Flu

I caught the flu two Saturdays ago. Dear god, what a curse.

The weakness, the coughing, the gelatin scum constantly creeping from my lungs, interfering with every vital process: sleep, breath itself. There are other indignities and incapacities I can abide, but oh, how I hate being sick.

I don't mind the fever itself so much, or at least the temperature sensation of it. For the first half of my ten-day (I'm on the ninth day now, or so, and it feels like I'm almost done) ordeal, I would roast and sweat like, well, a fevered animal. And I rather enjoyed the heated feeling. It felt oddly like I was cold, but if I wrapped up and stayed insulated, my body heat would rage gloriously and I felt like I was cooking nicely from the inside out, and I reveled in it. It was one symptom I was thankful not to suffer too badly from. I read somewhere that a fever is part of your body's attempt to fight the virus by cooking it, and I like the idea.

At about the halfway point, heat turned to cold, and even though I felt the damned gnawing chill I would still sweat profusely through my clothing, pillow, blanket, mattress. At one point, struggling to find a calm position that didn't feel like I was actively daring my lungs to spawn wracking spasms of coughing fits, I turned face-down to the bed, and smelled the beginnings of a moldy presence in my nostrils, the effect of a constant warm, moist presence without respite of sunlight and ventilation for days on end. Finding new ways to disgust and repel yourself (and an inability to correct them until you are better) are added to the list of curses.

It's the weakness that bothers me as much as anything; the robbing from you the better parts of yourself. Stripped of your inability to handle even the merest challenges, lucky to surmount the run-of-the-mill hurdles like daily hygiene and household duties, you lose the part of your identity that proves worth to you and others.  By the end of the week, I had to put garbage cans out for pick-up, and marching resignedly at 6:00 a.m. to the curb with two rollaway bins I found myself losing a crucial bit of my sense of humor. By the time i was back in the house I hated everyone for leaving it for me to do, and in a fit of impotent impatience I managed to clumsily smash a glass in the kitchen, giving myself another unwanted task to finish before preparing for work. During that clean-up, I broke a plate on the floor. Oh, how I wished I could just give up there and then.

The fever and weakness feel surely to go hand-in-hand, and I have learned to become suspicious of the glimmers of hope when they pretend to waver. In the past I have embraced the first glimmers of energy and become more active, only to have the illness return with vengeance and place what feels like an additional tax of severity and duration upon me for daring to celebrate too early.

Friday saw me visit a doctor and secure an antibiotic prescription. Without this luxury of modern medicine, I don't know how or when I would have come out of it. It certainly didn't feel like I was about to bounce back, as I expected I would have normally done, up to now. I really started to fear for my health (hypochondriac tendencies or no). While the fever felt it was beginning to naturally wane, Friday morning took a brief but surprising downturn and felt like one of those things that would just kill off old people and children and others of weak immunity that the news always mentions off-handedly.

Today, I am feeling better, but still weak. I can still regularly cough myself into a brief headache, but I can feel that I am stronger and less infected with the buffet of maladies I am hosting. I am on the penultimate day of my six-day prescription antibiotic, and I am still affected enough that I wonder if tomorrow's final dose will be enough.

My appetite and energy are feebly beginning to return. There is a silver lining to the cloud of cold and flu, where the downtime provides a break from bad habits; I simply don't have the appetite for them, nor the energy to embrace or enjoy them. Junk food, overeating, alcohol are the main players I speak of. I've eaten little during this ill period. While I'd hoped for some weight loss as a result, there has been none. Being bedridden lowers the other side of the register as well, so with no output, the lesser input is only balanced, not a net improvement. Still, I hope to apply enough will to hesitate when resuming these habits, and maybe secure some benefit from this dreary and hated term. Last night's post-dinner ice cream cone bodes that I have my work cut out for me, but there were several instances where it occurred to me to "reward" myself with sweet treats, and I abstained. These are the components of improvement.

I am not helped in this regard by the fact that the past ten days have been almost completely without pleasure or respite. While suffering has been full enough, I am mindful it could have been worse and I try to retain some bit of gratitude to the fore. Still, an extended existence without any highs, pleasant experiences whatsoever, taxes the mind and spirit. As noted before, I started down the road of bitterness about five days in, becoming angry at my little plight, and reveling in it maybe a little more than I should. I'll be glad to see this particular black cloud blow away.

I am sad and ashamed that I have passed the illness on to Michelle. I normally shouldn't be ashamed of a biological function beyond my control, but there was a moment we could have been more conservative in our actions, and Sunday showed proof that we should have waited. She is now inheriting my laundry list of woes, and at least I have the promise of improved vigor with which to care for her, as she did me. I feel badly, not just from guilt, but of empathy. She is at her new job and cannot quite as easily call in sick.

There have been times when she will shake off an illness of mine more quickly and easily than I did; I hope that is the case here. I hate myself for my role in infecting her. All I can do is resolve to take the best care of her that I can.