Last few days at more length

[mrissa]

So. Hi. Still sick, but upright more of the time than yesterday. Probably will be well enough to read in bed and/or on the couch, instead of just lying there.

Some of you were of the impression that this weekend's illness was in some way related to my ongoing health problems. Mostly it wasn't, so far as we and Dr. porphyrin can tell. Mostly the only way my ongoing health problems have related is that I have very little in the way of reserves, so I have been knocked completely flat instead of the only-mostly-flat you usually get with stomach bugs. So while I had a rather unpleasant experience, we will be judging future trips on a case-by-case basis, not issuing a ban on cons until/unless we get this other stuff figured out. More importantly, those of you who saw me this weekend should be aware that next weekend I will likely not look or feel like that. This is not my steady-state condition right now. I appreciate your concern, I just want to make sure it's well-directed.

Umm. So those of you who were at the con know that I got up to go to ellen_kushner's reading on Saturday afternoon and had to leave to pass out in the hall, then be sick in the hotel trashcan, and then pass out again briefly. Wheee, was that a good time. Most people who pass out and/or throw up at cons have done things they've enjoyed or at least intended to enjoy to get there. I feel cheated. (I also felt rather awkward walking around pale and trembly -- I wanted to say, "I do have a sense of my own tolerance, really!") I also want to say that it was not in any way a commentary on ellen_kushner's reading, and I intend to go buy her next book as soon as it's out.

The hotel staff and the con staff were both really great, and I will be writing them thank-you letters. The hotel staff got a wheelchair to take me up to my room, since I was still not holding very tightly to consciousness at that point. (If they hadn't had one, I feel pretty sure I could have walked draped over porphyrin and matociquala, but it's just as well not to run that experiment.) The hotel staff offered 7Up and crackers and o.j. and extra towels, and when the night manager came on duty, he called to introduce himself and check up on me. They also called porphyrin's cell phone to check with her on how I was doing. Getting her name and cell phone number as a doctor might have been the act of a hotel protecting themselves from lawsuits, but the rest was definitely human decency in action and much appreciated as such.

The con staff also wanted porphyrin to issue updates to them, which was nice. I'm told that they were indignant when she told them some friends had been dispatched to get me chicken soup: "We would have done that!" And the thing is, I know they would have. After this experience, I really believe that if you have to get sick in a hotel away from your home and family, a con is the absolute best place to do it. I had people I actually knew backing me up, but the con staff was genuinely concerned, and I think most con staffs would be, and would take it as a point of pride to take care of "their own."

retrobabble and ccfinlay and sksperry were very sweet to bring me chicken soup, and it made me feel warm and fuzzy and cared-for. And ksumnersmith came and sat and talked with me for two hours, and it felt like the most natural thing in the world. We'd never actually met in person before, but to my brain, of course Karina would spend some time with me while I was sick before heading out, because it's Karina. With other people I've been nervous about whether they'd be how they were online. But Karina is Karina and of course she was going to be Karina, so there was no reason to be nervous about that.

Sunday morning I just went downstairs and sat on the couch and watched the world go by. Lots of the world stopped by to talk, which was good. (I think a few of them had to do a double-take with my glasses, though.) And feeling woozy did not preclude getting giggly a couple of times, so that was a good thing, and the drive home was uneventful.

I missed a lot of people who were there, I know, but from the friendslist I got to see, and in many cases talk to: 1crowdedhour, bneuensc, buymeaclue, carbonel, careswen, ccfinlay, chance88088, cristalia, deannahoak, dolphin__girl, elisem, elizabethbear/matociquala, ellen_kushner, katallen, ksumnersmith, lnhammer, lsanderson, magentamn, mmerriam, ospreys_view palinade, pnh, porphyrin, retrobabble, sdn, secritcrush (are you still "secrit," secritcrush?), sksperry, sosostris2012, stellar_magpie, stillnotbored and tnh. So that's a lot of lj people. I saw a bunch of non-lj people, too. Even with limited time, I saw People. Many of them really, really good People.

I did not even get out the camera or the bars. Which is a sad thing, but there you have it.


Some people have asked if I'm still glad I went. I'm really trying not to evaluate that much. The good things were good things, and the bad things we dealt with, and nobody is actually offering me a time machine and the choice to go again knowing what the weekend would be like. So there's no point in weighing whether it was really truly worth it to talk to stillnotbored vs. being home in my own bed or some other equation like that, because the world isn't like that. You just enjoy what you have the chance to enjoy.

Also, porphyrin is the best porphyrin, surpassing all other porphyrins, and if I don't happen to say so in a given week, it's not because it's not true then, too.

