welcome to 32

I spent the first week of my thirty second year fighting off the worst sickness I've experienced. It was prefaced by a week of heavy immune system suppressing drinking. I noticed a burgeoning sore throat and bought some cough drops and figured a cold was on its way. The next morning at work I noticed my chest was a tightening fissure of pain. I sensed the impending doom with unusual presentiment. Uncharacteristically, I headed to the store for medicine and settled in for the night at one in the afternoon.

The cold became a rapid decline into a three day blur of fevers, sleeping off and on, a migraine that felt like my teeth were going to erupt from their sockets and the concern that maybe I wasn't gonna have another birthday. The signal that I was improving was just as frightening, I experienced horrific hacking coughs that produced some loosening phelgm. The next morning I was aware of being alive and felt slightly antsy. All good signs that death was not imminent.

I've always considered myself lucky to have a set of caring people in my life, people who insist on my doing something better for myself than whatever it is I'm currently subscribing to. I had no sense of exactly how sick I was until these people called me to check in on me and sounded completely appalled at my condition. It's true, I was barely able to speak or form sentences. And I found it hard to rise out of bed. I guess the survivor in me was just certain I was just going to do whatever it is I had to do. Thankfully I managed to wriggle out of work with ease and was able to spend a good chunk of time recovering.

I was given a package of antibiotics by my boss that would squelch the strep throat virus out of my system. I didn't know if I had strep throat, but it certainly seemed possible. And I'd just gotten news that my niece had it and got sick just a couple days before I did. I'm not a big antibiotics taker (thanks to the lack of health insurance) so I figured why not. I got through the meds and I am still not feeling well, so it turns out I didn''t have strep. I just have some other mega virus chest cold thing that walloped me into bed for four days.

So as I look ahead to more recovering and hoping that I don't have walking pneumonia, at least I have a reason to take it easy these days, and it's not just cause I'm 32...