Down with the sickness

Ow-ah-ah-ah!

The good news is I got an extra day off, making it a four day weekend for me. The bad news is the four day weekend was spent tending to my sick daughter and tending to my sick self.

Ugh. I haven’t been sick like that in a while. I could tell it was going to be bad on Friday morning when I went to store to buy more Children’s Motrin. First, I couldn’t eat. You don’t get a body like mine by not eating; this was a solid indicator that I was coming down with something. When I got to the Acme (for those of you not in the mid-Atlantic region, this is an actual grocery store, not a place for mail-order flying bat suits, strap on rockets, or other gadgets Coyote procured for help tracking down Road Runner), I had to walk past a cupcake display. The mere sight of frosting made my stomach cower inside me. Normally, it would leap out of me and onto the display, snarfing up as much as it could before I finally wrestled it back in place. Not today.

Of course, the geniuses at Acme put the medicine in the same aisle as the pet products. Standing in the medicine aisle long enough to read the labels is enough of a chore when you’re sick; doing it while engulfed by a malodorous cacophony of beef-like, chicken-like, and fish-like flavoring smells is a Herculean task. Why they need to pack in extra flavor for an animal that sniffs anuses and will eat roadkill is beyond me. Don’t get me wrong, I like dogs. It’s just their eating habits can be a bit concerning sometimes. If I had contents in my stomach that morning they would have wound up on the Alpo. Not that any dogs would mind – for them it would be a special dessert.

My fever topped 102 Friday night. I was unable to stay in any one position too long, yet also unable to move into any other positions. At one point I fell asleep on my knees with my face buried in my pillow on the couch. My sick pants don't fit well. Luckily my blinds close.

By Saturday morning I felt fine. Food still wasn’t appealing, but otherwise I felt no ill effects. It was as if I had been in perfect health all along. Generally when I get sick, the final night is the worst as the fever reaches its breaking point. I assumed that I was in the clear. The storm hadn’t blown by, though; I was simply in its eye. Saturday afternoon it hit again and by nightfall I was yearning for a coma once again.

I’m told the meteorological term for a bright sunny warm day that follows two days of nasty winds and torrential downpours is “Monday”. That’s pretty much how it was for me. By Sunday evening my personal storm had blown to sea. I could do normal things again, like walk and watch the Sopranos premiere. Today I was well enough to go back to work. I even ate at lunch. Yet I’m just so worn out right now.

Funny how it works, isn’t it? I just spent the past four days at home doing nothing, and now I feel like I need a weekend to recuperate.