February 11, 2019

TUESDAY MORNING UPDATE - I need at least one more day off. I'm 50-50 about doing the blog tomorrow or just waiting until the next one on Monday. My voice is mostly back and so I was able to attend the USATT board teleconference last night. Left eye got better, now both eyes look only slightly reddish and saggy. Strangely, the infection seems to have moved into my lower left lip, which is now swelling and puffing out like a cartoonish snarl. I'm still going though Kleenex like former world #1 Mikael Appelgren used to go through sponge. (He was known for changing the sponge on both sides of his racket before every match.) About every half hour I go into a hacking fit as I cough up strange looking stuff. I may do an emergency supermarket run today for Kleenex and soup. Meanwhile, here's a new video: Never Give Up! (5:41).

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Alas, I've come down pretty sick with Conjunctivitis, i.e. pink eye. It's an almost cartoonish name and I didn't know anything about it until yesterday. I came down with what I thought was a cold early last week. On Saturday morning my left eye was literally crusted shut, and all red and puffy. It was also spreading to my right eye. I was coughing up green stuff and going through boxes of Kleenex. My voice was down to a croak and my throat is on fire. Making things worse, I had to run the MDTTC February Open this weekend. On Sunday early afternoon I finally left and saw a doctor - at that point I looked like Frankenstein's monster. Assistant Director Klaus Wood took over, with help from Greg Mascialiano and half a dozen of our local juniors, who are great at data input.

I went to Medical Access, which is open seven days/week. After examining my eyes, ears, and throat, the doctor's exact words were, "Wow! It's spread everywhere." (Both eyes, both ears, sinuses, throat, lungs.) I'm now on what she called the strongest antibiotics available and some sort of anti-bacterial eye drops. So . . . does anyone want to come over and shake my hand?

Here are the results of the JOOLA MDTTC February Open - and now I'm going back to bed. (UPDATE - the ratings were processed already on Monday afternoon.) No blog today, and I'll wait until tomorrow to see if I can do it then. We have a USATT Teleconference tonight at 7PM. I'll probably attend, but my voice will be pretty bad. And here's a new Table Tennis, Best Of video (7:33).