Reflections on the last few weeks
These last few weeks have been eventful, and not always in a good way.
I will break my habit of being very topical and not-so personal here, in order to coherently explain to myself and others how the last few weeks have been. On June 19th, I wrote my last blogpost, and later that day I started getting symptoms of flu. This flu I decided would not stop me, and so I decided to barricade myself inside, wearing woolen sweaters, scarves, thick socks, and sleeping in socks/pyjamas while wearing a scarf, etc.
Of course I also took my own advice of getting enough Vitamin C and Zinc, and tried to stay moderately active. The flu actually kept getting worse progressively, and after a week of getting weaker and sleeping up to 16 hours per day, on the 26th of June I lost my voice which did not return for 3 days. On the 29th of June I think I returned to work since I had a skype meeting I did not want to miss, although it was canceled. This was one of the worst flu’s I’ve ever had, and I was still having symptoms as late as the 10th of July, and on that day, I set off up north (Árskógssandur) to a family gathering which was pretty great fun. The fun of the family gathering might have been slightly overshadowed by the fact that on monday morning I woke up with my elbow swollen to about double it’s normal size. Turns out I managed to get an infection in my arm, which the doctors explained was most likely a staphylococcus infection. I received some bandaging and a prescription for antibiots (dicloxacillin I believe, to be taken at 4×500mg per day). The next day, it was not just my elbow, but around 20% of my arm which was swelling up, getting red, and becoming quite hot to the touch. On Tuesday night when I arrived in Reykjavík, I went straight to the emergency room, and was given intravenous antibiotics, and still the infection seemed to get larger and worsen.
After 3 more IV doses on Wednesday, and one on Thursday morning, the doctors reluctantly cleared me to go to the Netherlands on Thursday evening, where I am located currently and writing this entry. Armed with a woozy head, right arm aching from 48 hours of having an IV plug in it, left arm hurting from the flesh eating staph infection, and a weeks worth of more oral antibiotics I left for my current few week stay in the Netherlands.
Now I have a little secret to share with anyone who would like to be a programmer: when you are ill, no work gets done, and the deadlines move closer. This is something I’ve noticed that not everyone realizes fullly perhaps, which may cause great frustration to all involved parties.
Personally I quite wonder if I may after all be suffering from the reactive arthritis I was supposedly misdiagnosed with in 2007, since my eyes are usually swollen every day, and my knees and left elbow hurt, the only missing part of the symptoms required would be some skin rashes, which I haven’t had since 2007 a.f.a.i.k. I find it a little too much of a coincidence that I get this massive infection in my elbow, and that both of my elbows frequently hurt when I lean on them, additionally my immune system has been strangely weak this year, as I’ve caught 2-3 flu’s, and each time been hit quite badly (2+ weeks of severe symptoms, large amounts of rest required, stomach upsets, headaches, and of course respiratory symptoms). Another theory of mine is that perhaps it is time to take a long vacation, as I haven’t taken a vacation for more than a week since 2004 when I took 17 days off.
Naturally I’ve been a little depressed over the whole thing, especially as I’ve run into less understanding from certain people than I would expect. Additionally I have been unable to keep up any regular training for 6 weeks or so now. In that time I have managed perhaps a couple of judo sessions, as well as two bjj sessions — the latter of which was a no-gi session on 8th of July, which I wonder if could be the source of my staph infection (getting a small scab on my elbow + rolling with 10 different sweaty guys on an exceptionally warm day…?). I hope that was not the source of it, but in any case I would be avoiding further no-gi sessions as I must admit, beyond the increased tactical options afforded to me by the gi, I was slightly disgusted with the sheer amount of sweat I was exposed to while training no-gi. Call me a wimp, I don’t care 
Anyway — reflection time over, back to work-ahh..
