Flu Happens

Forget Chemistry and Biology, work and family and everything else that is going on.
I. Am. Sick.
I have no idea how I am going to manage to be successful at work tomorrow night (or at any other task I undertake in the next couple of days).

Right now, I just know that I cannot call in sick. One coworker is on FMLA because his wife just had a baby. Another took a leave of absence, and I am not sure why, but I am sure I will find out when I report for my shift tomorrow night.

It all started with this benign tickle in my throat. Which made me cough just a little bit, but hey, no big deal, right? I popped Halls Defense tabs like they were going out of style, telling everyone that I cannot get sick. Between school and work, the world will stop turning if I am ill. But then it happened. I was cuddling with John on the living room floor, all snuggled in a blanket, watching a movie, when I started to cough really hard. I coughed so hard I urrrrrppped. Gross. And John, God how I love him, helped me clean myself up and helped me get tucked in on the sofa for the night. I remember waking up this morning, freezing despite the big comforter wrapped around me. The rest of today has passed in a blur of periods of awake and sleep. I would be freezing, and he would wrap me in such a weight of blankets that I should not have been able to breathe. I would wake a few hours later, drenched in sweat, and toss off the blankets. All of this only to repeat the ritual an hour later. The monotony was broken up by him bringing me a dose of Robitussin every 4 hours.

The period of time I would have spent in chemistry recitation came and went. Lecture came and went. In a fit of wakefulness, I ended up emailing my professor this afternoon to let him know where I was today. We have these little cards, worth only two points each, that we turn in during recitation each week. No big deal, but they add up to be a full quiz grade at the end of the quarter. In his response, he told me we would talk when I return on Tuesday. I am sincerely hoping he will cut me some slack on this one.

Other than all of this, my body is racked with aches and chills, and I truly think I have the flu. My mind flashes back to a time earlier in the week when I saw a headline that the flu is showing some rather resistant strains this year. "That's interesting", I thought, as I went on about my day. Now I am left to ponder that in conjunction with the fact that I got a flu vaccine earlier in the season from work. In fact. they pretty much made me, in that if I did not, I had to fill out this big waiver for the hospital, which in turn is reported to employee health, etc. In other words, just take the damned shot already, and thus I did.

Oh, the irony!

So now I am sitting here, typing this in a haze. I know I should use the time to study, being that I slept all day. I am having a hard time being productive, and am starting to feel hot again, wondering if I am about to break another fever. Blah!