Weekend Assignment #290: Sick!

I had a great idea for the new Weekend Assignment, which I was writing in my head on the way home yesterday. Only I can't remember what it was now. See, this cold of mine is stirring itself to new heights of head-filling, lung-clogging obstreperousness, and my brain just isn't functioning very well right now. So let's do this instead:

Weekend Assignment: #290: Are you one of those lucky people who hardly ever get sick, or do you tend to catch every cold or flu or virus that comes along? And when you do get some infectious disease, do you stay home, or try to keep going?

Extra Credit: Are you getting a flu shot this year?

It seems to me I probably get a cold or the flu about once a year, if that; but once I get it it hits me fairly hard. This one snuck up on me. I thought I was just having allergies, which had been troubling me for a few weeks. But I hardly ever get a sore throat from allergies, let alone a cough, unless it's asthma-related coughing after exposure to cats. So when I started coughing a week and a half ago, I knew I had a cold. I probably caught it from a friend who has pneumonia. Fun, huh? Now my ears are ringing and my cough is turning into a dry hack, and I know I'm in it for the long haul. Again. For whatever reason, it always takes months for a cough to leave me completely.

But the good news is that it is a cold, not flu. There is no high fever, no body ache, no nausea, just a very light fever and dizziness from the congestion. I only missed just over a day of work; being only a temp in the last days of my assignment, I didn't want to miss any more work than I had to. So I headed back to work on Monday with my Dayquil in (frequently-washed) hand. At lunch I took a chance on putting the medicine in my purse. The child-proof cap promptly came off, and emptied the sticky orange liquid into my purse, which dripped onto the restroom counter and floor. Yuck! After that I switched to a generic of Mucinex DM. Less chance of a mess!

I say it's a low fever, but I don't actually know that, because I haven't managed to find either of our thermometers. I don't want to buy another one just to indulge my curiosity. But I know what a real fever feels like, and this ain't it.

Flu shot? I got one a few times when my mom was alive, and the autumn of 2007 when I worked for Beaudry and they had them for $25. I've sort of fallen out of the habit of getting them in the years when the supply was spotty. It was difficult to keep track of when Walgreen's or Safeway was scheduled to have a clinic.

This year, though, every Walgreen's seems to have flu shots available every day. I'm not sure that matters, though. A lot of people in Tucson have the flu already, and they're saying on the news it's H1N1, the seasonal flu not having arrived yet because of the warm Tucson weather. I don't even know where or when an H1N1 shot may be available. If there's a shortage, I doubt I qualify as a high-risk person who should get one. But I could be wrong. I am over 50, after all.

But I'll look into it. I promise! Back in college the first time around, I had a "killer" flu once. I was in my dorm room, wearing a parka I think, my electric blanket turned up to 9, and shivering. My friend Howard came in and told me his class had been canceled because his T.A. had died of the flu. Not what I wanted to hear at that moment! I also had some unspecified virus once in my Worldwide Travel days that dragged me out for about a month. I'd rather not repeat the experience.

What about you? Do you get sick frequently, hardly ever, or somewhere in between? Tell us about it in your blog, and I'll link to your entry next weekend. Instructions are at the end of this entry.

Last week for Weekend Assignment #289: Quitting Time I asked for tales of times you quit something you cared about. Turnout was light, but Florinda in particular made up for it with multiple stories:

Julie said...

This was several years after the job I didn't quit, but it was hard to let this one go because someone at this non-profit was responsible for getting me that job. (The job was the best I'd ever had until the company was sold and new owners took over.) I felt some loyalty for that. And yet, I felt I was constantly banging my head against the wall. Personalities had taken over to the point where ideas were approved or shot down because of the person presenting it rather than on the merits of the plan. I was reduced to playing that game I hate: office politics.

Florinda said...

Don't call me a quitter; I don't call myself one. Having said that, I've done my share of quitting at one thing or another. There have been times when bailing on something was the right decision - sometimes you just have to cut your losses and move on, but sometimes it's felt good and sometimes it hasn't. There have also been times when I didn't do that soon enough - I hung on longer than I should have, trying to fix something broken, only to give up the effort much further down the line. And regrets? Oh, I've certainly had more than a few...

Thanks, you two!

Here are the guidelines if you'd like to participate in the Weekend Assignment:

1. Please post your entry no later than Friday, October 30th* at 6 PM. (You can also post your response in the comments thread, but a blog entry is better. )
   
2. Please mention the Weekend Assignment in your blog post, and include a link back to this entry.
3. Please come back here after you've posted, and leave a link to your entry in the comments below.
4. Visiting other participants' entries is strongly encouraged!
5. I'm always looking for topic ideas. Please email me at mavarin2 on gmail.com if there's a Weekend Assignment theme you'd like to see. If I use your idea, you will be credited as that week's "guest professor."

I'll try to get my next entry up tomorrow. *Cough cough!*

*I see I posted this as the deadline last week. Oops! I was a week ahead of myself!

Karen