It is true – I don’t do anything halfway. It is one of my most beloved clichés. I always bring it up in job interviews, for example – because when it comes to me it is the god honest-truth. I don’t see the point in not doing things properly. Do it properly or don’t even bother at all. You’d think this was a good trait, wouldn’t you?
Well, apparently, this also applies to being sick.
Let’s start from the beginning, which in this case is Sunday two weeks ago. It was a wonderful day, as Sundays often are, and I was doing regular Sunday things, until I found a lump under my arm. You know, near the general boob area (I refuse to write “arm pit” and you can’t make me). You don’t need to be a genius to know what I was thinking in that moment, I am sure.
I spent the next two days trying to get in touch with my doctor, only to find out that he had both moved offices to a completely different part of town AND changed his phone number without letting me know or updating his contact information on line. I finally got an appointment - three weeks later. Lucky me! I hung up, threw a impromptu hissy fit, and made an appointment with a private medical center to get myself checked up on the very same evening. It cost an arm and a leg, but at least I was assured that it was only a swollen lymph node. Phew! Girls, remember to be careful with your, well, girls. It is breast cancer awareness month and everything. Go on, go do a little self check-up right now. I’ll wait!
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All done? Good.
Now, I was so relieved to hear the words “just a swollen lymph node” that I did not process what that actually meant. “Lumps may occur when lymph nodes are swollen due to bacterial or viral infections”. [source] I had a tiny case of the sniffles when I saw the doctor, but thought nothing more about it. The next day was Wednesday and I had the day off, and I had so many plans. Gym day! Movies! IKEA! Yeah right. By Wednesday afternoon I was a sniffling, sneezing, stuffy mess. I was glued to the sofa whining into my Kleenex all the way through Friday. How a single nose can cause this much havoc I will never understand. I was, however, feeling better by Friday evening and was anticipating to be all good again sometime during the next day.
…Or so I thought. By Saturday morning I had not only nearly lost my voice, I was also making calls on the porcelain phone pretty much every 30 minutes. I have absolutely no explanations for that one, as it makes no sense whatsoever, but hey, in one week I had gone through the whole spectrum of what a normal person goes through in about a year. That is pretty impressive if you ask me. I spent the next two days alternating between whimpering on the bathroom floor, watching everything I ate come back in reverse at alarming intervals, or shaking on the sofa while trying to control my breathing. It felt like my stomach hated me and wanted to leave my body permanently while ruining the rest of my inner workings as much as it possibly could in the process. Everything made me feel nauseous. Food? God no. Dust? Have mercy. Loud sounds? Why did the world hate me so much?! Poor Marius had to not only live with my most un-ladylike noises all week, but he also had to be on his tippy-toes, run errands, do all the cooking and stroke my head to make me relax several times a day, all with the risk of catching the same ungodly disease himself. How he dealt with it all I will never know, but then again he is a much better person than I am, and I am so so lucky to have him.
By Tuesday I had, thankfully, recovered and was ready to start my new job. I managed not to pass this gruesome affliction on to my new co-workers, and everything have been smooth sailing since then. I am now very confident that I have used my sickness-quota for both 2011 and the first half of 2012, at least!
