My
gosh, I have my will to live back and I am just inspired to do
everything that I haven’t been doing for the past three weeks. Like
writing.
My illness broke
yesterday and I realized that I must have actually been sick since we
were on vacation; possibly even before that. I’ve had no interest
in doing much of anything – toys that needed reviewing were piling
up, I was admittedly lax in my preparation for and execution of our
HeroesCon trip, and I have done next to nothing to get ready for the
big Needless Things event at Odin’s Cosmic Bookshelf on July 13th.
When we got back I went
straight into four twelve hour shifts in a row. I knew then that I
was sick, so I went to the doctor on the fifth day. That’s when I
was diagnosed and put on Azithromyacin. I had two days off during
which I rested and did almost nothing at all, then returned to work
for another four day stretch. But I only made it through three. After
suffering through those days I realized a fourth wasn’t going to
happen, so before I even left on Saturday I told them I wouldn’t be
back on Sunday.
I slept most of the day
on Sunday, then on Monday called in to the doctor to see if I could
get a refill on my prescription. He said that sometimes two cycles
were needed. I was a little concerned because I still felt relatively
terrible and wasn’t even sure if the antibiotic was doing its job.
While all of this was
going on, Lil’ Troublemaker was sick, too. He was actually the
first one to go to the doctor. His pediatrician diagnosed him with a
simple virus and said it would pass in a few days. It did not pass.
It got worse. To the point where we almost went to the Emergency Room
one night out of pure frustration and desperation. But cooler heads
prevailed and we waited until the next morning and went to a
different doctor. This time our son was diagnosed with a more serious
virus. This one was not something that always passes in a few days.
It had the potential to require further treatment.
Also, it has symptoms
that resemble bronchitis.
Uh, oh.
While I never got
re-diagnosed, it is now pretty clear to me that I had that as well. You
see, another symptom I displayed was little blisters on my fingers. I
didn’t necessarily think a whole lot about them because they are
something that I have just gotten from time to time since around 1997
or so. They aren’t painful and don’t always itch, so they’re
just this thing that happens once a year or so. As I write this I
realize it sounds bizarre that I have never looked into this chronic
condition, but they usually don’t last long enough to see a doctor
about. I think I even asked one about them at some point and they
said that without seeing them they couldn’t do much.
As you might have guessed
by now, these little blisters are a symptom of the virus my son had.
I don’t even know how
long I actually had them this time, but I know they were covering the
sides of the first three fingers of each hand at the height of my
illness. Also, they’re not gross or anything. You could look pretty
closely at my hands and not realize they were there if you didn’t
know it. The weirdest thing is that they disappeared without a trace
between when I woke up yesterday morning and this morning.
And then, of course,
there’s the fact that Mrs. Troublemaker also contracted this
virulent and highly contagious virus. After our son was diagnosed she
was told that if she displayed symptoms she could just call the
doctor’s office and they would call in a prescription. Sure enough,
she started to feel ill last week. On Friday she called the doctor’s
office and the nurse on duty refused to call in a prescription and
said they needed to see her. The soonest available appointment was
today (Thursday, almost a week later). I think that’s just
straight-up lousy.
This poor lady has been
taking care of our sick son for weeks now, with me being at work and
sick and not able to do a whole heck of a lot.
I will say, though, that
there has been a bright side to my own illness – I have gotten to
spend a ton of time with my son. We’ve spent hours watching
cartoons – mostly Camp
Lazlo
and Justice
League.
If we felt particularly energetic he’d watch me play Arkham
Asylum.
Me and the missus are
typically pretty careful about what sort of things we let Lil’
Troublemaker watch and play. We avoid coarse language, violence, and
sexual overtones. I want him to be a kid as long as he can be a kid,
and in this day and age of rampant violence, common public use of
profanity, and vocal sexual pride children are having their innocence
stolen away at a tragically early age. It breaks my heart to think
about how much earlier my son will grow up than I did.
Having said all of that,
I realize that Arkham
Asylum
has content that we would not normally deem appropriate for our son.
But he loves Batman and he wanted to see that game so badly and we
made an exception.
This is the second time I
have played the game. It is one of the only games I have ever
completed. Well, mostly completed. I don’t count the Challenge Mode
because I didn’t find that to be any fun whatsoever. But I
completed the main story mode – I found all of the Riddler trophies
and challenges.
This time around I
started from scratch and while I had a lot of fun playing, I cannot
believe how short that game really is. I think we finished it in less
than three days, which is a personal record for me. It was also
fascinating to realize how different the experience was this time. I
remember very clearly how unsure I was about everything the first
time through. I didn’t fully grasp the rules of the Arkham
game
world until after I finished Story Mode. I spent the whole of the
game not knowing exactly what could be explored and interacted with
or which devices I might need to use in which situations. I spent
countless minutes just staring at the screen each time I earned an
upgrade, trying to figure out which one I should get and feeling like
I could potentially ruin my whole experience if I chose wrong (the
only things that matter are armor and the range of the Decrypter).
And I remember how scary
the game was, almost like a horror game. Wandering the halls and
corridors of Arkham was utterly nerve-wracking, never knowing when an
inmate or villain might jump out and attack (now I realize those
corridors are mostly empty and random attacks are almost
non-existent). It’s amazing how well the game developers used our
own sense of dread and fear of the unknown to make this an effective
game.
But even realizing all of
that and knowing the game so well the second time through, it was
still a great game. I had a great time playing and Lil’
Troublemaker had a great time helping me out by pointing out clues
and stuff. We’re even completing Story Mode again and tracking down
all of the riddles.
So yesterday I stayed
home from work because I felt lousy when I woke up at 3:30 AM
(granted, this is not uncommon). I slept until around 10, but when I
woke up I realized my illness had broken. I felt normal. I had
motivation. I wanted to do
stuff, which is not something I had felt for weeks.
I took some toy pictures,
I did a bit of post editing, and most importantly I finally edited
the HeroesCon episode of the Needless Things Podcast. It was supposed
to go up today but I just needed to spend some time with the family.
It takes time to upload and do all of that stuff. This post took me
about five minutes.
So there you go. I’m
back. Check in tomorrow for another great episode of the podcast.
-Phantom
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