Contamination

An upper respiratory infection has been trying to ruin my life in every aspect imaginable for almost a week now. It started last Thursday quietly with a scratchy throat and that "sick feeling" in my body when I woke up. I did my best to ignore it, and revel in the gloriousness of having a personal day off of work the next day. Friday morning came, along with body aches, and a burning throat. I forced myself out of bed and into the nail salon. I promised my chipped polish I would bring life back into my toes that day and wasn't about to back out on my word now. As the hours passed by slowly, my energy level seemed to run further and further away from me. Perhaps a good night's rest would be the cure I needed.

I called my mother Saturday morning. She picked up, said hello and when I offered out my most delightful sounding morning greeting, she paused, and said frightfully "Who is this?!"

"It's me Mom... Heather?"

She told me I sounded like a man.

Sunday came, but my voice had already fled the scene. I sounded like Ving Rhames.

I called out of work Monday morning, but I had to send an email to my boss too because I'm pretty sure he would have thought it was a prank call. I had now developed an ear ache, a cough, and the sneezies on top of my burning throat and man voice. I'm usually anti-doctor when it comes to getting sick. What exactly is the doctor going to say that I don't already know? A cold is a cold. I'll waste money on a co-payment and gas to sit there amongst other sickly people just for the doctor to confirm that I have a cold. She'll tell me to drink hot liquids and get rest.

I'm almost convinced this might be the plague though. So I took a trip to Kaiser.

I dragged myself out of bed, took a shower, made half an attempt to look presentable enough for public viewing, packed my bag full of honey-lemon cough drops and headed out to the Urgent Care center for after hour sick people. Turns out that getting sick outside the hours of 9am to 5pm is inconvenient to Kaiser doctors. When I got there, the building seemed awfully dark though. Wouldn't you know that the power had gone out in half the building, including the Urgent Care center? Plus, all of their patient files are only accessible electronically and backed up no where in paper format. The doctors couldn't see anyone until the computers came back up.

Isn't it just poor planning to have zero backup for medical records? One woman asked them for a note to give to her job stating that she was at least there in the building waiting to get treatment, and the staff told her they couldn't provide this to her because all letters are drawn up on the computer. No one could think to hand write something for her? This should have been the opening scene to one of the Terminator movies.

In any case, I sat there and popped cough drops for three hours and waited as I slowly start smelling like a mentholated foot. I was given a 5 day supply of antibiotics to kill the upper respiratory infection and was sent merrily on my way.

I managed to get up for work Tuesday morning, and put on the sorriest excuse of my wrinkled clothes. I still don't understand why everything was wrinkled, it's not like I keep my clothes in a ball on the floor. Everything was neatly hanging up in my closet. I think my clothes knew I didn't feel well, and they just wanted to present me as the sickest and rattiest looking human being possible. My boss got to work about 2 hours after I did, came into my office and went "Ew, you look like hell. Please go home".

Yeah, he said "Ew".

My friend Niles called me a few hours later to make sure I was still alive. When I picked up the phone and greeted him with a friendly "yo", I heard the same pause my mother gave me when I spoke to her on the phone. He said I sounded like James Gandolfini. I guess I can't pull off that sick, sexy, raspy voice thing too well, since everyone keeps reminding me that I sound like an array of different fat men.

My mother brought me Robitussin and tissues at around midnight, since I now developed the uncontrollable urge to sneeze and cough simultaneously. I didn't get much sleep last night; I think there's traces of my lungs still left on the floor.

I hope to return to humanity tomorrow morning.