snurgle

    I am sick. I have Influenza-B. Tuesday afternoon, I coughed several times, seemingly for no reason. By Tuesday night, my head hurt like crazy (but different from migraine-ville) and I was coughing...up...stuff.
    Wednesday, I stayed home from work. Coughed a lot, little jellyfish of lung goo. More headache. Fever around 100°.
    Thursday, I still felt like boiling pain. Fever 102.9°. I stayed home from work. Knew this was something spectacular - I haven't been really sick in years - so I called the clinic. Managed to get an appointment to see my regular doctor.
    I had an Influenza swab. That's how they can tell quickly whether you've got it or not. Brace yourself: it's not a swab of your cheek, or your tonsils.
    It is a swab of your frontal lobe.
    Well, maybe not, but that's what it felt like. Up the nostril goes the wooden Q-Tip, and 30 seconds later the searing pain ends and the eyes start watering and the blood floods from the nose.
    And I thought the tattoos hurt!
    A few minutes later, I had the facts in black and white: the test for Influenza-B was positive. Because I'd shown up within 48 hours of the onset of symptoms, I was "eligible" for a drug that will shorten the duration of (and perhaps decrease the severity of) symptoms. I also got a prescription for a drug to diminish the desire to cough. That last one is a godsend, because the intensity of the coughing was what seemed to be making it worse. With every cough my brain rattles in my skull, my sinuses pound against my facial bones, and my stomach feels like it's going to burst through my ribs.
    I'm contagious through mid-weekend, which is fine because I look like...um, not good. I'm showering almost obsessively because I have no sense of smell and wouldn't know if I was offensive to the outside world. Also, it just feels good to be warm. Unless, of course, I already am warm. Then it feels good to be cold. Have I mentioned that I've been running a fever? It's "down" to 100.1° at the moment.
    I've been drinking EVERYTHING that I can find to drink. Orange juice. Milk. Water. Tea, hot and cold. Sprite. Squirt. I've been eating soup until I'm starting to think that I am soup. Toast nearly killed me; it felt like steel wool against my throat. Nick, the nitwit, brought cough drops and Vitamin C drops the other night. I think that if I had a sense of taste, those C drops would make me gag. At the moment, they're no more offensive than anything else.
    I would give my left arm for a big bowl of egg drop soup and plates of garlic chicken and pepper steak from the The Garden restaurant. Even better if they put red chile into the chicken--the kind that sane people don't eat but that give a dish a significant kick. I don't usually like spicy food as a rule, but it sounds sooooooo good right now.
    Since I'm contagious (and feel like crap) (and look like crap) I've stayed home since I got back from the doctor's office yesterday. I am VERY sick of being alone. Usually, my own company is fascinating. Right now, I am tired of being with me! Pity the fool who falls into my clutches when I'm safe to talk....