Saturday, January 24, 2015

In Sickness and in Health





I’ve been sick for the past five days; not I think I’m going to die sick, but just, I feel miserable sick.  I’ve slept 19 out of the past 24 hours.  I’m hacking up chunks of greenish-yellow phlegm and my throat hurts.  I’m tired of being sick and the spouse is tired of me being sick. 

“That’s what you get for hanging out with the homeless,” he tells me. 

Left without supervision, he manages to find trouble.  I spend the day sleeping, so he decides to figure out why he can’t get the Wi-Fi extender to work.  He wants Wi-Fi in his shop building so he doesn’t have the inconvenience of having to come into the house to use his I pad.  (He solved the not having a bathroom problem another way…just make sure you make a lot of noise approaching the back side of the shop so you don’t startle him “appreciating the outdoors.”)

From my sickbed on the living room couch, I hear him on the phone to tech support in India or Pakistan.

“I don’t understand what you’re asking me to do,” he yells into the phone, “I can’t hear you over the static.” 

This goes on for at least a half an hour with a few silent moments while he waits for Jagavi to call him back on another line.  After four tries they get a connection with less static.  “I don’t understand what you’re asking,” he yells again, “let me give you to my wife.”

He brings me the phone.  After teaching ESL students for many years, I am pretty good with accents, but I couldn’t understand Jagavi. I hand the phone back to my husband and he goes back to the office and continues the discussion.  After another 15 minutes I hear him thank Jagavi and finally hang up.  Unfortunately the story doesn’t end here. 

He decides to research the connectivity problem on the Internet.  As I start to doze again I hear his phone ring and he starts another conversation about the computer.  Ten minutes later he yells for me, “Quick, quick come here.  You’ve got to see this.  We’ve had 1,700 attempted hacks on our computer.”  He’d fallen for one of those phishing scams and now our computer was being hacked.

I tell him to unplug the computer and not to plug it back in.  We’ll eventually take it in to the computer repair and have it looked at….or just buy a new one.  The old one will never be hooked back up to the internet.  We realize our tax returns are stored on that old computer.  The next day I check with our banks and am reassured that our accounts are secure; I order new credit cards. 


I’m glad all that excitement is over.  I’m still working on getting my energy level back.  The weather has been nicer and the warming station for the homeless has been closed.  When I go back, I'll be compulsively washing my hands.

14 comments:

  1. Nana, I do hope you are back to your old self again very soon.

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  2. Sick stinks. Hope you are better soon, and hand washing is a good thing.

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  3. Bummer! I hope bothat you and the computer are back on line soon,and with no lingering aches.

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  4. Bummer! I hope bothat you and the computer are back on line soon,and with no lingering aches.

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  5. If you have a fever, go see a doctor today. My symptoms, my pneumonia last month.

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  6. Dang! This is why I do not open any link that is sent to me from anyone. I seldom open links from new sites, And I never open shortened links. But it is easy to slip up, they are very clever.

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  7. The good news is that the computer can be fixed or replaced, and if you survive this illness, your immune system will be strengthened.
    The bad news is: bad luck comes in threes. :-o

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  8. Your post reminds me of my computer problems back in 2011.
    It's terrifying, isn't it?

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  9. I am so sorry to hear you are so sick! And that your computer is, too. Sigh. They never happen just one at a time. You wrote it well, even though it's awful I still smiled at your description. :-)

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  10. Hope you feel better real soon! Stretch and I are sending you some get well virtual hugs.

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  11. I'm so sorry you're sick, Nana! There are some nasty viruses going around. I'm impressed that you even thought about blogging in the middle of this! And with computer problems yet! Hope you feel better soon!

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  12. I'm so sorry you've been sick. This stuff that is going around is nasty stuff. My cousin and my sister have been sick since Christmas. They have the same coughing fits that you talk about and are sleeping away the days. The computer is another matter. How terrible to be hacked like that. Scary business.

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  13. "hacking up chunks of greenish-yellow phlegm" is never a good thing. I hope you are back to normal by now.
    Computers, cell phones, printers and all things like them are fantastic. Right up until the time that they stop working!

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