Publication Date: Wednesday, March 10, 2004
I can hack it
I can hack it
(March 10, 2004) by Rachel Metz
Supposedly the cold and flu season has run its course this year, but I have a feeling nobody let the aforementioned ailments know they were free to hit the road.
Lately, it seems I'm surrounded by sick people. Whether I'm at the office, out on a reporting assignment or hanging out with my friends, there's sniffling enough to empty a tissue facotry.
I'd like to say I had nothing to do with it, but I'm afraid for a few unlucky people I may have been their Typhoid Mary.
For me, it started out suddenly in mid-February -- Valentine's Day, actually -- when I woke up with a fever. I ached from my neck to my toes, and knew I'd be laid up for a few days.
I took the traditional road to Wellville, with lots of sleep and fluids. By the middle of the next week I thought I was mostly fine so I went back to work.
This was my first big mistake. No sooner did I return than I came down with a sore throat and, a few days later, another fever.
That temperature soon receded, but left me with a hacking cough and a stuffy nose and ears -- possibly viral, possibly regular spring allergies.
This has all been frustrating because I thought I had done what was required of me in order to get back to normal. Apparently, I had a lot to learn.
The first and most important lesson I picked up was this: If you think you're better, you're not.
When I was younger I paid tribute to the day you might spend at home between feeling sick and feeling fine -- a day spent lazing around and not really feeling ill. Now that I'm a working woman I figured doing that would just push me farther behind. So after a few days out, I came back in.
But sickness had the last laugh, as I was then sidelined for several more days with renewed fever. The lesson? Take those days off, and don't feel guilty.
The second lesson I picked up just this past weekend and it is as follows: Some medicines just aren't meant for small people.
I already knew a regular dosage of NyQuil was too much for me, but I didn't think a green, horse-sized pill of Drixoral -- a cold and allergy medicine -- would wreak havoc on my system. I was wrong. While it dried me up, the pill left me in a foggy haze for about 12 hours on Sunday.
What started out as a sunny afternoon meandering around Berkeley ended with me wanting to drift off to another planet. Maybe the size of the pill should have clued me in, but it was the experience that really left a lasting impression.
The third lesson sounds obvious but wasn't until I was stuck in bed for several days: Being healthy is great. You can run around and have fun without stopping or coughing uncontrollably, and food actually tastes good.
For now, though, health is still just a good memory. You can still find me hacking away around Palo Alto or at school board meetings, running out of the room to blow my irritated nose into my millionth tissue of the day. I can't hear very well through my stopped-up ears and I haven't been able to smell or taste anything for most of the past week.
A delectable cheeseburger with bacon and barbecue sauce, sacriliciously served up last Friday night by my older brother, could have been filled with sand for all I could tell.
Basically, I'm a walking sneeze factory, tottering through life in a sea of invisible allergens and viruses.
But hey -- at least I've learned my lessons.
Rachel Metz is a staff writer at the Weekly. She can be e-mailed safely, no viruses, at rmetz@paweekly.com.
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