It all started Tuesday morning when I came out to go to work. My nice pretty bright blue car had turned a yellowish-green, which to those of who suffer seasonal allergy and sinus problem, knew it that meant one thing: TROUBLE!
The pollen had settled itself on this world and all of my insides began to wreak havoc on me. I swear, within in an hour things were in chaos. I had a cough. My nose was running. The pressure was making it's way from my neck to my temples. I was not a happy girl.
I can handle being flu sick. I hate being sinus sick. It has yet to be determined if I'm allergic to anything but I don't experience the classic "allergy" symptoms - itchy, watery eyes, wheezing, etc. What I do get is sinus symptoms - pressure in my face and my head, congestion and a sore throat. Sometimes, if I'm really lucky, it turns into bronchitis. Two years ago was the first time it did that and let me tell you something: waking up at 3am unable to take a substantial breath is not the most fun thing in the world.
By Thursday, I was miserable. Curled up in my favorite chair, sniffling with my fuzzy blanket around my shoulders miserable. I was pumping myself full of OTC medicine and taking hot showers to try and loosen the congestion in my chest and pressure in my head. I was so sick I actually used that as an excuse for not being able to make dinner, partly because I didn't have the strength to and partly because I told Steve I would get germs all over the food. He, surprisingly, bought it.
About two hours after taking a really hot shower, I had a feeling I should take my temperature. Imagine my surprise when I saw I was a running a fever of 101.5. I haven't had a fever in years so I didn't really expect anything. Steve immediately told me to take some Tylenol (duh!), drink some water (double-duh!) and go to bed (on my way).
I was miserable through out the night. My eyelids and my face were burning but I had the chills. I tossed and turned and couldn't sleep. I took my temp at various parts of the evening and the highest it reached was 102.8. The lowest was 100.5.
I called into work the next day. I had barraged my coworkers enough all week under the premise that it was seasonal and sinus related. It wasn't fair for me to bring my feverish self in. I managed to crawl out of bed, take another shower, take some more medicine and go back to sleep.
Finally, the fever broke around lunchtime and I woke up in a gross sweat. I dragged myself out to the living room and pretty much collapsed onto my chair and sat there in a daze, sniffling and hacking until Steve came home.
I was, however, determined to be better by Saturday morning. See, I had an appointment to get my hair cut. And it was very hard to get that appointment. And my hair was being nothing but a brat lately. I couldn't run a brush through it. It was overpowering my face. It was heavy and hot and uncomfortable and I never felt that more than when there was about ten pounds of hair on my head as I was breaking a fever.
We didn't go anywhere Friday night because, as Steve said, that's the rule. You stay home from work (school), you don't go anywhere. Fine by me because I was in bed early. Still couldn't sleep. I somehow found myself wide awake by 3am, partly because I didn't feel well and partly because I was so excited about getting my hair cut. It was like Christmas morning. I hadn't had a decent hair cut in over a year.
The time finally rolls around and I head out. It was the first set of real clothes and makeup I'd put on in two days. I spent two hours in the salon getting washed and cut and styled and trying to cover my mouth discreetly when I coughed lest anyone there think I personally came to infect them.
I was also genuinely excited because we actually had plans for St. Patrick's Day and while I still wasn't feeling "well" and had a hard time getting up a lot of energy, I was determined that I feel well enough not to ruin our plans and the first night out we'd had in awhile.
So I came home, looking all fly from the beauty salon and excited over the fact that we would be going out and what do I find? The boyfriend, in bed, with the covers pulled up to his ears.
"Oh no," I cried.
"Oh yes," he answered between coughs and wheezes.
"So I guess we're not going out?" I inquire, already knowing the answer to my question.
"What do you think?"
I think, damn it, that I had mustered up enough strength to get cute and to be ready to go out. I think the green St. Patrick's Day shirt and matching socks that I was wearing needed to be seen in public. I think my sparkly St. Patrick's Day top hat needed dusting off.
I said, "Can I get you anything?" and changed back into my pajamas. I wasn't feeling that up to par anyway.
So when people ask me what I did for St. Patrick's Day, I'll tell them I hibernated in the apartment with the boyfriend as we passed the roll of toilet paper back and forth between us to blow our noses and played the suckiest round of video games we'd had because we were both fairly out of it. And I'll tell them how he tried to force me to eat all weekend because the most I had shoved down was peanut butter crackers and had no appetite for anything else and how I forced him to take his temperature and tried to forced him to take cough medicine before I realized his cough was asthma related and the cough medicine wasn't going to do him any good. And how we rented movies that we watched only halfway through because we both got tired and wanted to be in bed at 10:30pm on a Saturday.
And I'll tell them I'd rather have a hangover than feel the way I did this weekend. And how when you live together, neither one of you is safe.
But now it's Monday and we're both feeling better and things are back to normal. And somehow, even though we were crabby and irritable and stubborn, we still managed to tolerate each other and take care of each other enough for it not to seem like a completely wasted weekend.