Felling good, Louis!

It's been a week since the arctic turtle flu hit me. Last Monday I started to feel sick, and by Wednesday-Thursday I felt awful. Coughing, sneezing, headache, muscle and joint aches, drained of energy, sleepless, etc. You all know the drill.

It's a process. The body has to go into immune mode and fight the viral invaders. If you've got a reasonably sound immune system and if you're in reasonably good health you'll feel better in about a week. If you take medicine to ease the symptoms, you'll feel better in about seven days.

Today is day seven. I feel a lot better, though I'm not completely well yet.

Yesterday was a yucky day weather wise. It was overcast and misty with temperatures hovering just above the freezing mark and a strong northerly wind. The forecast called for snow, and lots of it. Three-to-six inches during the day, 8-14 inches overnight. So we got zero snow during the day, and about a scant inch overnight. Not that I'm complaining, mind you.

The wind died down about 10 p.m. last night and that's when the snow started. The air temperature stayed fairly warm and only fell to 28 degrees. This morning the winds remained mild and the sun began to break out of the dissipating clouds.

It was lovely out and I was feeling better, so I decided to scoop snow, and if that went well, to go for a gallop to blow the cobs out. I scooped and noticed that the sun was melting snow faster than I could scoop it, which was a nice surprise. I didn't croak from the effort; in fact I felt invigorated. Not quite back to normal and still with some coughing, not to mention a sinus headache which I feared might portend a bout of sinusitis.

I don't like the sinusitis. I suffered a barotrauma (sinus squeeze) flying with a head cold many years ago. That trauma turned into a massive sinus infection which led to a remarkably pretty and petite ENT doc bashing a hole in my sinus with a hammer and chisel. Ever since I've been somewhat prone to sinusitis and very gun-shy about the condition. Butt I digress.

Nona and I set out on a running, ball-playing adventure. I dressed in sweatpants and sweatshirt, nice warm workout gloves, full-calf compression socks, and UA HOVR winter running shoes.

The shoes have a tough ankle cuff to keep the snow and mud out. They allegedly contain some kind of high-tech warming/cooling material to keep your foots at just the right temperature. Surprisingly, it seems to work. Also surprisingly, the rather low profile tread is decidedly grippy on snow and ice. So winner-winner, two-bill dinner.



Long story short, we had a nice three-mile run and did 50 flights of underpass steps. It was somewhat hard going as I've got a good bit of lingering fatigue from the flu, but hard going is just a nice challenge. It was a super workout and felt really good.



Also, whilst running steps I developed a spectacular nosebleed and my sinus pain immediately went away. Just what the doctor ordered!



Meanwhile back at the ranch, Mom is still recovering from her bout of the flu, and Dad is starting to feel like he's getting it. We'll have to watch that closely, for he is neither in good health nor equipped with a robust immune system these days.



And that's the report from this neck of the not-so-snowy woods.