Weekend Plans Post: Getting Sick

Saturday, I had a bit of a scratchy throat. Nothing too terrible, mind. Just sort of a “huh… I’m noting that when I’m eating this lime popsicle, there is a bit of a sting when I swallow”. Come Saturday night, I had a bit of a cough. Come 3AM, I woke up with a cough cough cough (deep breath all the way) *COUGH* *COUGH* *COUGH* *COUGH* *COUGH* until I was dizzy and seeing spots.

Maribou asked “holy cow are you alright?” and I stumbled out of bed and said “I’m going downstairs to take a covid test.”

Swabs up the nose, twirl it around for 1-onethousand through 15-onethousand, do it to the other nostril, dip it into the liquid and spin and stir for 1-onethousand through 15-onethousand, pinch and pull it out, three drops… 15 minutes. Nope, tested negative.

Went back to bed. It was worse the next day. Tested again. Still negative.

Come Monday, crud. I called in sick. Still testing negative, but it was awful. I had stuff I needed to do. There’s a server I need to rebuild! There’s a procedure I need to capture! There’s a document I need to write! Nope, not with this thing.

Tuesday was even worse. Here’s how bad it was: I wasn’t hungry. Tested negative. Just ate a couple of popsicles, had some berries, took some naps.

You know the thing where you take a nice, hot, steamy shower when you’re sick? Specially to get all that vapor in your lungs? Well, that was, as they say, productive. I felt like my uvula had a pair of fuzzy dice dangling from them. The water vapor helped me reach a point where I said “no dice”. (Huh. You’d think that scene from Police Squad would be on the web…)

Wednesday tested negative again but the good news was that I was *RAVENOUS*. Got in the car, did the drive-through (masked), ate like a horse.

Thursday, still testing negative but still coughing. But I’m pretty sure that I’ll be right as rain come Friday night.

Which makes me feel guilty. I mean, I had stuff I needed to do. There’s a server I need to rebuild. There’s a procedure I need to capture. There’s a document I need to write. I felt like I was malingering.

But this is one of those things where I hadn’t really used any vacation days since Iceland. It was always too busy, there was always something breaking, they were sending in servers from other labs, there were people who needed admin support, there was the guy who asked you to come in on the day you were going to take off because that’s the day that everybody else was going to take the day off and then we could finally get some work done…

And if you don’t use your vacation days, you’re going to use your sick days. This is one of those things that I yell at other people but never take to heart and do it myself. Well… for want of a couple of three day weekends, a week was lost.

SO USE YOUR VACATION DAYS, PEOPLE.

And I suppose I’d feel guiltier for missing a week of work if we weren’t in a pandemic for the last two years. Seriously, if your risk budget doesn’t account for people being out for a week at this point, you’ve done this to yourself.

Like I did this to myself by not using vacation days in the first place.

Anyway, this weekend will be spent *NOT* being sick (knock wood) and preparing for the Week From Hell when I get back. Luckily, the laundry ain’t gonna be too bad. Mostly pajamas.

So… what’s on your docket?