Last night Jen and I drove to D.C. to visit with my sister Renie, who’s finishing up the first of several business-related training courses and staying in Crystal City. We got some Thai food and caught up on the events of the last couple of months, then retired to the hotel bar for an aptertif. Her job seems to be going really well, and it looks like she’ll be down this way some more in the coming months, which is good news. During the evening, my already sore throat began to hurt more and more, until it swelled up disturbingly on the ride home. This morning, I woke up almost unable to swallow after a long night of terrible sleep. In a decision that’s pretty rare for me (usually I need to be spurting blood from a major artery to seek professional medical treatment), I called the doctor and made an appointment. I’ve always been able to shrug off most illnesses, and injury is something that just gets in the way of finishing what I’m doing, but this was different-a friend of ours is just getting over a case of strep, and I didn’t want to nurse along a dose of that for two weeks without checking it out.

So I went and filled out the same damned form, got weighed and measured and prodded, and had a test run, and it came back negative. Most likely this is some viral thing. While I was there, I asked about the pain that runs up my forearm after a long day at the mouse, and she told me that it’s not carpal tunnel, but most likely a tendon strain, and she gave me a referral to a physical therapist to get a brace for it. So, good news on that front.

So I apologize for my ‘B’ game last night, Ren- I was feeling more under the weather than I thought I was. We’re looking forward to seeing you again in two weeks.