Also, mplscorwin, everybody is jealous of the snazzy snazzy lj-badges you made at Minicon. Except for the people who are confused by them.

Time for more toast.

ETA: Thanks to all of you who have sent well-wishes here, on e-mail, or in person. Much appreciated, all.

Comments

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

I hope you feel better soon!

[nycshelly.livejournal.com]

Hope you're feeling better soonest.

[wilfulcait.livejournal.com]

f"The good things were good things, and the bad things we dealt with, and nobody is actually offering me a time machine and the choice to go again knowing what the weekend would be like. So there's no point in weighing whether it was really truly worth it to talk to stillnotbored vs. being home in my own bed or some other equation like that, because the world isn't like that. You just enjoy what you have the chance to enjoy."

I'm writing this down under "words of wisdom." So often these days I'm taking every chance to enjoy whatever I have the chance to enjoy, and this is what I'm going to tell people when they ask me to second guess those decisions.

I hope you feel better soon. Stomach bugs are the pits.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine ended up leaving a con in Boston (WorldCon? I know it was a big one) to go have open-heart surgery. I wasn't there, but from his description, it sounds like his experience confirms yours: cons are terrible places to get sick, in the sense of having to miss good things, but excellent places in the sense of having kind people there who will take care of you.

Glad to hear you were well-cared-for, not that there was any reason to doubt it.

[gaaneden.livejournal.com]

Yikes! I really hope you feel better. I know I've been thinking of you a lot lately. Mostly because I'm going over your critique notes of RE and how right you were/are. Get well soon!

[orangemike.livejournal.com]

Madison can be a lot more fun than that, really it can!

I've got a close friend who goes to cons, even though she regularly gets sick (multiple health issues), because when she's not sick she has more fun at a con than anywhere else; and when she is sick, fandom takes better care of her than anybody outside a private room at a hospital would!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That sounds just about accurate in my experience, at least in the latter part. I've had more fun than at a con, but I've also had less fun, so.

[pameladean]

I'm so glad that you are occasionally upright now. And glad that it wasn't the convention per se that flattened you. Stomach bugs are particularly evil, in my opinion. Their timing is sometimes so diabolical that one suspects intelligence somewhere.

P.

[chance88088.livejournal.com]

Oh the secritness was only ever from a meme I invented in response to that meme that went around where people said (often rude) stuff to people on their friends list and didn't identify who they were speaking to.

(The post basically said one of the following two comments applied to everyone who read my blog, and they got to choose which one applied, but they had to pick one:

1. I have a secrit crush on you

2. You have a fat ass.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

On many f'lists, you could just shorten that further to "I have a secrit crush on your fat ass."

Anyway, I remember that meme, I just wasn't clear that you weren't trying to keep it separate from your other lj identity.

[ckd]

I have no objections to either choice, though I would stipulate that most of my fat is in fact in front.

[rwarner.livejournal.com]

Being sick sucks. I hope you feel better soon.

Along those same lines, I hope I never get whatever it was that you got...it sounds really nasty. Don't think I have ever been so sick that I could not walk....drunk maybe, but never sick. :)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Some people's bodies flip the switch over to "unconscious" much more readily than others'. Mine is one such. This has been a moderately bad time, but it's nowhere near the sickest I've ever been, and I haven't had to be hospitalized with anything.

[alecaustin.livejournal.com]

Get better.

If making that an imperial command would give that suggestion more force, I'd do so.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Alec, I had no idea. What are you emperor of?

[alecaustin.livejournal.com]

Many imperiums, vast and far, most of which have no practical bearing on the this plane of existence.

There's actually a line of descent through which which I might've become an Imperial Duke if the Manchu Dynasty was still around, but all in all I think that I'm happier not living under the system that produced the Empress Dowager and her stone boat.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Even with your barbarian ancestors? Wow. I mean, I'm used to barbarian ancestors being no problem, but that's a rather different circumstance, y'know.

[alecaustin.livejournal.com]

Well, if the Manchu Dynasty never fell, I probably wouldn't have had yang gui ancestors, and thus wouldn't have existed at all.

To continue this exercise in speculative genealogy, however, assuming that family intrigues didn't disrupt the chain of primogeniture, barbarian ancestors wouldn't have been an issue. After all, to the high Mandarinate, pretty much everyone (even the Manchus and provincial Chinese) counted as barbarians...

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

*snug*

Glad you're doing a little better. And yes, totally jealous.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

Oh! I'm glad you're feeling a little better, and glad you had as much comfort as could be had under dreadful circumstances.