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Thursday, Feb. 05, 2004 / 6:42 p.m. ~Anatomy of My Illness - and a Photo of My Pop~ I haven't really been able to describe this illness. It hasn't felt quite like a 'cold', it's not 'influenza', it's not 'bronchitis', nor is it 'pneumonia', nor 'mononucleosis'. It's easier to say what it's not than what it is. I think the so-called 'common cold virus' has mutated so much for so many years, that it's been through so many incarnations it's no longer recognizable as any one specific virus, that no medical professional could put it under a mircroscope and say more than, "Yep, she's got a cold", because he/she can no longer specifically define it. It's become too complicated, too diluted, and too mutated. It's an alien life form all its own. My symptoms? Surely it all began the night I spent in Midtown. The night I had the crazy one night thing with the wild and crazy guy I'll never seen again unless by some peculiar accident. The night I met her, the one I thought might be my new best friend, but it feels like months ago now and I'm no longer sure. That night I stayed up all night, I slept maybe one hour, maybe two, and I stayed up all day the next day, and part of all night the next night. I skipped my vitamins that first night. My resistance was low. I was ripe. I was ready to be invaded. The next sign was the coughing fit I had at work a few days later (one week?), the one that used up every ounce of my energy, made tears pour out of my eyes, and made my nose turn bright red, spawning lots of "Are you okay?!"s from passersby. Then the sore throat. All weekend. In bed with it, exhausted, feeling an urgent need to 'rest', and 'rest' I did, again, all weekend. Sleeping, resting, drinking the fluids one is supposed to drink, taking the extra Vitamin C one is supposed to take, and the echinacea which usually works when one is beginning to feel like one is 'coming down with something'. It's all served to keep me from feeling the strongest effects of this whatever, this virus, this mutated alien life form. My head is fine, it's not thick with it. My nose does not run, I barely sneeze (but when I do, it's full body, it's huge, massive ocean wave sneezes), I barely produce phlegm now. 3:00 this morning, in fact, I woke up to pee, and my throat was so dry. DRY. I had the urge to cough, but it was a hack, and my voice was gone, I tried to say things just to experiment. It was my throat, my nose was full, but nothing was coming out anywhere - it was like a giant block of solidified gunk lay throughout my nose and throat passages, and there was no clear way through it all. Of course I lay there in bed after the peeing, and could not sleep, for a long time lying there thinking of my mother and the way she died, and her throat, and how I have throat problems, and I know it's unrelated, but I always compare them to hers, is this how it was? What was it like? How horrible it must have been. It was like a memory-induced sympathy pain. Or sympathy symptom. And then I remember a solid twenty years of second-hand smoke inhalation, all through my formative years, and I wonder if I'll succumb soon as well. It's just a cold, I remind myself, it's just a cold, and each one is so different, this one is no different for being so different. It's not easy to describe, I've gone to work, no need to stay home, I don't feel I'd be better off reclining, not anymore, I function fine. It's only when I breathe that I notice it. I wheeze, and when I'm in bed late at night it's hard to breathe. That's when I wake up, that's when I worry, when I'm almost afraid, but most of all I'm simply frustrated. I want my body to work. I want everything up and running as it should be. And I'm not making myself gag swallowing fistsful (fistfuls?) of vitamins and herbal supplements with my fruit juice every night after eating enough to fill my belly for nothing. I want to fix this. I feel helpless. Today at work I lost a battle. I began with the itch, the tickle, the major coughing, the kind of coughing that really wells up from the bowels almost, it's totally full body, it racks every muscle and the ribcage, and the lungs burn with it, the throat hurts, the eyes drip with tears, the face turns red, the nose too, it hurts, it's embarassing, and finally I said, "I think I'm sick". I had to laugh. I said it to myself, but we can all hear everyone, I need to remember that, and Veronica said, "You're always so strong, you never get sick, but you are sick, this time you are sick", and I said, "I'm going home", because I can do that now, in this new job in the new department. I could've left at noon if I'd wanted, almost every day is like this now. I wanted to work a full day, as yesterday I worked eight whole hours, but today, no, not with that cough, that did it. My new supervisor came by just as I was pulling my purple angora hat over my ears, and she wanted to show me how to process something or other. I said, "Okay, but I'm off the clock already", and we left it at that. I hadn't even told her I was leaving, but she saw me when she came around the corner, and I know I was flushed, red, my eyes must've been slits, how could I have NOT looked sick?, and I said, "I'm going home, I feel terrible". Almost everyone in that place is sick to one degree or another, with one form of mutated virus from alien hell or another. At any given moment, during any given day, it sounds like a TB ward in a hospital, an inner city hospital, or maybe an inner city emergency room waiting area, like 'chairs' on "ER". Cough, hack, wheeze, hock, sneeze, rinse, repeat. It's a veritable cesspool of germ warfare. I dare you to work there and survive. It was last January I also succumbed. January is a hard month to stay strong, and the virus 'caught' then lasts through 'til the mid of the glorious February, I remember. I know what would be good, a humidifier. I know this because when I was in a hot shower this morning I felt SO fucking good! Not that a hot shower doesn't usually feel good anyway, but today it just lubricated my throat so well. It's dry mucous membranes that are the worst problem here. And, if you study up on the 'common cold' and the causes, or the transmission thereof, and learn that it is most transmissable during the cold Winter months, you learn it is because the body's normal defenses, i.e. the mucous membranes and their ability to do whatever it is they do so well, is hampered by the dry indoor air we all have surrounding us. Work is hot lately, lots of dry heat, home is pretty dry too (though it's awfully wet and cold outside), so I'm dried out, and I wasn't able to lube well enough to keep myself immune. Or something. Long story longer, I left work at 4:00, but I've been leaving at 3:00, so this is no big deal really, and I feel better just sitting here at home, in front of my computer. I should lie down, but I'm not sure it will lessen the normal time for the sickness to take hold and leave (what's that period called?). I also feel better when I'm eating. And drinking cool liquids. Hot makes me dry. Alas, I am exhausted, more from being up at 3:00 a.m. thinking about how my mother suffered with throat cancer, and lying there unable to sleep than from anything else. "Survivor" is on soon, and then perhaps bed. Friday is expected to be filled with stormy cold rain, and I will leave work early if the option is presented. I leave with a photo of my Pop, as this is his 79th birthday. He died 14 years ago. Here is my favorite photo of him, as a young man in his 20s:  Cost of the War in Iraq
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