All things considered, Indian Summer is my favorite season of the year. The mornings and evenings are crisp, but the afternoons are mild and pleasant. The air is clear, the leaves are turning all sorts of colors, and there's occasionally a hint of burning wood as people uncap their fireplaces for the cold season ahead.
Then again, the mornings and evenings can go from "crisp" to "cold". The very definition of "Indian Summer" -- a warm autumn period following the first frost -- indicates that the nights are more frigid than crisp, and that snow can fall when it's least expected. I can start out shivering in a winter coat in the morning and be drenched in sweat by the time I get to my morning destination, go out for lunch in a sweater -- or no over layer at all -- and need that winter coat again by the time I get home in the evening.
As you can imagine, this can wreak havoc on outdoor fitness activities. It means having to carry a daypack to hold each layer one pulls off, and considering one's layers in terms of how small they'll pack up and how warm they'll be. For me, the crisp weather also starts my nose running, and I'm constantly trying to find a way to clear my breathing passages without coming to a complete standstill to retrieve tissues, blow my nose, and find a place to discard that bit of trash.
Add to this the change in our internal environments -- from those in which the living space is continuously aired out (in exchange for exposure to pollen and outdoor allergens) to one in which the indoor microfauna grow and concentrate, and in which the humidity changes as the heat comes on, and stays on. For me, this almost invariably leads to a change-of-season upper-respiratory something. This year's version started Wednesday before last with the usual postnasal drip, but moved immediately into something that felt like I was constantly being choked -- not something I'd experienced before -- and developed into something approaching a head cold or sinus infection. By last Saturday, my copious nasal mucous was a translucent greenish yellow, and I was coughing up chunks of that which had deposited itself lower in my respiratory system, and from the taste of those chunks coming up, I knew I was dealing with more than just post-nasal drip.
Since last Saturday was also the quarterly trip to the doctor's office for our fasting blood work (usually performed by the phlebotomist, no need to see a doctor when we'll be seeing our doctor in a week, but we're still paying for an office visit), I asked to have one of the doctors on staff check it out. The attending listened to my lungs, checked my sinuses for obvious swelling, ordered a quick strep tests, and used the fact that I was already having blood drawn for a hemogram to have the blood count run on the spot. Everything turned up negative, so he concluded I was dealing with a head cold, and that was that.
Except that I'm still coughing and intermittently congested -- mostly in the mornings and evenings. Apparently it took a week for the ear infection and apparent start of sinus infection to become manifest enough to be seen by a doctor. So now there's a ten-day course of antibiotics to go along with all the other pills. I'm still trying to figure out what effect, if any, it's having on my blood glucose levels: I had an unaccountable "I can't believe it's this low" last night, followed by a "ridiculous high" this morning, which may be a rebound from dinner being TGI Friday's after our local computer group meeting. (The drugs.com professional-information sheet on this antibiotic suggests only that hypoglycemia was occasionally observed in non-diabetic patients. Nothing about PWD on it, though the consumer sheet dispensed with the medication said that people with diabetes might have to monitor their blood glucose levels more carefully when on this particular drug.) For the moment, things are back to stable -- but as we all know, the only constant with diabetes is its unpredictability.
Needless to say, this cold/ear infection/whatever -- plus the frigid mornings and evenings, and five days of rain -- has done absolutely nothing to keep me out riding my bicycle and looking for a job.
While the weekend here is wet and cold, the forecast for next week includes some nice, sunny days, not too cold in sunlight hours. Hopefully things will have cleared up enough for me to get back out on the road and finding some job, any job, to bring in some much-needed income. Meanwhile, it's "thank goodness for the $4 generics and Trader Joe's low-sodium soups in aseptic packaging", and remembering how to ride in clothes that are not nearly as aerodynamic as my summer cycling jerseys.
