Sick of Being Sick

So, I'm sick. I've probably got the freaking Swine, and I am so frustrated I can't stand myself anymore. I HATE being sick. I come from a long line of women who see medical intervention as weakness and despise weakness -- my 56 year old aunt went to work on a broken foot for a week before she finally got an x-ray, and another aunt actually had her vagina literally fall out before she went to the doctor. Seriously, we have issues.


Anyway, I got sick on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, but I was only a little achy and tired and I had to go to work because it was parent/teachers day. By Wednesday I was fairly ill, but I didn't want to waste a sick day on a 1/2 day, and I was worried about my students making it to the pep-rally if I wasn't eagle-eyeing them, and I was worried about staffing because many of my colleagues had departed for the holiday and I really like my bosses, so I didn't want to screw them over. In other words, in the early phases of this thing I pushed through like it wasn't really happening.


By Thanksgiving I was all done. I think I spent about 7 hours of the day awake, and not in a row. My poor husband cleaned the house, prepared dinner, watched the babies, and made me tea whenever I was awake. And I grumbled. I suck as a patient. I love, love, love my husband -- but I hate myself when I'm sick. I'm snappy and rude; basically, I'm a b#tch. Luckily for him, I was mostly asleep.

Now, it's Sunday night. I'm still sick. In fact, I might even be sicker. I've had a low-grade fever for days, sore throat, headaches, body aches, diarrhea, sneezing, congestion, and nausea for days. Nice, huh? Doesn't it sound totally sexy? I bet you wish you were me. Well, now I also have the world's most annoying, painful cough. It seems I'm also hyperbolic when I'm sick (but also when I'm well, so whatever).


So with the intermittent fever and cough, it seems I'll be on lockdown again tomorrow. Basically, I've spent a 4 1/2 day holiday sick as F#@k. This is not new for me. I often get sick over long weekends and Holidays. It is massively aggravating. The only time I went out all weekend was to sit in the car while my family went into Trader Joes. I needed to go out for the ride, but we didn't want to get the stares from the people like I'm carrying the flipping plague. And trust me, at this point I agree with them.

My husband tells me that the mind-over-matter stuff is BS, and that studies show you can't put off being sick. So I asked him, "If this is true, why do I always (and I mean always -- people remark on it) get sick on vacations and holidays?" His response? Bad luck. Oh, so the idea that my body subconsciously waits until it can relax to get sick is unscientific, but bad luck is scientific? Bad luck -- really, honey?