No field for me

because:
a) I have a migranous headache (yes, they're stress-related)
b) my back yelled at me when I put on my walking boots, and got worse not better as I wandered around getting ready
c) my period started early and heavily (no fun to deal with in open country)
d) I am a lazy wimp who worries far too much about maybes.

Of course I only decided no field for sure when I got into the car, was siezed with the 'certainty of throwing up' feeling, and the leg with the compressed nerve at the hip went numb.  I thought "why am I doing this to myself?" Now, since I got up at 5-30am and forced myself through my whole morning routine, back stretches, shower, field clothes and all, I actually feel a bit better having been sick, taken off the boots, eaten a piece of dry toast and had an email exchange with PDF (only stating reason a!) which made me feel like a really bad PI although the making me feel bad bit was almost certainly 90% in my head (she's stressed about getting all the work done this year.  We ARE pushed, as all projects tend to be, and on the one hand I should have addressed this earlier and on the other I DO feel it is the post-doc's job to keep an eye on progress and report issues, especially when they were asked repeatedly to do so...).  Feeling better means I feel like a fraudulent wimp too (and therefore also like blogging, for some reason). 

Although my knees are shaking and my eyes hurt and I'm back to bed after this, so it's not like I really think I'd've been much use if I had gone.  Part of this IS 'matutinal dysphoria', the part of depression that probably makes me most unrecognisable to my normal larkish self; yesterday lunchtime fieldwork seemed impossible, by 8pm yesterday I was happily packing my backpack and hunting out field clothes.  But the aggressive headache isn't, and the 'my legs feel different lengths in these boots and ow everything in my back between waist and start of thighs is a single sheet of rigid, spasming something and part of my right leg is completely numb, edged with 'bee sting effect' tingles' isn't (although both might wear off.  Or might not.  The latter went as soon as I took off the boots... add 'hunt for new boots' to the 'things that must be done in the next few weeks' list.  Sigh.  Those boots cost me £125 and took months to find).

I read something helpful yesterday, which said that true malingers don't second-guess themselves and question whether they are really unwell/unable to do a task, they tend to embrace their inability whole-heartedly, so if you spend a lot of time worrying about whether you are malingering, you aren't.  If that makes sense.  It did yesterday.  Today, I'm mostly feeling guilty and anxious about whether I am putting too much stress on PDF, since her texts were mostly about how worried she is about the project (and how she isn't going to push herself today, mind you, although that IS sensible given the forecast heat and that BOTH of us being crock would not help anything).  Hopefully she will shed any short term 'my supervisor is a lazy moron and I am Put Upon' sulks over the weekend, and we can do a serious reassessment of the project on Monday.  Mind you, I wanted to do that a few weeks ago, but asked her to bring a list of issues and she basically said there weren't any... sigh.

At least I found my favourite fieldwork hat during yesterday evening's preparations!