I'm sick again. This is starting to freak me out. Normally, I'm the sort of person who doesn't take a sick day for years, but looking back recently, I seem to have been coming down with exactly the same ailment every couple of months for the last year.
So I'm going to have to take the radical step of seeing a doctor. My guess is that it's a resurgence of the tonsilitis I managed to get rid of back in 1997: the doctor told me it might be back some day. Ho hum.
One of the more... interesting aspects of this particular ailment is the delerium. Each time I get it, I end up spending about a day (on and off) in bed with very little control over my own brain. Being a delerious computer programmer is weird. This time, I kept believing that I was a program, and desperately tried to search through my own source-code for the bug that was causing me to be ill.
It's a pity you can't do that. If I had access to my own source-code, and could recompile myself whenever anything went wrong, life would be so much easier.
Update: Went to the doctor. Turns out it was my sinuses, not my tonsils. I'm on a two-week course of bastard-strength antibiotics that should kill the bug off dead instead of leaving it hanging around to come back in a few months time.
I ended up sitting in the waiting room for half an hour beyond the time my appointment was scheduled for. Given that I was really not very well, this was not a particularly pleasant experience to say the least. I would have probably been waiting there another half hour, but there was a fortunate mix-up with another patient called Charles who had mysteriously ducked out for a moment. Score.
By the time I got in to see the doctor, my fever was running at 39.4°C (103°F). I got this look that I'm sure meant "wow... and you're still conscious?"
If it happens again, I get to have lots of tests on my immune system, plus a CAT-scan of my sinuses to see why they're getting blocked up. I have this mental image of the conclusion to the latter test that goes something like this:
Wow! My bicycle! I lost that when I was five!
Even better would be the unit test suite that would obviate the need for a doctor's diagnosis. Instantly test all systems. I suppose running the suite might be a little strange to watch.
I've had my own odd bouts of believing myself to be a program - the strange half-waking dreams between snooze-bar slaps are often extremely vivid. Scheme felt like flowing through a glass waterslide; Forth felt very tiny and mechanical, like one might imagine the intricate workings of a gear-driven chronometer.
I assume you've read Cory Doctorow's 0wnz0red (http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/08/28/0wnz0red/print.html)..?
Didn't you just finish work? I often find that a break, pause or transition is a point where my body will rebel. I remember reading some research a while ago that had some stats on how often people get siock when taking holidays.
Very interesting ailment. I think the radical step of seeing a doctor might do you good ;P heh. Well, no wellwishing message is ever complete without the get-well-soon cliche, so get well soon!
Thanks for the link to the Godspeed You Black Emperor videos anyway.
don't know if it will make you feel any better, but you got quoted in the SMH Radar section yesterday, talking about not telling users what the problem/delay is in a UI under the headline "Faking it!"
hope you get well soon mate!
Nifty. They could at least have included a link-back, though :P
It's a little drastic, but you could always ask them about the option of having your tonsils removed. It sucks to have this done as an adult, at least the one week post-recovery period does...on the other hand it permanently solves the problem.
Hi Charles,
How are you feeling now? Didn't see any posts for sometime so thought I would drop in a message. Get well soon. We all miss you I guess, atleast I do :-)
Senthoor