Sick Again

For the first time I can recall, I got the flu.  I’ve had fevers and colds in the past, but never the dreaded combination of the two. 

 Fever.  High temperature – something from 99 to 101.  When I was very young, I had a fever so high I became delirious.  That was an unpleasant experience: a nightmare which continued with your eyes open when you were wide awake, from which there was no escape.  From then on the Universal Pictures logo would make me nervous. 

            Since then, I’ve never had a fever go that high, and the closest to delirium I’d get would be a greenish tinge to everything, even with my lenses out.  I have noticed that Excedrin Migraine makes a dramatic difference, dropping the temperature by 2 degrees and making me feel much more normal.

            Other unpleasant aspects are a general feeling of weakness and fatigue, as if every single cell in your body was at half strength, and a deep chill, resulting in intense shivering, despite being inside with the heat on and wrapped in warm clothing.

            Finally, there is the “same dream over and over again” deal, hardly being able to sleep as I drench the bed soaking wet in sweat, until the fever finally peaks and breaks.  Again, not particularly pleasant.

 Cold.  A cold usually starts out with a sore throat, which is easily remedied with aspirin or Tylenol.  Later comes stuffy nose, coughing, then runny nose, with sneezing thrown in.  It tends to last a week or two.  Unlike a fever, which gives an overall impression of “out of it, on another planet”, a psychological as well as physiological impact, a cold merely seems to be a physical inconvenience.

 A cold, to me, is mostly a nuisance, and won’t keep me from work, from play, from going out and about.  I might not work as hard at the gym as I otherwise would, but it’s not a big deal.  A fever, though, may keep me at home for the first day or so until it begins to taper off.  Illnesses always seem to hit strong and hard, yet taper off in severity gradually.

 What to do?  Well, one thing I don’t do is go to the ER or even urgent care.  Instead, I stay home and self-medicate on aspirin or whatever.  I really hate forced idleness; staying in bed sick is not my natural inclination.  But if I’m stuck at home, I’ll find something to do.  This time around I watched all of “Life on Mars” on DVD, all 4 discs of the single season in the US.  Years ago I had the rare occasion where I was both snowed in AND had a fever, plus I had just borrowed the extended versions of Lord of the Rings on DVD – a LOTR marathon for the remarkably rare opportunity where you can watch 10 hours of hobbits nonstop.  Or another time, I had purchased 3 Tom Clancy books, which I had never read, by some strange coincidence the day before I was struck down with a fever.