The Horrible Holiday Illness

I wasn't too concerned about not getting as much done as I'd wanted while I was on vacation because I figured I'd have the majority of New Years Eve and all of New Year's day available to take care of whatever I couldn't get done while I was up at Bear Lake. Well when last we left our "hero" I had really bad chills. Well I did in fact make it home where I immediately took 800 mg of ibuprofen, cranked the electric blanket up to max and collapsed. Things are hazy but as I recall I was in bed for basically the next 18 hours (really horrible "sick dreams", you ever have those?). New Years day I woke up pretty early but only because my back couldn't take being in bed for any longer. The fever and chills continued for the rest of New Year's Day and I spent most of the day wrapped head to toe in blankets, that is until the fever broke and then I would immediately throw everything off and break out in heavy sweating.

Other than the fever and chills I had body aches, a horrible chest cold, coughing, a runny nose and generally a pretty grumpy disposition. By the 2nd I thought the worst was over. As it turns out I had just reached the "manageable with huge amounts of drugs stage". Which allowed me to actually progress from spending most of my time in bed to spending most of my time in a recliner in front of the TV. The good part was this gave me the opportunity to watch the Sugar Bowl. Where the boys from my Alma Mater made Alabama look like 2nd tier pretenders rather than #1 team in the nation for much of the season. (I was happy to see that Utah ended up at #2 on the final AP poll of the season.)

I gradually improved over the weekend. The aches went away and I slowly weaned myself off the 3200 mg of ibuprofen I'd been taking every day. The rate of improvement slowed down over the course of last week and I still have a cold. Though my chest/lungs are vastly improved. I sneezed five times in quick succession this morning, if my lungs had been in as bad a shape as they were a week ago five sneezes might have ended me. I took until Thursday of last week before I was in the office for any significant amount of time. But as of this week I think I'm back to fighting strength. Of course I've got a ton of stuff to catch up on, which is really the most annoying thing about being sick, but I'm optimistic that I should be caught by April, May at the latest.

The tubes are lovely, dark and deep./But I have promises to keep,/And piles to sort before I sleep,/And piles to sort before I sleep.