Hello friends, remember me?
I know it’s been a while but allow me to explain my absence. On Wednesday of last week I started to feel very tired and my body very sore. At first i assumed it was one of many signs that I quit smoking cigarettes once and for all, so I finished the last of my pack Wednesday afternoon and vowed never to buy another one. As the day progressed I began to feel worse, not only tired and achy but also chilled to the bone.
Around 9pm on Wednesday night I was so cold that I was shivering. My teeth were actually clattering together and my shoulders were so tight that I had started to get a headache from the pressure. I went to bed bundled in sweatpants, long sleeve T-shirt and a hoodie.
3am – Thursday morning I woke up covered in sweat with a pounding migraine. I drank about four glasses of cold water, started shivering again and promptly went back to sleep under the covers, praying for the warmth of the fever to come back and make the shivering subside.
I spent most of Thursday repeating the above until I finally felt well enough to crawl out of bed and shiver my way to Walgreens. I shuffled though the isles like a zombie in a refrigerator, teeth chattering, making slight involuntary moans as waves of icey-coldness traveled from my feet to the nape of my neck and back again and trying to control the involuntary spasms my body was making thanks to the hiccups that started when I got out of bed. It took me a good fifteen minutes to focus on the wall of medicine and another ten to figure out which one would be best for me. In the end I bought extra strength Tylenol, Motrin and Emergen-C. On my way out of the store I grabbed two bottles of blue Gatorade and held my breath (so as not to hiccup anymore) as the lady behind the counter slowly scanned my items.
Getting back home was maybe the best thing that’s ever happened to me in my entire life. I dragged my package of medicinal-products behind me like a wounded soldier pulling a recently detached limb off the battlefield. I’m pretty sure it took me ten minutes to open the door to the apartment and then once I was inside I had to fight the urge to crawl into bed just long enough to take some of the medicine I’d purchased.
Then sleeeeeeep. The most peaceful sleep you can imagine. I woke up around 6:30pm that night, groggy and unsure of what day or time it was. My phone rang and my buddy Rob announced he was coming over because we had plans to watch the BBC superhero TV show, The Misfits. Rob, being the Saint that he is, arrived about an hour later with soup, Thera-flu and Nyquil. I took the newly acquired meds, drank some of the soup and watched Misfits, barely able to follow the show or enjoy my company thanks to all the various drugs at work in my system fighting off whatever terrible flu-bug had invaded my body. When the show was over i thanked Rob again and crawled back into bed.
I must’ve been exhausted because when I woke up on Friday morning I noticed that I had left the front door unlocked and the lights in the apartment were all turned on. I was feeling a bit better though and a ton of lettering work had come in while I was out of it so I spent most of Friday alternating between computer time and nap time.
Saturday rolled around and I was in a lot better shape, my appetite came back a bit so after sleeping in I dressed myself (still unbelievably cold) and ventured out to Trader Joe’s™ for some food shopping. I returned home and cooked myself a delicious meal of chicken, broccoli and pasta devouring it as if I’d been starving in a Fat Kid camp all summer long and then sat down to finish up one of the lettering projects that had stacked up since Wednesday.
Today, Sunday, I’m happy to report I feel much better (almost 100%) and that my sickness has morphed into a deep cough and a bit of congestion. I haven’t had a cigarette at all and when I do cough I expel a gray/black substance that I can only assume is a bit of the damage I’ve done to my lungs. Sexy, isn’t it?
Okay, all this typing and thinking has all but worn me out. Time to shower, do a bit of exercise and eat some breakfast. Now that I’m back expect a full week of updates and nonsense. Hope you all had a better past few days than I did. Stay well, wash your hands.
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