Scenes from swine flu

Tuesday ... teeny cough. Seems harmless. Figure due to vocal cord damage caused by massive screaming fits two days prior at game.

Wednesday ... cough not so teeny, but feel fine. Pleasant lunch at favorite coffee shop. Cough becomes grosser as day progresses. Fall asleep before the State of the Union and have a really weird night ... freezing in bed even though under down comforter and atop down featherbed topper.

Thursday ... Wake up. Cough, cough, cough. Cough. Check to see if lungs still in chest because it doesn't feel like it. Decide to take temperature. 101.6. Call in sick and go back to bed. Wake up about 11:30. Call mother, act pathetic. (Go-to response to being sick.) Mother strongly advises calling doctor due to badness of cough. Think to self, I don't need no stinking doctor. But I call anyway, and they squeeze me in later that afternoon.

Stop off at the lab first for a flu swab, where a tech inserts giant q-tips so far up my nostrils that she touches my brain. I decide on the spot I might never get over the painful indignity of that brief but heinous moment. Sit in waiting room, attempt to read A Confederacy of Dunces. Nurse takes temperature, which is now 103. Try to remain seated on bed while waiting for doctor but eventually decide to lie down and take a little nap. Fall fast asleep with hand over eyes to block the florescent light. Doctor arrives and asks me for some cough details about which I will spare you, but when I answer, she nods knowingly and sincerely says, "I'm so sorry." She pulls my flu swab results and says, "Yep! Positive for Influenza A, we're looking at swine flu!" Tells me repeatedly not to go near small children and that I very possibly caught it at the game. Prescribes some meds and sends me on my way.

I go to the pharmacy, where I stand around feeling really horrible and wondering if I am fit to be in public in this condition and thinking as CVS spins around me that it is the most terrible, frightening place on earth. Finally the meds are ready and I take to the couch, where I lie staring at the ceiling and thinking, "I am going to die from this." I think fever makes you crazy. Like, legitimately insane. I remember talking to my friends briefly on the phone and saying things like, "My eyelids hurt." Everything hurts. My gums. I wonder if maybe I got hit by a car and no one told me. I think I tell my mom that I feel like someone has beaten me with a bag of bricks.

(Let me just go ahead and say that Thursday was so dreadful that I would not wish this illness on my worst enemy and encourage you to get that swine flu shot! I mean it! I realize that my life was not actually in danger, but I was convinced otherwise by the cough that went down to the bottom of my lungs and turned them inside out, the blinding headache, and the alarming body aches, a trifecta of suffering not experienced since I had to leave spring break early senior year of high school after coming down with mono. This was as bad as mono. Which, for me, was as bad as it had ever been. No. Just ... no. Again: I do have perspective and realize there are much worse problems to have in life! I am just saying that I truly thought I was never going to be able to get off that couch. I couldn't sleep because everything was so sore that I'd have to switch positions and switching positions hurt. My friend had her baby Wednesday night, and I became despondent that I would never be well enough to meet her. I thought, she will grow into old age and I will never get to see her beautiful face. It truly seemed that dire. Like I said, fever. Ridiculous.)

The next few days are a feverish blur. I dream that I shoot a kitten involved in a murder plot because neither Agents Walker nor Casey from Chuck can be found to advise me about a better option. I watch a lot of TV. Even for me. The whole BBC version of The Office. Well over half of the entirety of Arrested Development, which for reasons that escape me I have never watched before, but which is delivered by my brother with the instructions, "It is important that you watch this." He is so right: nothing will ever be the same. General Hospital, where I get irrationally attached to a character named Dante and righteously offended about the awfulness of Sonny Corinthos. Caprica, which I decide I hate. The first eight episodes of thirtysomething season two, which have held up nicely, shoulder pads notwithstanding. A few season four episodes of Friday Night Lights that I needed to catch up on. (Riggins!)

There is a lot of lying around and drifting in and out of consciousness. If I never see another packet of Lipton cup-a-soup it will be too soon. I know things have reached a low point when my dog is licking off the robe I am wearing at the time soup that I'd spilled on it the day before and I just sit there and let her lick it. High point: Seeing Jon Hamm & Michael Buble together on screen, which feels at the time like the best thing that has ever happened to me. Other high points: my mom bringing me groceries. My dad bringing me iced coffee. My co-worker bringing me butternut squash soup with fancy croutons and a nice card from the group and Sprite and M&Ms. Really these people just drop the stuff off at the door and run away because no one wants to come inside. Not that I blame them. One of my co-workers calls me to check on me and says, "How did this happen? You practically drink hand sanitizer." It is so true. But I did hug a lot of strangers at the game. And that Vikings fan did spill his drink on my head. And I did drink some million dollar cups of Superdome draft beer that had probably been prepared by some hands of questionable cleanliness. Does it matter at this point? No.

Fast forward until today, a week since teeny cough started, and I went back to work for a half-day, if only to get away from my animals and see some human faces, after not leaving the house for what felt like a million days, but was in reality only like five. Running: Derailed. So totally derailed. Can't imagine having stamina to do a short run this coming weekend, let alone a long run. But I guess I have to try. If I don't really get up to speed on training, I might just have to shrug and embrace the notion of just finishing. But I hope to build up again and be able to run the whole thing with pride. Might be tricky considering it's so soon and I'm only up to eight miles, but I want to try.

Meanwhile, my friend started a new blog where she writes about cooking and music, which I think is a fantastic idea. And now I must go and watch some craziness go down on the season premiere of Lost.