Category: Emily is neurotic

I have this wheel hanging up in my cubicle at work… it comes in very handy when I need to diagnose something. Point the arrow to your symptom, and you’ll find out what illness/disease you may have, the appropriate medical term, the correct specialist to see, what to obsess about in the meantime, and what harmless condition you probably have after all.

Very handy indeed.

Well I could definitely use it this morning… if I had it here, I would point the arrow toward “headache,” “stuffy nose,” and, if available, “head going to explode.”

Because basically? I feel like crap.

I have an old-fashioned cold… I don’t think I have H1N1 or anything crazy like that… but still, I feel pretty awful. And since yesterday I was given strict orders from my co-workers not to come back to work until I was over whatever communicable disease I was carrying, I have decided to stay home.

I have homework to do, and there’s so much cleaning I could finally get around to now that I have a day off, but for the moment I’m trying to ignore all that. I am going to sleep… sleep until I wake up. How’s that for luxury?

Well, the moment has come. I am officially paranoid about influenza.

H1N1 specifically, of course, but the flu in general as well. Because, really, my paranoia knows no bounds.

None of us have our flu shots yet, which is part of what is making me panic. Our pediatrician is on the “call us every couple days to see if we get it in” plan, which stresses me out, and Andy is supposed to get one from his doctor but hasn’t done so yet. I have only gotten one once, when I was pregnant with Sam, but I am planning to get one this year. Sometime. Of course I didn’t bother to go get one the day they were giving them out at work for $5 – that was before my freak-out began, and I didn’t see it as a priority. But now I do.

And the H1N1 vaccine? I want my kids (and my diabetic husband) to get one yesterday. Not coincidentally, I read this article entitled “What to Expect When You’re Expecting Swine Flu” yesterday.

I won’t even tell you what my friend told me yesterday regarding the flu and the end of society. Thanks, Gina, for keeping me up at night.

However, on a less hysterical front, I also came across this yesterday – “A Parent’s Guide to H1N1 Influenza.” This is a really good article about how to prevent H1N1 and what to do if you or your kid does get it.

So tell me… on a scale of 1 – 10 with 1 being “H-what?” and 10 being “As paranoid as Emily,” what’s your level of freak-out-ish-ness about the flu this year? What are you doing to prepare?

So yesterday was a momentous occasion – my first official Weight Watchers meeting. It went well, despite a flurry of nervous tweets that I sent as the meeting was getting started, including one in which I wondered if they would let me weigh in naked.

Yesterday was also momentous in that I put my bathroom scale way in the back of the closet. This might come as a surprise to you (ha ha), but I have a tendency to get a little obsessive about things, and weight loss/gain is no exception. I always weigh myself in the morning before I get in the shower… and sometimes after I get out of the shower in case I washed off any pounds. And I generally weigh myself before bed to see if I can accurately predict what the scale will say in the morning. And sometimes in the middle of the day just for kicks. I also sabotage my efforts because of the scale – if I am seeing progress, I think I can loosen up a little bit and then I eat too much and poof! the couple pounds I had lost are back.

I know, I’m a nutcase.

Because I am embarking on this Weight Watchers journey in order to learn how to eat like a normal person and to be healthy as much as to lose a few pounds, ditching the scale seemed like an integral part of the process. So, I put it away and I’m going to rely on my weekly weigh-ins at the meetings to tell me how I’m doing. Weighing in once a week is recommended by Weight Watchers as well, and I figure if I’m going to follow the program, I should follow the program.

So that’s my story. For this week, anyway.