Sick

Or, because I can't think of anything better to write, you get vivid descriptions of my various illnesses.

I hate winter. You've heard me rant about the snow and slush problem winter presents, but there's another aspect that bothers me even more. It seems I spend about a month out of the season out of commission, knocked on my ass by some horrible cold or other ailment. From November till April, my nose is running, my head is congested, my stomach muscles hurt from coughing. Despite taking multivitamins, washing my hands often and thoroughly and avoiding sick people, I'm always ill.
It's been particularly rough this month. When the Whatever invited me to Florida, I gladly accepted. I bought my ticket on a Monday, and called him to confirm the details. It was the end of the day, and I slouched in my chair, rubbing my forehead.
"I think I'm coming down with a cold," I moaned, trying to massage the pressure out of my sinuses.
"Oops. That probably came from me," he said, then cackled gleefully.
On Tuesday, I felt bad. Wednesday, I felt worse. Thursday, I stayed home from work. I enjoyed my "home sick" routine of watching horrible daytime television without guilt. Since I was sick, I didn't have the energy to hold a book open and read, so I sat and watched Ellen dance across my television screen in all her healthy glory. I managed to drag myself to the pizza place across the street and get a sandwich for lunch. I went to bed early, and woke up on Friday feeling refreshed.
Friday morning I got into work, and started coughing. A lot. To the point where people started to Google how to perform the Heimlich maneuver should the situation get worse. The coughing stopped after a few minutes, but Kristen commented that my eyes looked glassy. I thought nothing of it, did my work and left early to get the Commuter Rail down to Rhode Island to have dinner with my friend Sharon.
I felt fine until I got home from dinner. I sat on the couch, exhausted at 10:30, and watched some television. I started rubbing my eyes, figuring that an eyelash had gotten in there. I kept rubbing, wondering why the eyelash wasn't coming out. Since it was hard to watch TV with only one eye open, I turned it off and went to wash my face. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I saw that both my eyes were red, and a small amount of goo had accumulated in the corner of my right eye. I wiped the goo with my finger, and it looked more like something that would come out of a nose than an eye. A big wad of eye-slime.
Of course, I had pink eye. I got up early the next morning and drove myself to the walk-in clinic in Wickford to get the antibiotic. I was still coughing and stuffy from my cold, with the additional pleasure of putting drops in my eyes every few hours. Which was gross, since the drops would leak from my eyes to the back of my throat and leave a sour taste in my mouth each time I took them. I was also mortified that I would go to Florida with gooey eyes. It's pretty hard to impress a boy when you have an ailment usually associated with elementary school kids.
The Monday before I went to Florida, I woke up feeling horrible. I had a bad cough, a stuffy nose and a sore throat. My body ached. I should have stayed home that day, but instead I dragged myself to babysit for a few of the longest hours of my life. I tried to keep the kids busy, but all I wanted to do was lay down and not move until I had to get up at the ungodly hour of 4am to get to the airport. When I was done babysitting, I went back to my apartment and crashed out on the futon.
As I sat in front of the TV, thinking of all the things I still had to pack, I felt a flush coming into my face. My eyes were heavy (but no longer gooey, thanks to the drops o'halitosis) and I knew I was not well. But the people I babysit were bringing the Whatever and I to the airport, and he planned on leaving from my place with me. Also, I'd be out $130 for the airfare if I stayed home.
"All I need is some sleep," I said to myself. "I'll just take a shower, pack and go to bed."
The shower felt good, but once I got out I felt the fever coming on stronger. I threw as many cold medicines as I could find into my carry-on bag, set everything out that I'd need in the morning, and went to bed.
It was a fitful night's sleep at best. I had the horrible fever dreams that don't make any sense. I anguished in my half-conscious state whether I should go or not. There are doctors in Florida should I need one. I had two bottles of Advil (one with sleep aid, one without) decongestants, cough suppressants, cough drops, eye drops, an arsenal of symptom relief. Also, it would be warm in Florida, and I heard the cold wind whipping through the bare tree branches outside my window. I decided I would suck it up and go.
I went, and the fever abated by Wednesday. But I still had a cough so persistent that the Whatever had to sleep with earplugs (sorry!) and I didn't dare venture out without a cough drop handy. But I was well enough to enjoy the warm weather, which is what I wanted to do while I was there.
I flew back to Boston, and it all went downhill from there. Saturday before the blizzard started, I went to the grocery store with my roommates, and felt fine. I got back to the apartment feeling slightly crappy. I had a glass of water and went to use the bathroom.
For those of you who haven't had a urinary tract infection, let me tell you what it's like. Imagine that you are trying to pee a watermelon out. Whole. With the rind. It is mind-numbing, scream-inducing agony. And it happens about every five minutes, because you feel like you're about to wet your pants if you don't go that often and try to pee the watermelon out.
Kristen (hey Kristen! Thanks!) came from Weymouth and patiently waited at the hospital while they checked to make sure it was a urinary tract infection that was causing me so much grief. The television was broken in the waiting room, and the only magazine they had was "Pregnancy Today" which didn't hold much interest for us. It was indeed as I'd suspected, and we went to CVS to pick up the antibiotic.
Tuesday found me at my regular doctor's office since the coughing hadn't stopped. My airways were constricted, so I had a purple inhaler of rage (I swear the thing gives me mood swings), nose spray and orders to keep taking the decongestants. I felt good for a couple of weeks, but then I woke up Fat Tuesday morning, the morning of the third Patriots parade, and felt the need to barf.
I hate barfing. Nobody enjoys it, but I try to avoid it as much as possible. I especially hate barfing when it's not the kind that happens once. Like when you're drunk, you puke a vile, acidic fluid and you feel better. When you're legitimately ill, it keeps happening and you just wish that the upstairs neighbor's toilet would fall through the ceiling and crush you, ending your misery. I became reacquainted with my snap peas and Mexican lasagna from Monday night, called out sick from work, and tried to lay back down.
I think my stomach was trying to leave my body. I don't know what I did to displease it so-- maybe it was too many donuts followed by too much fiber. Too much Super Bowl snacking? Rancid milk in my hot chocolate? In any case, it wasn't just waves of nausea. It felt like someone was shooting tiny nails into my stomach. If I lay down, my stomach would gurlgle and squeeze, sending me into another fit of dry-heaving into my garbage can. (The smart people at Bed, Bath and Beyond were good to engineer the college dorm wastebasket as a single sheet of plastic, able to hold liquids. I have yarfed in that purple wonder many a time in the past five years.) Finally, around 7am, the pain relented and I was able to get in a little sleep. Around 9am I woke up, made the great journey into the living room, purple bucket in hand, and crashed in front of the television. In various states of wakefulness, I watched Tom Brady, Deion Branch and the rest of the Patriots ride through Boston, pissed I wasn't there to try and scale the boats and molest the players.
I went to bed at 8pm on Tuesday, and woke up on Wednesday feeling a little better. My stomach was a little iffy, but I got showered and ready for work. All was well until I got on the train. Even when I'm feeling well, the T can sometimes make me a little queasy. When my stomach started gurgling and cramping before I'd even reached the underground part of my commute, I knew I wasn't ready to be back at work. So I got off the train, called my boss and went back home.
I'm doing better today. My stomach isn't as gurgly as it was yesterday, and I managed to ride the green line in to my office. Now all I can do is hope that I didn't pick up some sort of ebola from holding onto the bars of the train...