I've got a bad and very painful cavity that I finally worked up the nerve to have treated. But the dentist decided my blood pressure was too high to treat it. So she sent me home in more pain than I went in with. I had to book an appointment with a doctor for more than a week after that initial appointment in order to get the drugs I need to lower my BP down to the numbers of people who are legally entitled to dental care.

I don't like to make plans for my birthday because every time I try, something ends up ruining them, such as the time my sister's cat died and I had to go in for emergency surgery. All the same, I made modest plans, have my sister come in to hang out, then go out to a favorite restaurant with the family that I haven't visited in a few years. The tooth thing was threatening to derail the dinner plans but I was practicing eating and drinking in ways that don't hurt so much.

But, turns out the tooth would be non-factor in the plans. Tested positive for COVID on Friday night. Birthday off, doctor's appointment cancelled. I'm gonna spend my 32nd go around alone in my apartment, quarantined, seeing nobody, doing nothing.

So I spent this past weekend quite miserable, coughing myself awake every time I started to nod off. I'm running off of...maybe a full night's worth of sleep stretched across the previous 4 days. Then, I learn mom got it, too. Not sure who gave it to who, it was pretty much one after the other, and we saw each other just a day or so prior. Mom's in her 60's and has numerous respiratory illnesses and two forms of cancer, so...needless to say, her stint of COVID sent her to the hospital. Though I'm a little jealous, as they got her back on her feet in a couple days, where as I had to tough it out and still have a bit to go. No Paxlovid for me, I don't have a primary MD to prescribe it.

So the past 4 days have been basically me locked into my studio apartment doing nothing but staring at coding homework and entombing myself in tissues while surviving on Advil and my mom's Oxycontins to get me through the day, all the while cursing my decision to make plans to have extremely meager fun this weekend. I knew better. I have the surgical scars to prove it.

I didn't mention this earlier because I was already in a mindset to tear somebody's head off which was going to happen at pretty much the exact moment one of my followers commented with 'get well soon man' as canned responses like that make me want to burn cities and boil seas.

Now I can't in good conscience suggest that this is significantly impacting my behavior as I'm always an angry jerk but, this week it's more than just incidental.