Being sick

So after a quick toast to the end of the week (at a disreputable local establishment of course) I headed home for an evening of R'n'R. What could be better? The ride was fine, with a good strong tailwind, and supper was a nice egg frittata. The first sign that something was up was my lack of appetite for a tasty beverage to accompany my evening repast. You see, that's a wonderful way to usher in a relaxed evening, yet I had no yen for it. Strange. 

After said supper, a low ache developed around my lower back, almost like I'd had too much coffee and too few bathroom breaks and my kidneys were crying for mercy. But all of this, other than the ache, was not the case. Still I sallied forth to complete a small task (to right the wrongs done by winter and frost heaves to the back patio table which, through its attachment to the ground via the post that holds up the canopy pieces for the hops plant to vine itself around ... you probably don't get the picture ..., had become lifted and tilted). Throughout this job my patience shortened, and the aches lengthened. And by the time I had the table too far apart to just stop the job, I knew that a flu of some sort had taken hold of me, and that I was going to be laid up in a short time.

I told myself to focus, though my head was starting to spin and my knees to wobble, and I finished the job. I think. Then (and this is about one and a half hours after supper) I decide to slip into town to pick up a movie to help me in sickly stupor. That morbid ache is, at this point in time, travelling throughout my body. My mouth is gumming up. I have to tell myself to do things. Keep the truck on the road. Look at the road. Turn the signal lever up. Turn right. Slow down for town. And so on. I make it to the movie store and begin perusing the shelves. Of course I meet former and current students. I chat. I warn them that I'm sick, or I think I am. They laugh. They've known it all along. They humour me. We exchange movie recommendations. I can't begin to make a choice. I finally pick up Crazy Heart, not thinking that watching Jeff Bridges play a drunk who is mostly sick and puking throughout the movie, may not help me (though in fact it was strangely cathartic!). I apologize a few times to young Carson (I'm sure he was shaking his head as I left) and head back to the truck. 

More deep breathing and slow incantations of instructions to hands and arms and legs and brain and I make it home. Park the truck. Walk inside with the movie. Find my laptop and the power supply. Walk with it into the bedroom. Undress (I'll spare you the salacious details) and, already shivering, set up the movie, get it playing, and then lie down beside it, cocooning like a fetus.

I was able to get through the movie. I'm glad Bad got sober, and I'm pretty sure that if my real name was Otis and I started using it again, I'd sober up too - if, indeed, I needed sobering up, but it wasn't the best movie I've ever seen, nor was it Jeff Bridges best performance. I still like him though, and I'm always surprized by Colin Farrell, and Maggie Gyllenhaal can do no wrong, if you ask me. All this did not alter the fact that I was now completely, utterly sick, in a way that no capsule could reasonably help me. (I was offered a T3 by M, but I knew I didn't need to be more deluded.) 

I stayed in bed for the whole night. Then I stayed in bed until about 2:30 PM on Saturday. I was still feeling very bad, but in a "maybe if I change places I'll feel different" sort of way, I got up and lurched to the couch to watch some TV. I also had my first drink of water since supper the night before. I slept on the couch, with the TV on, till about 4:30 PM and then, awaking in a sweat and even more pain because my neck was cricked in the corner by the armrest, I stumbled back to bed to sweat out the last (hopefully) mighty spasms of fever. Between 5 and 9 PM the fever waved in and out like a Lake Manitoba deluge and I sweated and shivered and moaned and muttered (you don't want to know). About half way through the third period, when the Canucks tied the game, I was able to focus on the screen (I'd had the energy to stream the game on my laptop of course) and not wince and turn away because of the headache pain.

Then I made an odd decision (even for me! I know!). When I was convinced the fever had broken, I got up, found the Tylenol, got a glass of water, and took two capsules. My logic? To make sure I could sleep. It worked. I had a good night. When I woke up I still had a bit of that gummy mouth feeling but I had enough appetite for toast and coffee. I was through the worst. 

None of this, of course, can make up for the day I've lost. I might try to mark it as a full rest day, but I think it'll simply remain as a 24 hour hole in the timeline of my existence. Except, of course, for the record that this blog will provide for time immemorial, or as long as the internet gods allow. 

Amen?!