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So, today's Friday. That means, this is my 5th day stuck inside my house with minimum interaction with the outside world. Sunday doesn't count, although, I did spend a good portion of my day drooling on my pillow and routinely waking up to tell Jancy to study Biology. I have no recollection of that night whatsoever, apart from those bare facts. But anyways, by minimum interaction with the world, I mean Genie shouting at me from my backyard while I stand in the upstairs backroom with the window opened. You know, the whole, "Rapunzel! Let down your hair!" thing. Picturing that scene would be ideally romantic if it weren't for the congestion. Pardon me as this is going to be yet another episode of me ranting and raving about the unfortunate events that have taken place this past week. Obviously, I'm finding this more productive than catching up on missing homework assignments.
It all started during Saturday/Sunday night when I discovered that I had kicked off all my blankets due to my tendancy to flail in my sleep. I woke up with a cough and a feeling that my Thanksgiving weekend had been royally screwed over. Because of my momentary laspe of judgement, I decided to put on my let's-hide-this-from-my-parents-so-they-won't-keep-me-from-going-out act instead of my what-can-I-do-to-prevent-sickness? act. Basically, it all went downhill from there. Oh that brain of mine... Whatever am I going to do with it? I was supposed to spend that Sunday night with Jancy where we'd paint each others nails, braid each others hair and doing all the wonderful girly things that I do with my girl friends... and Jeff and Oscar. Instead, Jancy found herself trying to wake me up with nothing to show for it. Sorry that I'm such a bore when I'm dead. I continued on to sleep for another 20 hours. Do the math. That's 5 hours that I was asleep for every hour that I was awake. Most people would wake up feeling refreshed and ready to take on anything, but lucky me, this round of sickness tends to leave me feeling way crappier when I wake up then when my head hit the pillow.
I blame it on my fever. Fevers are seriously the most unnecessary things in the world. I mean, you're already lying there not able to breath through your nose, because it's all clogged up, and you can't breath through your mouth either or else your throat will get all dry and send you into a series of gags and coughs. And then a fever comes along and makes you sweat your brains out, but at the same time, makes you feel like the second ice age has come. They also give you that "Oh man, I've never been high, but I think this is how it would feel like if I was," feeling. You start believing that your skin is made up of multi-coloured layers, and if you just peeled them off one by one, you'd stop going crazy. Totally unnecessary.
On Tuesday, I went to see the doctor. The whole sitting in the waiting room thing has honestly become pretty routine to me. The only difference this time was that the nurse made me put on one of those disposable face masks. I know it was just a precaution with the whole swine flu thing going around, but it was embarassing. I may as well have had a neon sign above my head that said, "AVOID ME! I WILL INFECT YOU!" People who sat near me looked very uncomfortable. It's okay though, I wouldn't of wanted to touch me either. But anyways, this was the doctor's diagnosis of me:
"It looks like a mix between a cold and a flu... or it could quite possibly be a mild case of H1N1."
Obviously as a parent, or well, any human being for the matter, the only thing you get from that is, "OH MY DEAR LORD SHE HAS SWINE FLU!" So my dad was all, "Call Jancy's dad right now. We must notify everyone of this infectious disease of yours. Tiffany and Eugenia are not allowed to come over. Don't touch Cookie. She could become a carrier." This sort of travesty obviously sent a wave of panic to... well, anyone my dad told. I just sat there like, "... I'm not going to die." I mean, if I actually legit had swine flu, I wouldn't even be able to get out of bed, let alone be sitting here typing this. It was only a possibility. The only sign that I would've had it is if I had progressively gotten worse. And I think I'm getting better... though it's hard to tell with the amount of Tylenol Cold that I've been taking.
On Wednesday, my mom made me go to a Chinese herbal doctor, since the other doctor didn't prescribe me any medicine on the lines of... well, there wasn't anything he could give me. If you've never had to go to a Chinese herbal doctor, COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS. The actual process of going isn't so bad, it's the medicine that they give you that's the deal-breaker. The smell alone of fu cha (translated: bitter tea) is more likely to put you in a coma than heal your illness. I can't even describe it apart from: it's like drinking dead people. If only my mother didn't have the belief of, "If it tastes bad, it has to be good for you!" That doesn't even make sense. Take dirt, for instance. There's no way that could be good for you.
Anyways, I'm getting sick of the daily cycle I go through everday that only helps me inch (I would use the word centimeter as a verb if I could, because a centimeter is shorter than an inch) towards my recovery. I'm sick of spending good quality time with myself. I'm sick of only being able to breath through one nostril. I'm sick of coughing. I'm sick of my nose hurting from an overuse of Kleenex. I'm sick of praying this to God every so often: "Dear God, PLEASE MAKE ME BETTER!!!!!!" I'm sick of cough syrup that makes my stomach feel tingly. I'm sick of headaches. I'm sick of thermometers. I'm sick of congee. I'm sick of not being able to go to school and see my friends. Come to think of it, on Sunday, I would officially not have stepped into that building in 11 days, counting weekends, Teachers conventions, Thanksgiving holidays and days I was absent. Frick, I'm going to have so much homework to catch up on... I'm sick of being sick!!!!
Not to mention, my aunt is visiting here from Ottawa. She's the typical aunt with the high-pitched voice who knows everything. Or so she thinks. The last thing I want to do is sit there and listen to her ramble on about remedies, and reasons why she thinks I'm sick. Somehow, that will all lead up to a serious talk about my future and which universities I'm thinking about attending. Lovely.
On the bright side, I no longer have a fever, advil has dumbed down my headaches and my appetite is back. Although, that does have its downsides considering that I currently have a sudden craving for canned pineapples and we happen to have nothing of that sort in our house... And also, my noodle priviledges have been suspended so I have a delicious bowl of mush, also known as congee, awaiting me downstairs for lunch. That was sarcasm, if you didn't catch that.
The one thing that's not so bad about being sick is that you get comments like these:
"Rebekah Ho, I miss you so
Seems like it's been forever since you've been gone
So come back Ho:(
i wish there was some sort of elixir like from maple story to restore your HP so that you can return by my side to fight of monsters :("
I mean, I can't help but feel a bit better. It's like a ray of sun when it's raining snot.