Thursday, December 4, 2008

Sick Day

I've been battling a chest infection for nine days now. Coughing, mucus, periodic dizziness, fatigue. Nothing seems to help. Eating right, plenty of fluids, plenty of bed rest, laying off the alcohol over the weekend. I think I'm on the upswing, when suddenly my symptoms worsen. The only bright spot is that I don't seem to have infected my family.

They sent me home from work today.

Wow. That's never happened to me. I felt so incredibly guilty (thank you mom!). But I finished my pressing tasks and headed out the door by 10:30. I surrendered and went to the pharmacy and bought Robitussin syrup. Took some when I got home; it seemed to alleviate my cough (my sides actually ache and my throat is bloody raw from a week-and-a-half of throat-clearing involuntary coughing). Wife left for work, after ordering me to do no work (but the backyard still needs raking!).

I got into sweats and an old t-shirt, made myself some manhattan clam chowder, watched the best parts of Borat on DVD. I took a long, hot bath, and finished reading The Lovers. I'll review it tomorrow - it's worth it. Then, I decided to lay down for a little bit and wound up sleeping two hours. I never used to be able to nap during the day, but the older I get, the more my body seems in favor of it. I'm starting to enjoy that weird half-asleep feeling of panic when you come out of delta and are not sure what time it is, who you are, why you're sleeping or what you should be doing. That happened twenty minutes ago.

I do feel better. Hopefully this will lead to better productivity, but, yes, I know, my body's telling me to take better care of it.

Message received.

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