Some of you might already know about my recent misfortune of coming down with the swine flu. But for those of you that don't, here's the short version. I'm sick as a pig. Thursday afternoon, I started having an agitating cough that no amount of water, cough meds, or milkshakes could hold back (Yes, I realize that the milkshake wasn't that great of an idea, but you've got to exhaust your possibilities). By the time I got off work later that evening, I nearly cough up a lung, at which point, I figure this might be something a little bit more serious than just an itch in the throat.
--sleeping--
Fast-forward to Friday morning at 4am:
Dang it. There's my lung in my lap.
"What the HECK am I supposed to do about that?" which actually sounded a bit more like "wha da eeck am eye fuppofed pu goo abow aat?" with the lung hanging out.
--sleeping--
At 8am, I'm in no better condition. I've now got a splitting headache. The sunlight isn't helping, either, since my blinds leave the top 1/4 of the window un-shaded. I manage to make it to the shower and I crank the steam up to full-force, giving me only the slightest bit of relief from the coughing. Add a dab of willpower, and a lot of vaseline, and my lung slipped back in with a messy plorp!
I called Dad's office, and I don't even think they knew it was me, since I could barely croak. Waiting on hold, I take a temperature reading: 101.2 degrees. That ain't good. My conversation with dad consisted of four words: "dad...sick...bring...drugs..." followed by a full bout of the hacking coughs.
--sleeping--
10am, I figure that it might be a pretty good idea that I let work know that I wouldn't be coming in today. Don't know how I did it, but I managed to call 5 of the managers and my boss, to assure them that I wasn't faking it.
Taking my temperature again, I find that it's risen to 103 degrees! Yeek! Now, to do something about that dang sunlight. Quick-rig with a portable wardrobe hanger with a comforter thrown over the top does the job quite nicely.
--skipping a lot of sleep and repetition--
Dad's finally home. One look at me and my 103.2 degree fever tells him the bad news without question. He steps towards me with a blister-pack of flu meds, and tosses it to me and pulls back before I can even reach out my hand to take them, just as you might do when feeding mice to a snake. For real?
--sleeping--
Over the last couple of hours, I've had a lot of time to think, as well as to devise methods of which to communicate with Dad as he won't come within 6 feet of me, and he can't read lips beyond 5 feet. In the last few hours, I've discovered a few more or less effective methods:
Texting him, even though he's only downstairs.
Tapping out Morse code on the wall.
Throwing precisely-aimed and inscribed rubber SuperBalls at my doorframe, hoping that the trajectory causes a perfect ricochet down the stairs.
bahahahahahahaha