The Flu Sucks

There's no other way to put it. It just does. There's not much they can give you, you just have to hunker down and ride it out. I have been doing a three week freelance job that threw me from relative isolation in the loft to rush hour subway traffic and a building of people who'd all had, were having, or were on their way to having the vicious flu going around.

Did I get it the one day I didn't wear gloves on the train and forgot to wash my hands? Was it from the coughing co-worker who stayed home the last few days I was in the office? Was if from the hundreds of teachers I was exposed to at a two day educational conference I was videotaping? I will never know anything except that it was inevitable as soon as that door was opened.

I was lucky enough to be able to spend yesterday and today in bed or on the couch recovering, eating soup and drinking hot lemon and honey tea. I swallow glasses of Emergen-C and sleep as much as I can, put as much moisture back in the air as I can while the steam heat sucks it out and leaves me with a persistent low grade sinus headache. I don't feel like writing, my head aches, I feel punch drunk from little flash fevers that drop me into sleep then vanish. I don't want to sit at a computer and stare at a screen.

Then I remember The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and how I resolved after seeing it never to complain about any petty obstacles I may face in writing, compared to total paralysis except for one eye. So this is a warm up. I must be getting better.

The whining has stopped.