I have been down since Monday night with the infamous ‘big’ that’s going around.
Jess has been sick for 2 weeks, Jackson has been sick for 2 weeks, and I have been healthy as can be. In fact, just about everyone at work has been sick and somehow, I have avoided it’s curse. That is, until Monday night.
When I came home Monday evening I didn’t feel well. I had a sore throat and my body was aching a little bit. I tried to brush it off but by about 8:00pm there was no denying it: I was getting sick. So, I labored on for the rest of the evening and went to bed. Notice I didn’t say that I went to sleep, merely went to bed. That’s because I slept like crap Monday night. In fact, were it not for a dream I vividly remembered when my alarm went off, I would have sworn I tossed and turned the entire night. Getting out of bed it felt like my body was encased in wax overnight. Nothing wanted to move and when it did it hurt. I ignored this pain and the burning sensation in my throat and headed off to work.
Arriving at work, I had a lot I needed to do. After an hour though, I went into priority mode. What did I NEED to get done in case I needed to leave early. You see, my body was quickly winning the argument as to whether or not I should have left my bed. Mind said yes, body said no. As is usually the case, my body was right. By about 9:00am I was ignoring all the pain and anguish and focusing on getting the core work done. At one point one of my co-workers even told me that there was no way I was going to last the entire day. Sadly, I knew they were right. By about 10:00am, my mind threw in the imaginary white towel and I resigned to the fact that I needed to go home and go back to bed.
I left work and headed directly to the closest drug store. There, I picked up the strongest cold medicine I could find and headed directly home. Once home, I changed, and within an hour, was sound asleep in my bed. I would remain this way for the next 4 hours. Once awake, I got up feeling like crap. In fact, I felt so bad I could not and would not be able to fall back asleep until about 4am.
Wednesday morning I woke up to even more symptoms of this plague ravaging my body. After an hour conversation with myself, I decided to take the day off. After calling in sick, I went back to bed.
By about noon, I had to get out of bed. Physically I was still wiped, but my mind couldn’t handle being in bed for almost 14 hours. I got up, and headed upstairs to my office. By the time I climbed my stairs my stomach wanted to take the express back downstairs. Not wanting to throw up on an empty stomach, I decided to try and take my mind off of it. I sat down and coded for the next few hours, trying to keep my mind on anything but my stomach.
By late afternoon Jess and Jackson had come home. I went downstairs to see Jackson, who I hadn’t seen in almost 16 hours. He was hungry and moody, so I got him a bowl of Chex Mix and we sat down on the couch. Surprisingly, I had a few pieces and it didn’t kill my stomach. So he and I shared a nice bowl as a snack while Jess made dinner. Once dinner was ready, I had some but not a lot. It wasn’t for the fact that it wasn’t good, it really was. But my stomach could only take so much food since I really hadn’t eaten anything substantial since Monday. After all was said and done, I spent a nice quiet evening on the couch with my wife and was in bed with her by 11:30pm.
This morning I slept in until about 9:30am. I got up, showered, and then woke up Jackson to take him to day care. You can tell both of didn’t feel good since I slept 10 hours and he slept 13 hours. Not only were neither one of us feeling well, but we had to get thru this to make it to day care.
We are in the middle of a freakin’ monsoon! They’re calling for 2-4 inches by this evening. I can believe it by the way it has been coming down all morning. Needless to say, I got him to day care and now I am sitting here dreading the hour of work as it approaches. I really wish I had more sick time so I could have one more day to rest up and be near 100%, but that’s simply not a reality. The reality is that I am going to go back to work this afternoon at about 75%, and by the time 11:00pm rolls around and we’re allowed to leave, I should be back down to about 25%. Then I will come home and go to bed. Lather, rinse, repeat.
