I hate sinus infections. They are the worst way of getting sick I have ever experienced. The last time I had one, I went to the doctor to get antibiotics so that my throat didn’t feel like someone was kicking it every time I swallowed.
When I was younger, being sick was a day off from school. Before I go any farther, I’ll let you know that I’m not going to talk about how idyllic or halcyonic it was to get sick when I was younger. When you are a child, sickness is just a stuffy head, a fever, and lots of boring daytime TV. I’m pretty sure my youthful constitution shrugged off most sicknesses without any major issue, and I was a pretty sickly kid. Maybe I had a couple bouts of walking pnemonia, but nothing major. And I’m also certain that before the age of thirteen, being sick and groggy had almost no impairment on my judgement. That’s why children need parents. Forced medication, forced bedrest, and forced back to school when we KNOW that we are not better … not yet.
I’m not going to write about that at all.
When you are me, which is never, being sick breaks your weekly rythm. I hated school. I just can’t abide being teached at. My memories of being sick as a child really seem glorified only by the fact that I hated school so much. But work, I can do work. And I like my job. It’s a good job that lets me complain, feel accomplished, and pretend I am riding a mechanical bull. System administrator is not nearly as logical and consistant a job as many people tell me they think it is. Being sick just pulls me right out of the loop. It’s like a forced vacation where I don’t go anywhere nice and I don’t go outside, and I don’t drive with the music on, and I don’t go to lunch with my co-workers. And, on top of all that, sickness usually means I am in pain, or stuffed up, or my sinuses are making a pact with some foreign bacteria to wage guerrilla warfare against my throat.
I usually go back into work long before I am well. And I am convinced that just stepping outside into the fresh air is the best medicine. Besides, who wouldn’t want me back at work even if my head isn’t totally clear. Sometimes the best ideas come out of the foggy groggyness of a mixed up mind. You know those ideas. The ones that have you scratching your head the next day thinking, “Why would anyone do this?”