Near Death

On March 12th I woke up feeling fine. On my way to the gym later in the morning, I noticed my head felt stuffy but shrugged it off. When I got home I couldn't ignore the sick feeling that was rapidly overtaking me. Despite the sense of impending doom (which by the way is a real medical symptom, but is used as hyperbole here), I embraced social opportunity that afternoon with some coworkers. I got home around 7pm (we party hard around here...) and was febrile. So began one of the longer lasting bouts of sickness I've endured in quite some time. A wicked bad sore throat and fever initially made me think strep, but I hate doctors so I decided to wait it out. This suspicion was thwarted by the nasal congestion and ...drainage that ensued a few days later. One of the more exciting parts was not being able to sleep. I never have trouble sleeping so this was problematic. As I would fall asleep I would start to feel like I couldn't breathe! I had mini dreams that I was drowning-- not conducive to peaceful sleep (unless its the eternal sleep and I'm not interested in that). I called in sick to work Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. On Wednesday I had lost my voice COMPLETELY. Talking on the phone is quite a challenge when you can't speak! On Friday afternoon my mom came up to make sure I wasn't actually dying. It was good to have her here both for company and her help. I was hoping by the time she got here I would be well on my way to cured, but that was not the case. I slept a LOT which was needed because the week before had robbed me of precious REM. I resorted to drugging myself with Nyquill. That stuff takes awhile to get out of my system. I was quite the drugged up hostess. Regardless, I enjoyed her visit and am grateful for the proximity that allows such last minute visits. I went to work last night feeling mostly better-- just a lingering cough. The air in the hospital is SO DRY-- so I came home this morning with a sore throat, which often happens after staying up all night at work even if I haven't been sick before hand. I'm trying to kick the Nyquill so I only got about 4 hours of sleep today (still a significant improvement from pre-Nyquill days). I'm supposed to work Wednesday and Thursday night, too, so hopefully I feel a little better then. I used up all of my sick time... and then some. Apparently it accrues like vacation time... the more hours you work the more sick time hours you get. I had accrued 24 (2 shifts), but I definitely called in three. I think that just means I take a no pay for one of them... but I'm not sure. Hope I didn't break any big rules with that one... fact of the matter is I couldn't have worked despite the lack of available sick time. We'll see! So eleven days later, I'm pretty much better... just a sore throat and some obnoxious cough lingering.
I didn't participate in the 5k run I signed up for this weekend, but I did go get the shirt. I'm such a poser. I haven't run in 11 days. I was slowly (...very slowly) making my comeback, so this is a significant setback. I swear, if it's not one thing, it's another.