Knockout

Sometimes you take a break.
Sometimes you are broken.

Overall, I am not someone who gets sick very often, but when I do. I am KNOCKED.OUT! It's as if my mind and body work together to decide when I can afford to "take a break," then they work together to knock me out! Sometimes, there is no break in site and they just "Sweep the Leg" anyway and force me to take one.

This is why I am so sick often on holidays. There is no school and usually less on the community calendar, so it is like my body knows NOW, hit her NOW, when she will actually lay down and recover. My birthday was no exception. With a jam-pack calendar of craziness for the next four weeks, it was not convenient to spend my day in bed, but it wasn't catastrophic to take off a day... not just from school, but from life in general.

I actually did go into work... but it was the shortest work day in the history of my life. In at 7:50, out at 8:30. Right after school yesterday, I started having that fuzzy flu feeling that usually predicts the onset of a funk. Later into the evening, my throat became very sore, and any thought of an impromptu birthday was replaced by huddling under the blankets begging for sleep.

I went into school this morning, though feeling bad, with the plan to go to the doctor's after school to get the antibiotic I probably needed. The boss sent me to the nurse to be checked out first though, and she painted a big red X on my classroom door and sent me home with a suspected virus. She said I was just run down and the swollen glands were a sign of needing rest. Though skeptical that she didn't feel I needed to go to the doctor, honestly she has been more like my PCP over the past 9 years than the doctor has, so I followed her advice.

There was a bit of humor to it all though. Since I insisted on going to my room and setting up for the substitute (I am the one that refused to leave work early just because I was in labor, after all), my class was sent out into the hallway to await further instruction (evacuation plans?) and I was told to close and lock my door (ha!). There were comments about "swine flu" thrown around. I can only imagine the scale that chatter grew to (amongst high schoolers!) by the end of the day.

Of course... I also took the time to stuff my work bag with papers to grade and a vocabulary quiz review to prepare. I have been a pretty good bedridden patient though, save for a few Relay-related phone calls and e-mails, and creating the vocabulary review.

After all, even Wonder Woman can only stay knocked out for so long...