I am not a big Christmas person, but this year it has been particularly unpleasant.  For the last ten days I have been pretty ill with a head and throat cold.  It is my own fault really.  I was suffering from what I thought was bronchitis for the whole of August.  As it turned out, I had nasal polyps which (and I apologize for the unpleasant image) result in mucus running down the back of my throat.  As much as I would like to believe otherwise, it seems that I have succumbed to the family allergies that my father and brother have suffered from for years.  I am still holding on to a slim hope that it is just a freak occurrence, though.  The doctor prescribed medication that I was suppose to take for 3 months, but I stopped after one month when the symptoms disappeared.  But now they have returned and I’m back on the medicine.

It is unpleasant, but bearable.  But this time it made me vulnerable to other infections.  Hence the head and throat.  My ears were ringing so bad, I didn’t get any sleep.  For some reason it was worse at night, and I had to nap during the day.  Swallowing was difficult and hurt.  Today I revisited the doctor and she renewed the prescription and nasal spray and hopefully I’ll be much better by the end of January.  The throat seems better all on its own, so with luck I won’t need antibiotics just now.  Needless to say, this time, I’m sticking to the medicine.

This interferes somewhat for my new year’s resolution, which I prefer to think of as an experiment.  I’m overweight and as usual the problem is bad nutrition and no exercise.  In previous years, I spent January to June in Finland and walked for about an hour a day.  I’m not sure how much it helped, but I’m sure it did.  So, my experiment for January is to (1) walk about an hour a day, and (2) monitor my weight with daily postings.  I don’t want to set any weight goals, but I’ll monitor the effect on my BMI, which tonight was at 30.67.  If I can get that down to about 24 I’ll be satisfied.  Nutrition I’m not too worried about.  I don’t eat much, and very little takeouts or candy.  Oh, another aspect is to eliminate caffeine, so no more Coca Cola.  The nasal problem makes all this a little trickier, but I think I should be able to cope.