Despite appearances, I am alive — I simply feel like death warmed over. (Okay, I look like it, too.) But having spent most of the past five days in bed with what the doctor is guessing was swine flu, I’m fine with looking like crap.

It started Wednesday night with aches and pains that weren’t justified by my day’s activities, which had consisted of traveling between the laptop and coffee machine in my office, and the occasional detour to the bathroom.

Thursday morning it took me three minutes to turn off my alarm clock, not because I was sleeping so soundly (I wasn’t), but because I couldn’t stop coughing long enough to find the damned thing. Although the Big-Eyed Boy and the Venomous Hubby have immune systems stronger than kryptonite, I’m constantly picking up some bug or another they’ve brought home. So, I figured I was just coming down with a cold.

It couldn’t be swine flu, right, because then I’d be dying. Isn’t that what all the hype was about? The warnings of a lethal pandemic? The rallying cry for the immediate and expensive production of a vaccine that all school age children are going to be jabbed with for their own protection? The reason everyone’s walking around with snot- and phlegm-encrusted sleeves rather than using their hands the way God intended?

Then the fever struck, followed by chills, then the fever again — lather, rinse, repeat until I’m sprawled out in bed awash in the stench of my own juices. (And, if you’ve had this stuff, you know that I mean both stench and juices.)

Since I have no memory whatsoever of Friday, you cannot convince me there actually was one.

Saturday, I started making deals with God. Please, just let me feel better. I’ll be a nun. I’ll be a priest. Hell, I’ll turn Baptist if that’s what it takes. Just. Make. It. Stop. The Venomous Hubby wisely decided to take the Big-Eyed Boy and spend the night at our friend Tony’s, rather than risk coming down with it.

At some point in there, I decided to call my doctor. Her response? “Sounds like Swine Flu.” But since it had been over two days since I started showing the first symptoms, Tamiflu or whatever would be of no help. “Drink plenty of liquids, stay in bed, and try not to give it to anyone else.” Nice. I’m glad to know she got her money’s worth out of that medical degree.

I thought I felt better Sunday morning, at least in comparison to how I’d felt for the past three days. I got out of bed, took a quick shower and made myself some soup in the kitchen. Bad idea. Bad, bad, bad idea. So let me just publicly thank the Venomous Hubby for cleaning up what probably looked and smelled like the aftermath of a bad frat party. (We’re even for those skidmarks now, at least for a while, hon.)

Back to bed I went, and I stayed there again until yesterday afternoon when there was just no choice but to force myself to shower, dress in something other than pajamas, and go get my kid from school. Waiting in my van for the kids to get out, I’d cut my engine and unrolled my windows in the hope the 80F temps would stop my teeth-rattling chills. No such luck, and on top of it I was coughing and sneezing almost non-stop. That might be why all of the other mommies ahead of me in line glared at me in their rear view mirrors and rolled their engines up. Yes, I realize now that I could’ve been spreading the pig flu with every cough and sneeze. No, my brain wasn’t wrapping itself around that concept at the time. So, ladies, I’m sorry.

The good news is that my fever finally broke around midnight last night. The bad news is that it was immediately replaced by the hot flashes that have been plaguing me for months now. But that’s fine. I don’t mind them nearly so much anymore, especially now that my body’s stopped trying to liquefy itself through every opening imaginable. I’ve even managed to take a shower, put on makeup and brush my teeth. Oh, frabjulous day!

And now, just to get my revenge, I’m going to go fix me some bacon. Here, Piggy, Piggy.

Tuesday, September 15th, 2009, 9:19 am   |   My Venomous Life  |  RSS feed Comments and pings are currently closed.

Tags: flu swine flu