Sick.

Last Wednesday I went to my hometown of South Plainfield NJ to visit my friend Mike, who I haven't seen in 17 years or so. I left my house at 5 am and planned on leaving SP at 5 pm, White Castle dinner in tow. Unfortunately it didn't happen that way.

I woke up that morning with a bit of a sore throat, which I attributed to the windows being open. It has been very cool overnight for the last few weeks, and I like having the windows open at night. I thought nothing of it. I got to SP around 8 and picked up Mike, and we went to a diner for breakfast and talked for a long time. We then drove around town for awhile, noting all the changes since the last time I was there. Then we made it out to Middlesex Mall, which is no longer the mall that I grew up going to. It's just a few large department stores now. It was then that I started to feel sick. I got a bad case of the chills and was actually shaking at one point, but I was hoping that it would go away. We went to lunch, but I couldn't eat anything, so I decided that I should go home. I didn't want to leave so early, but I was feeling very bad, and I didn't know why. Mike is a Doctor, so he gave me some advice before I left, which I followed once I got home.

On my way home I called my co-worker Liz and asked her if it would be okay if I called out on Thursday, which is her day off. I have to tell you how significant this is. I hadn't called Sarah yet to tell her that I was sick and coming home early. She is usually the one to make me stay home, and she does not always succeed, because I am very stubborn about going to work. My work ethic is pretty intense: I will go to work no matter what, I don't always ask for help when I need it, and I put everyone else at work before me. I have gone to work 3 times while passing a kidney stone; I just kept my fingers crossed on the ride to work, took a Percocet when I got there, did my job, and left when the Percocet wore off. So by intense, I guess I mean stupid.

Liz said it wasn't a problem (she's Amish, which gives her an intense work ethic also), so I stayed home on Thursday. My fever was still pretty high, despite following what Mike said, so I also called out for Friday. When I get really sick like this, it takes me awhile to get over it, but I was feeling much better on Friday. My fever seemed to be gone, but I was kind of weak and tired, and my eyes were all red and watering. But I felt like I had to go back to work, so I went in on Saturday. My eyes were sealed shut with goo when I woke up, so I thought that I had pink eye in both eyes. It didn't look like the pink eye I had when I was a kid, but I looked it up online, and that's what was happening with my eyes. It's too late for me to call out at midnight, so I had to go in anyway. Liz set me up real well so I didn't have to do much, I left a lot of it to do on Monday.

Sunday was probably the worst day; my eyes were full of goo and I couldn't see well, I was developing a cough, and I could not sleep more than two hours at a time. I have to use a CPAP when I sleep, and it has a mask that covers my nose so I can breathe at night. I would wake up soon after I went to sleep with the mask full of goo, so I would go downstairs and try to sleep there. Not being able to sleep when you're tired  and really sick absolutely sucks. I feel terrible for all of you insomniacs out there.

I called out again on Monday, and I made a Dr. appointment, which I should have done on Friday, but I am stupid. The Dr. said that I had one of the viruses that had been going around (probably not the swine flu, he said), and that I may have been developing bronchitis. So he gave me an antibiotic and drops for my eyes, and told me that I could go back to work on Thursday. I feel very bad for Liz because she has to do all this stuff by herself, but there's no way I would get anything done if I went in.

I am hoping to get some sleep tonight (I tried this afternoon with the CPAP, but I woke up with a coughing fit after a few hours) and tomorrow also. I will probably go in a little early on Thursday, just in case I am a little slow. I'm a bit worried though, I haven't been out for so many consecutive days since 1994 when I had a tonsillectomy. And I don't get paid sick time at work, so I am going to have to use 4 vacation days for this. I still have over a week, so it works out okay.

Wow, so now you know in intimate detail all about my various secretions. Congratulations!