Woke up in the middle of the night last night with a pretty nasty case of sore throat. Ordinarily this would just be a minor annoyance, except for two things: 1) I have imminent plans to trek up to Baltimore to visit my new niece for the first time, and have been looking forward to these plans since a month ago when she was born! and 2) my current place of employment kind of sort of made the national news for being an epicenter of swine flu. Pffft.
I’ve immediately taken isolation measures – sequestering myself in my room as much as possible, only emerging when the roommates are out; rubbing my fingerprints off with hand sanitizer; etc. There are a couple of glitches – of course none of the roommates bothered to help feed the cats tonight, leaving them to howl at my shuttered door for twenty minutes (!), so I did emerge from my cavern of illness for a minute, floating like a pathogenic cloud past my roommate’s study group in my pajamas and bedhead (at 6 pm) to quell the cats’ hunger.
My flight to Baltimore is at 9 a.m. on Wednesday. That means I have until just before 9 a.m. tomorrow to decide whether or not this is a passing change-of-seasons cold that will dissipate within 24 hours, or whether I can only leave the house wearing a hazmat suit. Since the appearance of the sore throat, I have been knocking myself out with Benadryl to force myself to…I dunno, sleep the pathogens away? (There’s a reason why I never went to med school). I’ve been drinking tons of liquid, which also poses its own complications when dealing with self-quarantine in a house shared with others.
Finally, the ultimate act of desperation – I actually took a shot of Eli’s hippie health tonic.
Eli swears by this formula, a concoction he brews every winter. I forget all the ingredients, but I think it involves garlic, vinegar, ginger, horseradish root and vodka. The ingredients are left to ferment in the darkest, most evil corner of one’s house for two weeks. Bonus witching points if it happens to be a corner thick with cobwebs and haunted by rabid bats. Then the thick layer of bream that forms on top is sloughed off, leaving the foulest smelling devil brew this side of the Earth’s crust. Think fish sauce that has somehow managed to go bad.
One swig of this, and Eli typically radiates stink for hours afterwards. An unfortunate coworker of his had to carpool with him after a treatment of tonic, and she wondered “what that horrible smell was” even after vigorous teeth-brushing, mouthwashing and gum. I had said to Eli that given the choice, I’d probably rather be sick.
Until now. I have to get better, so down it went, chased by half a liter of fruit smoothie and blueberry yogurt.
Report: the tonic, though foul smelling, did not taste quite as bad as it smells. Perhaps because I administered it shot style, and thus the taste was not allowed to linger quite like its odor. I did notice right away that the tonic cut like a knife through my general feeling of sluggishness. Some odd and faintly alarming….squeaking noises emanated from my body. I assume this is either due to the swine flu / summer cold bugs dying en masse, or my very own internal organs revolting.
A few hours later I am still feeling ill, but maybe a little better (and stinkier) than before? I guess I’ll know by 8 a.m. tomorrow whether I am leaving on that jet plane.
Footnotes:
1. Aaand, after consulting with the sister, we have decided that it is better to err on the side of safety and not potentially expose her offspring to porcine pathogens. I am totes disappointed, but this is probably for the best.
2. Southwest is the shit and I am never flying any other airline domestically, if I can help it. No cancellation fees and I can reschedule anytime within a year. Woop!
One Comment
Man, Southwest IS the shit! That’s so awesome :)
Your neicelet is adorable btw.
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