Take muh quiz? But first read about my health woes.

First, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DANA!!!!

I am FINALLY on the mend. The past week has been marked by what Bryan referred to as "The Perfect Storm": a hideous confluence of physiological ailments that each would have been bad enough but in concert were astonishingly debilitating.

A sore throat I woke up with on the morning after my return from Alaska turned over the weekend into a cough and chest tightness that I'm a smart enough girl to know was incipient bronchitis. Monday morning, I burrowed under the covers and called the doctor. Got in to see her that afternoon, and got antibiotics and cough syrup with codeine.

Female "issues" set in at 4 p.m. Suffering ensued. Pain so intense it was accompanied by vomiting. I went to bed at 10. {Maybe I should look on the bright side, because Bryan and I keep talking about setting an earlier bedtime for ourselves, and never ever make it, but the whole week I was sick, I was in bed by 10:30 every single night.)

Woke up at 1 a.m. with the distinct feeling that someone was trying to saw me in half, starting at my left hip, using a rusty spoon. Or maybe like I was in a vise, marking out the line between my left hip and my spine, being squished in half. I thought I'd turned over funny. Who knows with the back, after all, right? Got up, leaving the slumbering love snoring. I walked around, I hung over the exercise ball, I stretched, I tried everything. Took three Advil, when my normal limit is just one. To no avail. I tried lying on my right side; lying on my left side; put a pillow between my knees, thinking maybe I should straighten out my spine. Bad idea. The pain was instantly so intense, I dashed into the powder room and threw up violently. I hate throwing up, so I cried a little. Felt VERY sorry for myself. Sat on the floor of the kitchen in my underwear and tank top, morosely choking down saltines and water. Took three more Advil, since I'd hurled up the other ones, worried about Advil poisoning, and called the advice nurse while filling my hot water bottle, which was already getting a major workout that day. Have I mentioned that I'm a little bit in love with my hot water bottle? Well, I am, but that's a story for a different day.

Say what you will about Kaiser, but I like 'em: after just 3 minutes of my exposition of woe, nice Matt Thomas said, "I see from your medical record that you're married. Wake him up and tell him he's driving you to the urgent care facility on Sand Canyon in Irvine. I'm calling them to tell them to expect you. Good luck." So off we went at 5:10 a.m. Tuesday (poor groggy spouse with hair all akimbo) to the Irvine Regional Medical Center, my first trip to the emergency room. First IV, first CAT scan, first intravenous drug (muscle relaxant, smartasses), and FIRST KIDNEY STONE!!!! Wooo hoooo!!

Got Vicodin and 800 mg mega-profens. Got a big hat into which to pee and filters into which to pour the piddle. My kidney stone (we'll call him Sly) was a wee (no pun intended) 4mm creature, and word in the ER was that he'll pass through my bladder and break up, and I would "catch" the pieces as I peed them out. Hah. Horsefeathers. I peed in a hat for four days, thank you very little, and nary a piece was seen. Or maybe they were there, but I thought they were pepper. Or something. Anyway, nothing to analyze. Shouldn't they send you home with a urologist, rather than a stupid plastic hat??

I'll spare my male readers the tale of female woe that the rest of the week brought, but suffice it to say it was ghastly. And painful. And unbelievably.... well, never mind. I did say I'd spare you. Let's just say it didn't help the peeing-in-a-hat regimen one little bit.

After working 2 hours Monday, 2 hours Tuesday, and 2 hours Wednesday, I decided to get my slack ass into the office on Thursday, but literally couldn't manage it before 2:30 -- I kept having to lie down, after each little step in the get-ready-for-work process. Still, I stayed until 8, when the fever got the best of me, so I only had to take four of the five sick days I had in my "bank," God bless us. But Friday morning brought a relapse, so I stayed home again. I did mention how I had bronchitis before all the other stuff happened, right? Bronchitis, for the uninitiated, is extraordinarily draining. And I, who scarcely ever get fevers, find them nothing less than debilitating. Ugh.

Saturday, the bladder ailment arrived. It must surely be related to the passage of Sly or something, right, but OH MY GOD, the AGONY. I don't know how people who are "prone" to bladder or other UTIs deal with it. I was almost in tears, even after taking Uristat and cranberry capsules and whatnot all damned day. Sunday was, if anything, worse, to my dismay, but I woke up this morning feeling just a little bit better. So off I went to work. 8 hours, but I feel peaky, and will work from home tomorrow, reading 300 pages of material served on us by the bastards on the other side of this arbitration-from-hell in London.

Meanwhile, bad Dianna sent me a quiz, so I have created one of my own. Here it is, I think: Take my Quiz on QuizYourFriends.com!

Ah, there it is. Cool.