Every year, I tempt fate and don’t get a flu shot. And every year, my superhuman immune system has won.
So you can imagine my horror when I woke up on a Monday morning with a sore throat that said, “I’m gonna stay here for a while. Maybe forever.”
And that was my high point of the day.
I went out to lunch in my questionable state, when I really only wanted to sleep.
Via: The Huffington Post
To me, the flu is synonymous with constantly throwing up. So I was telling myself, This is not the flu. I only have a sore throat, a plugged nose, and extreme fatigue. (Which Google would later inform me are all red flags that you have the flu.)
What better way to wash down these flu-like symptoms than with Thai food? Cue the stomach trauma.
Back at my apartment, where I lay crumpled on the couch, I could have sent out a few emails and been excused from classes. But I decided to be a hero, turn my backpack into a mobile pharmacy, and head off to the rest of my classes.
Walking back from class probably looked like a scene from an action movie where the character gets shot, but continues to walk around and operate machinery. Figuratively speaking, this was a bullet of crippling nausea. The walk was only a few blocks, but I felt triumphant, and my legs ached like I ran a marathon.
The same girl that felt partly human that morning was now glued to her bed, smothered in Vicks, with 90% of the items in her bedroom at arm’s length, including a trash bag, “just in case.” At this point, food of any kind was out of the question. My eating schedule became a handful of pretzel sticks every 12 hours.
The million-dollar question was: did I have a fever? All day, I denied the possibility, because again with my naïve diagnoses, fever is synonymous with feeling like your blood has turned into lava. I finally broke down and took my temperature, and it was at the brink of 100. This is when I moved out of the denial stage, and into the acceptance stage: turn way down for #flu2014.
Via: Car Memes
The next day’s notable achievements: My fever broke 100 and I developed a craving for Ginger Ale. I turned into a grandma: Ginger Ale and pretzel sticks became all of my major food groups, and I woke up at 6 o’clock in the morning to start a productive day of watching TV and falling asleep before the shows ended.
On Wednesday, my obliterated social life blossomed in the form of conversing with nurses, doctors and cab drivers. And by conversing, I mean giving my supreme effort to speak, but only the sounds of a 99-year-old chain smoking man coming out.
Because I made more phone calls than I usually would in a year, I made a small colony of strangers — everyone from the taxi operator to the pharmacist — feel extremely uncomfortable. A cab driver took me the whole 10-minute car ride to the infirmary, which may have been a notable detail if walking from my bed to my door didn’t make me feel lightheaded. On the cab window, it said something about every time you vomit costing $100. Luckily I never had to find out whether that was a joke.
Fun awaited me at the infirmary. I got to recite my UFID number and date of birth at least a thousand times, have a stick shoved up my nose and have my blood pressure taken twice. (My former 8-year-old self that loved the sketchy self-serving blood pressure machines squeals with joy.) The cherry on top was filling out my medical history while half-conscious and feeling like I could boil water on my skin.
“Your flu test came back positive.” The doctor said. “It usually takes about 7 to 14 days to recover.”
I laughed behind the surgical mask that was now secured over my mouth. Bed-ridden for a week or two? That’s a good one.
I hopped into taxi no. 2 with a doctor’s note in one hand and my prescription in the other. The surgical mask freaked the cab driver out, and in retrospect, he probably thought I had Ebola. He told me to feel better while leaning as far away from me as possible.
A week in bed would usually drive anyone crazy, but it just felt like one really long, much-needed nap. I didn’t see sunlight until that weekend, when I stepped outside to check the mail, and felt like a mental patient on the loose. When you reach that point, returning to your weekly routine is like having a new lease on life.
Would the flu shot have prevented this course of events? Possibly. Will I be in line to get a flu shot next year? Definitely.
If this ordeal has taught me one thing it’s this: Don’t tempt fate because she will have a field day making you pay for it.
Feature photo courtesy of: BYU Digital Universe
