If there is a silver lining, it's the nearly 15 pounds I've lost since Christmas. Most successful diet I've ever been on. Too bad I feel lousy...

Sigh...

Once again I am writing to you from underneath blankets and covers.

(This is really getting ridiculous.)

The stomach-whatever that has now been plaguing me for nearly two weeks, has wiped me off my feet once more.  Even with doctor's orders to avoid raw fruits and vegetables, and all things dairy.

I'm just not sure life is worth living without cheese, but I've been subsisting.

On Saturday, I woke up with abdominal distress and barely ate a thing all day.  I kept getting these waves of pain in my belly - almost like labor contractions, but higher up.  By dinner time, I was running yet another low grade fever (100.4), but the pain seemed to be subsiding.  Sure enough, it was completely gone by Sunday morning.  In fact, my only symptoms yesterday (other than general weakness and exhaustion) were random bouts of dizziness and lightheadedness.  I even made it to the Super Bowl party that Trevor and I were co-hosting with a group of friends.

Then I woke up today, and bad, bad, bad.  And, of course, the internist that has been overseeing my care since my primary doctor referred me to her two weeks ago is out of the office.

Jury Duty.

When I heard that the internist was out, I briefly considered calling my primary doctor, but I've decided she's hysterical since she keeps threatening to stick me in the hospital for further testing.  In fact, she made this particular threat again on Friday.  It isn't that I have a problem with hospitals.  It is just that the internist she referred me to did a whole new batch of blood tests LAST week, and they all came back negative (except for signs of a phantom infection somewhere within my being).  I'm not diabetic, my organs look stellar and I'm negative for everything from Mono to Lyme's Disease.

Maybe I'm crazy (or just in denial), but I'm not 100% convinced that I'm not just suffering from random virus after random virus.  I've never pretended to have good luck, and being sick for weeks and weeks only seems to reinforce my belief that - for whatever reason - my immune system can't get ahead of itself.

And that 2013, so far, really, really sucks health-wise.

Luckily, my internist shares an office with a family practitioner.  I've seen him from time to time over the years for things like migraines and sinus infections.  He looked at my file (which now contains everything my primary doctor and the internist have done, tested and treated since before Christmas), and has his own hypothesis.

He thinks that the two courses of antibiotics that were administered to treat my horrible flu-induced bronchitis back in the first half of January left me open and vulnerable for either some sort of intestinal infection or Giardia.  Luckily, the same antibiotic treats both, so hopefully I'll be miraculously cured (for real this time) in about 10 days.

Only problem is that this particular antibiotic apparently makes you VIOLENTLY ill if you have even a hint of alcohol while taking it (think: Antabuse).  Which kind of sucks since we've had a babysitter lined up for Valentine's Day for weeks now, so we can go our favorite tapas restaurant and drink copious amounts of their delicious red wine sangria.

Bright side:  At least Trevor will have a driver, and we won't have to pay for a sitter AND a cab.

(And, yes, I realize that Valentine's Day is 10 days from now, but the pharmacist made a point of letting me know the drugs will stay in my system for 3 days after I take the last pill.  Hopes = dashed.  I guess I'll just have to come up with some other excuse for Trevor to take me there later on.)

In other news, I've decided that if I do have Giardia, it is because the dogs conspired to give it to me to get out of their bimonthly bath.  After all, it isn't like we are strangers to random attacks of the intestinal parasite at our house.  We have three dogs.  It comes with the territory.  Although, this is one territory that I wish would have stayed in the dog run with the resident canines.

Also, for all those people out there that have commented recently that "maybe I'm pregnant", I'm not.  And even though I knew that already, I still took a test just to make sure.  Because I'm neurotic.  And because when you are seemingly chronically ill with a mystery infection, you start grasping at straws.  But this particular straw, thank goodness, had only one pink line, not two.  So we are in the clear in that regard, at least.  Moving on...