It is no secret that I have been sick yet again, nor that I
self-medicated with a bit of antibiotic to speed the recovery process after two
weeks. Being sick, though, makes me
realize just how old and butt-ugly I truly am.
I spent all of Thursday in my pajamas. I had been fending off intermittent fevers
all week, usually in the afternoon. I
would arrive to my team meetings near the end of the school day, and I could
feel the sweat beading on my forehead. I
would go home, shower, get into pajamas, hack and or sneeze my brains out, then
repeat the performance the following day.
Thursday was attack of The Killer Migraine, Part II. It was also Field Trip Day. When I was awakened by searing, stabbing pain
through my left eyeball and temple at 4 a.m., I knew a sick-day call was in
order. Problem was, no way did the vice
principal want a sick call at 4 a.m.
I rolled around in my own sweat and agony for another hour
then got up and started putting together an email of emergency plans. I didn't really need them; all the field trip
stuff was in impeccable order on my desk.
But I covered that base, anyway.
At 5:45 or so, too late now to go back to bed since I had been awake for
nearly two hours already, I made the phone call, sent the email, and waited for
confirmation that someone, anyone, knew I was going to be out.
At that point I figured I had better work on finalizing the
exam for Monday because copies would have to be made on Friday, presuming I
wasn't having a major arterial burst. I
made some tea, looked at food, decided there was no way anything solid would be
going into my stomach, and headed to the couch for a while. Daytime TV sucks, so after the two-plus hours
of news ended, I headed back to the computer to field school emails.
My head was still killing me, and my eyesight was bugging
around because of the sinus pressure (or so I was hoping). Over the course of the two weeks I had been
sick, since The Killer Migraine Part I struck, I had already tried Tylenol and
Ibuprofen to kick the low-grade headache.
I went in search of harder drugs.
Yes, I was even willing to take out-of-date Oxycodone if I could find
it. I was hurting that badly. Instead, as I fessed up to last week, I found
and ate some still-within-date antibiotics.
Eventually I made lunch, chicken noodle soup out of a
Campbell's can (how very Andy Warhol of me), but was distressed to discover I
had no Nabisco Saltine crackers; all I had were Keebler Club crackers, which
are way too buttery and dissolve too quickly to be considered soup crackers of
any magnitude. I spoon-fed myself
because gobbling the soup down would've meant running to the bathroom to hurl
it back up again. No way did I want to
toss the antibiotic because, whether or not it was psychological, by dose #2 I
was starting to feel better … dried out and dehydrated, but better.
This is when I made the ridiculous decision to look in the
mirror. It's not like I hadn't already
walked by the mirror; it's a big-ass mirror that takes up most of one wall in
my bathroom. But my eyesight hadn't been
too swift up until that point. So I
looked.
And I wish I hadn't.
My clothing was rumpled.
I wore wrinkled, crumpled flannel pants, a grubby sweatshirt,
yesterday's big gray socks, and I had a blue velour robe draped over everything
like some crazy Russian tsar. My hair
was matted and greasy from sweating out a fever, and part of it stuck in a
crazy clump halfway up the side of my head, probably from my hand twisting into
it trying to yank the pain out of my skull.
My eyes were sunken into dark circles, and my skin was absolutely
colorless.
In short, I looked like a vagabond. I looked like a hobo. I looked like a homeless person. I looked like Willie Nelson on a good day.
There wasn't much I could do about the eyes and skin
tone. Nature and health would give that
back. So I worked on the hair. I attempted to flatten the part sticking out. This was as successful as holding down
Alfalfa's cowlick. Then I tried brushing
it. This was as successful as running a
comb through Elvis's Brylcreem-ed, gravity-defying Pomapodour. I ended up using my hands to sort of form my
hair into a small ponytail and secured it with a fat-ass elastic, hoping it
wouldn't just slide off.
I could have showered at this point. I mean, I must've stunk. I must've had an odor from being sick, that
sweaty fever aroma people develop so that you actually smell the illness before
you get all the way into the room. But
my sinuses were completely deadlocked. I
couldn't actually smell anything. I was
afraid of the shower because the landlord recently replaced a pipe in the
basement, allowing the water pressure to be so strong that both the shower and
tub faucet gush at the same time. This
new, increased pressure was wonderful on my aching back, but I was terrified if
the stream should hit my temple, I'd be out like Tony Conigliaro. The shower would have to wait.
Finally I managed a snooze in the afternoon, and I felt
better. I made it into the shower, but I
still didn't trust myself to bend over or stand too quickly, so I skipped the
shaving-my-legs part. I know, I know --
gross, TMI, etc. I made it back to work
on Friday, and for the first time in days, I didn't break out into a fever-fed
sweat at school. I still haven't fully
recovered and am putting myself to bed at about the same time most young
children are tucked in, but I'm okay with that.
And I don't look so much like Willie Nelson anymore. But then again, neither does Willie Nelson,
so it's all good.
