(Posted January 26, 2011)
I’m not one to miss work. Last week, I, like so many Northlanders, got hit with some weird and nasty virus. It was a bug that felt sort of like a cold, sort of like the flu, but manifested itself mainly as severe headaches and total malaise. There was no vomiting or other bad stuff; no sweats or chills or fevers; no cough or croup. It just felt like someone had siphoned about half my energy out of fifty-something body. I managed to make it to work every day and even drive to and from the Cities on Friday for a meeting. There were a host of other guys at the conference confessing to bouts of the Man Cold, some with worse symptoms, some with symptoms identical to mine. Funny thing is, neither of the women there complained about their maladies. But the bottom line was, I’d stuck to my guns and made every day on the job, like a man is supposed to.
When the new week started on Monday, the virus was there, lurking somewhere in the mucus membranes of my body. I could feel it sneaking around the nooks and crannies of my head and throat; teasing my sinuses; tickling my throat. But it never broke out in a full flown display. Until Wednesday night. Wednesday night is my night to teach environmental law. I had a pretty easy day at work so the 7-10 gig at the University of Superior-Wisconsin seemed doable even in my depleted condition. I packed up my texts, notes, and class file, drove over the bridge in my rental car (my Pacifica, the one the nun took out, is being fixed), grabbed a couple of burgers at McDonald’s that would make Michelle Obama puke, and hit the classroom early to make sure I knew where the hell it was. Class wasn’t terrible. Not one of my better efforts but not bad for opening night. I made it home, tired, but none the worse for wear, said my good nights, and crashed, my body thoroughly exhausted from the day and the residual affect of the virus.
Ah, that nasty little virus. As I slept, it found all of the exhausted cells in my body it could find. It commanded their attention, lined them up, and marched them to my stomach, where, about midnight, they all cried out in agony. About two in the morning, I woke up my wife with my writhing and wiggling in the bed. It was as if my stomach was filled with agates and was turning over ever so slowly in an attempt to polish them. It was agony. I tried changing positions in bed. I tried making myself puke. I tried sitting in a chair.Nothing made the pain relent. Nothing made the pain abate. And then the headache I’d had with the Man Cold came back with a vengance; a searing, pounding, blinding thumping in my temples, like what I imagine migraine sufferers have to deal with. I slept fitfully when I slept at all. The virus ruined my wife’s night of sleep as well.
“I think I’ll stay home from work,” I finally muttered, my body curled into a fetal position against the abdominal onslaught when daybreak finally arrived.
“That makes sense. You kept me up all night.”
I called my court reporter Renata and told her that I wouldn’t be in. It wasn’t an easy call. You see, in twelve years, I’ve only been out sick three times. Once for knee surgery: I missed one day. Once with a sinus infection where it got so bad, I was too dizzy to stand up. I missed a day there as well. And once when I sliced open my foot on a rock in Island Lake north of Duluth. A little cut on the foot shouldn’t keep you out of work if you’re a real man, am I right? Well, it was more than a little cut. It took seven stitches at the ER to close it. But that was only the beginning of the story. The wound became infected and I landed in the hospital for five days, flat on my backside hooked up to an IV, receiving massive doses of antibiotics. There was a very real danger I’d lose the foot until the medicine did it’s magic. I was left with a small scar and the loss of feeling in half my foot (the rock severed a nerve) but I kept the foot. Lucky man.
So being out of work due to a little Man Cold which migrated to my stomach? Not usually a reason to be off work. But I needed the day. So I spent the day writhing in pain, drinking Orange Crush, and watching old movies. The rest did me good. The virus isn’t gone; my stomach is still churning but at least, I’m vertical and the nausea has relented.
As I write this, I feel better though I’m still a bit queasy and toast is about all I can keep down. But there’s work in our courts that needs to be done. I’m going in today. I hope Ms. Skube has a bucket handy in the courtroom.
Peace.
Mark
