The gifts of the season

T'was the week after Christmas, I collapsed on the couch
I was groaning and hacking and coughing lungs out.
My family was nestled, all snug in their beds,
While I lay awake, feeling half dead.

With Mum in her nightgown and Da in his mask,
I had just settled down for a Nyquil-blessed nap.
When out from my lungs there arose such a clatter,
I lurched from my death-bed to see what was the matter.

Away to the mirror I stumbled and hacked,
Said “Gahhhh” to a tongue now the color of ash,
Then what in my throbbing sinuses appeared,
But nasal fluids - green rather than clear.

As the pressure then built and pain grew anew,
I knew in that moment, it must be the flu.

I don't know about you, but I find it a bit ironic that I can spend four months working full time at a swine flu infested high school, daily coming into close contact with less than sanitary adolescents, and catch nothing more than a one day sniffle. Yet, I spend a single week with my perfectly healthy family, relaxing and celebrating, and get hit with a flu that has laid me out for nearly two weeks.

Figures.

What makes me laugh is that if I HAD to catch the flu, I caught it at just the right time. I wouldn't have changed a thing. Except perhaps to have come down with it a few days earlier. Having no available subs for work makes the prospect of calling in sick highly stressful for me, so I almost never do it. (I have now accrued 59 sick days at work... what a waste.) So I spent the last full week of my Christmas break vegetating, and recuperating enough to return to work on Monday. This has not been a fun week - basically, I dosed myself through work, came home and crashed everyday. Mostly it went well, but I am rather curious about some of the things I interpreted this week, because I know they didn't come out right. Problem is, I have no idea what did come out. I'm crossing my fingers that if I sleep all weekend, I will be able to purge the remnants of this virus from my system and return to being a normal person again soon. I sure hope so anyhow, because I really need to do my laundry and dishes.