Today was another one of those days when I really needed to work. All the work that was due this afternoon at 9am UK time had actually been finished by something like noon yesterday but various final cross checks needed to be done, verification reports needed to be made, and everything needed to be correctly packaged into correctly named zip files. This would realistically take a little over an hour. And, well, despite really really meaning to do it last night before I went to sleep, that impromptu sunset race after the hours of hiking around on stairs meant that I zonked early and I zonked hard.

When I woke up this morning, on the wrong side of dawn (as usual), I thought "well, I just get the work done before I get started this morning" but it was cold in the room, the bed was warm, and it's really amazing how much persistence and other positive personality traits can be chipped away at by tiny little imbalances in our physical systems. I've never had depression or any other hidden illnesses like that but, the more days in a row I spend up high, I'm beginning to have a totally new found appreciation for the sheer effort some people have to struggle through just to get out of bed every day.

The PulseOx is mostly reading around 95 most of the time though it still dips down to the occasional 93 or even a 92. Based on the standard ±2% margin of error on the non-invasive blood oxygen testers, I am continuing to teeter on the verge between "not exactly good" and "not yet bad". In addition to the benefits of altitude sickness medicine, I'm continuing to naturally grow more red blood cells and otherwise slowly adapt. I'm no longer noticing any particularly extreme issues with slow thinking or confusion but I've still got an elevated heart rate, shortness of breath, and a suppressed appetite. 

I want to get the work done. I need to do the work. I just can't be bothered. As my inability to just deal with it already stretches on past the dark pre-dawn hours into actual daylight, my bladder eventually forces me out of bed, which leads to the realization that I generally feel like crap and don't really want to bike today.

That simplifies matters enormously.

If I'm not biking today, the available window of time in which to finish my work and get it handed in before the deadline just got a whole lot bigger.

After forlornly checking to see whether or not the hot water has turned back on (it hasn't), I turn the electric mattress pad up high and crawl back into bed for a quick four or five hour nap.