In my life, I've had any number of lost weekends. You know the ones where on Monday morning you get up and say to yourself I don't really have a clear picture of what happened over the last couple of days, but at least I don't have any broken bones and I'm not in jail. The ones where you sit there and try to piece the flashes of memory into a coherent time line. This past weekend was one of those. Sadly there was no debauchery to report, I was laid up hard by something that I can only describe as the viral equivalent of a Mac Truck.
I have what some would call a maddening inability to sleep more than about eight hours in a day. Every once in a while I will go over that, but on most mornings the internal alarm goes off after about seven hours of sleep and I have to get out of bed. This weekend is the shining exception that proves the rule. I think I must have slept an extra 20 hours over the weekend. Sadly it was not restful sleep. It was that sweaty fitful sleep you get when your body is throwing hay makers at some foreign invader.
Actually the last 10 days have not been banner ones for my immune system. I suspect it all started sometime early last week when my allergies went haywire. I had an attack so bad that my eyes swelled up and were so irritated that it looked like I'd been on the loosing end of a fist fight. Just as I was getting my allergies back under control with the magic cocktail of zyrtec/patenol/flonase I started to develop a cough. I discounted the cough and the accompanying aches and general feeling of malaise as the after effects of the conniption my body was throwing over the tree pollen that has kicked up lately.
Sadly it was not. Just as I got the allergies under control and my eyes no longer looked like they'd been borrowed from a stoner zombie in a dust storm, the fever hit. Sometime Saturday morning, I remember saying to myself, I hope this doesn't get any worse. Oh my was I in for a surprise Sweats, fever, body aches, a headache, coughing fits, sore throat and a general feeling of exhaustion.
It is now late Monday evening and here is what I know. I wasn't asleep the whole time. In fact I was awake for much of it. I managed to finish The Golden Compass. Yes. Now I understand why Catholics are pissed. I managed to make two trips to Sonic. For some reason the ice just sounded good. I ate an entire box of pop sickles in a day. Probably the best part of the whole ordeal was managing to not cough long enough for my daughter to fall asleep next to me. Until now I'd never have considered holding her while I slept or sleeping next to her, for fear of rolling over onto her tiny little body and smothering her. She is big enough now that there is no way that could happen. Watching her sleep there next to me was heart wrenching in a good way. After watching her sleep for about twenty minutes I picked her up and put her in her own bed and managed to get some very restful sleep myself.
I appear to be over the main effects of whatever I had and am now trying to get over the longer lasting effects. Right now the worst of which are a horrible cough and a throat so sore that I'm currently coughing up blood. I feel so happy to be alive.
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