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Thursday, February 01, 2007

Marinating in Mucus

The virus that I mistakenly dubbed an "incidental bug" has taken offense to such a title and has retaliated by turning into a full-blown-booger-disaster.

After a pretty much sleepless night, I got up this morning and whined that I didn't want to go to work, yet what did I do? I showered and got ready for work. On my way in to class, I was thinking how ridiculous this was: Snot kept creeping out my nose, I was hacking away, my eyes were itching and watery, I felt achy and tired all over, and yet I was on my way into work. I can trace such ridiculousness back to childhood when my mom felt that the only reasons to stay home from school were bleeding and barfing; if you weren't doing one of either, you were going to school. Thus, I grew into an adult who believed the same thing, and I have trudged to work and school through all kinds of sickness, reluctant to throw in the hat and stay at home.

So, I got to school ready to slog through a miserable day, but then as I stood at the copier making copies of some work to do in class, I thought : "Jess, this is silly; go home." So, I met with my first class, collected their papers and sent them on their way (they were all to happy to do so), and then I cancelled the day's remaining classes. I packed up my stuff and headed home. On the way, I stopped off at Walgreens and picked up some cold medicine (first, I stared at the dizzying array of medicinal choices -- did I want something non-drowsy or something to induce sleep? I didn't want either: the non-drowsy stuff had caffeine in it, and I'm not at home for the day so I can lay in bed with my heart racing; and the sleep inducing stuff has a narcotic in it, and I didn't come home for the day in order to slip into a drug-induced coma. In the end, I chose a generic cold medicine that just promised to reduce my fever and decongest me), and now that I'm drugged up and in my favorite sweat pants and t-shirt, I am ready for the healing to begin.

I am not bleeding and I am not barfing, but I am sick, and I deserve to be at home in order to get better.

So, my first order of business is to get into bed with my book, let the cold medicine work its magic, and maybe drift off to sleep for awhile. Perhaps, a fairy godmother (or my kind husband who may read this post shortly) will bring me some Diet Sprite later today -- I think that will cure me.

3 comments:

teacherwoman said...

I hope you are feeling better soon! Make the most of your time to rest! Fluids and rest!

mouse said...

we had this staff retreat thing a while back and they talked about how staff members practice too much "presentee-ism," where they come to work sick and pass germs around and then everyone gets sick. and the subsequent drop in productivity that occurs as a result.

you made the right choice.

mouse said...

hope you're feeling better soon, by the way!

(i'm such an idiot for forgetting to include that!)