I can’t remember the last time I actually spent a whole day in bed. I mean, even when the whole household was sick over the summer and I spent a long weekend parenting from the comfort of our pull-out couch, I still had to be up and about to a certain degree because unfortunately you can’t really pause being a parent. With mum over for a few weeks, however, today was as close as one can get to “pausing” short of actually fleeing your home.
I’m also no stranger to ‘flu, but even I was taken aback at how fast and how severe it came on Sunday night and Monday morning. I was actually convinced that the paracetamol was having zero effect… until it wore off. My skin felt like I was touching a live wire and my back ached so much I couldn’t even sit.
I was therefore pleasantly surprised to wake up relatively pain-free this morning, save for my throat, which is trying to tell me that I should stop swallowing swords or crushed glass or whatever else it thinks I’m doing to make it feel the way it does.
Pain-free does not mean well, however. I found myself dozing off and on during the morning, and my energy generally ebbing and flowing throughout the day. I sat up with my mum for dinner earlier and now as the evening draws to a close, I’m thinking I overstayed being upright a bit and I’m back in bed.
I usually guage how sick I am by how much my workaholic tendencies are in check. Stressing about sending my bosses off to court later in the week? I must be ok. Frustrated by the amount of unfinished things on my desk and in my inbox? I can get through this.
Everything going to hell in a handbasket and I can’t bring myself to care? Well shit, I think I might need a doctor ASAP.
Yesterday was definitely one of those days. My rational side questioned my burning need to go into the office at all (to tidy up my desk and finalise some urgent stuff for upcoming cases, the less rational side of my brain whispered) but I gamely struggled through until my scheduled GP appointment. I greeted my doctor by asking how worried he would be if I told him that I really wanted a sick cert. This is a bit of an ongoing joke between us. Unless it’s something serious, he’ll often ask me “if I gave you a cert would you take it?” My answer is often “no” because I clearly have a defective gene that would tell any other normal person to take the excuse to stay home and run. If it’s serious he’ll flat out tell me and I know that I should do as he says. But I never actually go and ask for one.
“I would be really happy,” is what my doctor said back to me, probably because it meant that I wasn’t going to be stubborn about it.
So there you have it. A day in bed, and likely another one tomorrow. Then a few more days to recover. Often when I’m feeling halfway ok I chafe at being home. I worry about work and what’s getting done or not done. But when I’m this “goosed” (as my doctor put it) I wonder about what’s going on in the office but can’t summon forth any energy to actually care. I think my absence would have left our department short-staffed due to other people’s holiday plans. It’s ridiculously busy. There are hearings left, right, and centre. But I just. don’t. care.
Right now.
Give me a few more days’ rest and I’ll be itching to get back into the thick of it. In the meantime however, I’m grateful that flu is taken seriously and is a minimum of a week off for recovery. I definitely need it.
Plus, I have great company in bed during the daytime. Stays mostly quiet and doesn’t hog the covers. Doubles as a vibrating heating pad when scratched. I’m not complaining.
Much.
The Feathered Rose 