a little better

I can't remember ever having been this sick.

Is that the correct tense? What I mean to imply is that I have just passed through a period of being sicker than I can remember. Or, to put it another way: if my memory isn't failing me, I have never been as sick as I was during the last few days.

Right this moment, I'm not feeling too bad...no fever, no nausea, no headache. Even my last visit to the bathroom was relatively normal in tone and texture :)

I'm still coughing pretty regularly, and with enough force to have pulled a muscle or something in my lower abdomen. It was still a little difficult to sleep last night, but there's no doubt that I got the closest thing to a good night's sleep that I'd had since...last Friday, maybe? I've lost track of time a little bit, it's all been a haze.

I remember feeling just slightly under the weather for some time, a little bit of a cough and sneezing coming back to me every once in a while, the dwindling fallout from the minor flu or cold that I'd come down with around the holidays. That was a few days of decreased productivity; if I'd been working, I might have toyed with the idea of calling in sick but secretly known that I could manage if I had to.

However, this think that hit me last week was something else...this was the kind of sick that nobody can function with. When you hear about the fabled worker who has never missed a day in 30 years (or whatever), well, that person just never got sick like this...because there's no level of productivity that wouldn't be adversely affected. I couldn't have driven to work, I couldn't have walked to the bottom of my driveway to catch a ride to work. When this was at its worst, I couldn't pick up the remote control to change the channels on the television set.

The worst was when the combination of fever, nausea, and heavy fatigue came down on me...all I could do was sit perfectly still, clenching random muscles just because it seemed like the thing to do. I spent hours with one taut arm wrapped around the opposite shoulder, or one white-knuckled finger jabbed into a tender spot in my jawline. The chills would come and I would wrap up in everything that I could find...and an hour later, be drenched in stinking sweat as the fever peaked. Those are the times when you can't help but wonder if this is really it, if these are the last chances you get to look around you. I haven't been to a doctor yet, and I figure that I've got at least a little reason to half-dread what he might say. It's not totally out of the question that it could be something that I'm not ready for.

It was bad enough to be completely conscious during these spells, but they also came over me while I was trying to sleep. The entire nights would take on a surreal quality, and I had the sense that I was carrying on a rambling discussion with myself about various topics, always waking up when it was time to respond or come to a major conclusion. The pillow beneath my face would be soaking wet or else I'd be struggling to bury myself in the heat of the covers...and everything outside my body so silent, so dark. I could have whispered a goodbye and not even troubled the molecules in the air.

Oh yeah, because I can't talk...which is a little annoying. My voice comes out in a weird little croak, about every third syllable. I've never had laryngitis, but I assume this is what it is like. I sound somewhat similar to Selma from "Night Court", if that's any help. I figure that I must've just blown out my vocal cords from coughing, because oddly enough my throat doesn't hurt at all. It's not sore or strained; no problem swallowing, just a messed-up voice.

Right now I can type on this keyboard, which is a plus. If I need to go upstairs to check the thermostat, I'll have to work up my resolve and give myself plenty of time. I'm about to heat up a can of soup, and that is about the biggest project of the early afternoon.

Later on, however, I will be going to take a test. I can't get out of it. If I get the job, my money worries will be significantly reduced (i.e., for the first time in a few years, I may actually be making enough to pay my bills and debts). I figure, it's just a written test and my brain is working okay. I'll load up on coffee and take some cough drops, some tissues, and a notepad in case anyone asks me any questions. If there are later repercussions, relapses, so be it...it's better to try, even with the cards stacked against you.