over too! Let me just say, I now have huge respect for people who maintain or ever have to shave off large amounts of facial hair. It's a ton more work to deal with that kind of huge growth instead of just shaving a day or two's worth of stubble. Since I didn't want to put all that facial hair to waste, I decided to keep a goatee for a little bit and see how I like it. I'm not really decided one way or the other - let me know what you think of it? Pics after the jump.

Beardvember update!

I can't believe I'm only about halfway done with the month, because my beard is so insanely long right now, far more than I've ever had it before. I'm toying with the idea of trying some sort of actual facial hair style at the end of the month, since I'll have all this hair to work with. Interestingly, my dad told me that I have the same hairless patches that he does - I guess it's genetic!

xkcd

I'm sure most all of my TJ friends know about xkcd, but I figured I'd share for the uninitiated. xkcd is a webcomic, which is like any old comic in a newspaper except that it's published independently online by the cartoonist. Here's today's strip:

This pretty much sums up what many people love about xkcd: nerd humor! His website warns that "this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors)". If you're ever at a loss for what a comic means, here's another wonderful website with (often very sarcastic) explanations: http://xkcdexplained.com/. Thankfully, not all xkcd comics require a physics PhD to appreciate. See some more good selections after the jump:

Hiromi Uehara

Another group that my friend Butchko made me aware of: this is Hiromi Uehara and her quartet called Hiromi's Sonicbloom playing songs from their album Time Control. In the tradition of all the great jazz pianists, she gets very, well, into her music and ends up looking pretty silly.

Seriously though, she is an absolutely fantastic pianist with a great band behind her. Her Wiki page that she met Chick Corea at a young age and was tutored by Ahmad Jamal at Berklee, and boy does it show. Well worth a listen.

Beardvember

As you may or may not know, I am doing Beardvember this year, also known as No Shave November. I think it's pretty self-explanatory. Only 7 days in, and it's already getting kinda itchy. It's going to be pretty ridiculous by the end of the month o.o

Musical obsessions of today

A few songs have been keeping me addicted lately, by which I mean I've had them on repeat and have each racked up almost 20 plays on iTunes already. In order of my getting them:



This song is courtesy of Arthi (and I believe Kevin sent it to her). It sounds very 80s, but was in fact released in 2007, and it's catchy as anything



Butchko gave me this one. Again very addicting, which would explain why I'm addicted to it!



I heard this one last night in someone else's room, and even though it was indeed a good song, I knew I'd heard it somewhere before. Eventually, I figured out that an instrumental version of it had been used in UPS commercials!

Hello World!

This is basically going to be my personal dumping ground for things I think are cool, funny, interesting, or generally deserve the notice of whoever actually reads this, which will probably end up being just my family and girlfriend. I also plan to keep this updated throughout this summer (Carolina Crown MMX!) ala JWebb's blog.