Blerg

I've been sick. Not projectile vomiting sick. Or bronchitis sick. Just down for the count. Big time.

There's been some nasty shit going around this winter and it's been difficult to tell whether what people are getting is the flu or just a random cold. I think I had a cold. A bad, bad cold. And as far as a cold goes and the affect it had on me, this was the worst.

Two weeks ago when I went to sleep I had a sore throat. I had been talking to friends about our friend Bruce. His funeral was the next day and friends were gathering together to celebrate his life and since I couldn't be there, they called me after the prayer service. After spending an hour or so on the phone, talking and crying, I had a sore throat. Eh... this seemed normal.

I woke up at 1:00 am, freezing. And shaking. And kind of sore in that oh-crap-I'm-getting-sick kind of way. I took my temperature. I had a very low-grade fever. But I could tell. And my throat? Burning. I tried to get back to sleep; I couldn't. What I wanted to do was cancel the conference trip I had to make that day and sleep away the weekend, but I couldn't.

I did the conference. I survived. I slept. I took hot baths. My fever was gone in less than 24 hours. But my throat? Worse. My sinuses? Worse. Was it a sinus infection? Maybe. Who cared; I was miserable.

I was so miserable I was out the entire week. Well, I was out except for the times I went to work because there were some meetings I wanted to attend, but I didn't stay the entire day. And during one meeting I went from awake to "asleep" in a nanosecond. I mean it was so fast that if I had been standing I wonder if I would've fainted. And after that, I picked up my stuff and walked out without a word.

I loaded up with all the normal sick food: soup, crackers, Trader Joe's vegan jello, cranberry juice, orange juice.... you get the picture, and I camped out on my sofa for the the next five days. That's it. I didn't talk to anyone. I slept when I needed to sleep. After three days I vacuumed and did laundry. Even without talking to anyone, my voice was trashed and my throat was still burning, and at one point I remember thinking, "I am never going to be well again." And a trip to the doctor told me I didn't have strep (and I thought I did), so it was just a matter of riding the crap out.

After five days I went back to work. It took three more days for me to begin to feel human. My voice was stil trashed and not getting better due to classes being taught and meetings being led. Each day I went home exhausted and considered going straight to bed as soon as I got home.

Whatever it was that I had wasn't this big dramatic fever-puking-aching-coughing kind of illness. I have no gross stories about bodily functions or whatever. I was just tired. Dead tired. And whatever it was, it's still making the rounds, and I'm still not completely recovered.