The Twelve Days of Influenza

Day 1. My daughter tests positive at the pediatrician's using the rapid flu test by 8 AM. I am feverish by late morning. Soon, I must host my conference calls with my eyes closed, because if I don't, the room spins and I have to hold on for dear life. I put off my 3 mile run until evening. It goes OK.

Day 2. I let myself sleep in, and I do my long run alone in the early afternoon.

Day 3. Pizza. I can't really think of anything else besides pizza. I don't care about eating clean, I just want comfort foods.

Day 4. I think I'm feeling better, but instead of going to an on site meeting, I decide to stay home and work remotely for one more day, just in case. I order another pizza.

Day 5. 4 AM. I have to get up to do my mile repeats. I trudge into on site meetings, and notice a sore throat and still have a mild fever. More pizza. Yummy.

Day 6. Sore throat is now severe, nose is running like crazy, everything hurts still have a mild fever and I want more pizza. It's all about the comfort food. Really needed the day off from running. This is my second 18-hour workday of the week. There will be one more before Friday.

Day 7. I go for a nice 6 mile extremely hilly run. I bring a hankie with me as my corporeal snot repository. I am a snot machine. It's truly amazing. I want antibiotics, but I know that my doctor will not prescribe them, even though I am pretty sure I have a sinus infection by now. I fantasize about driving to a bad part of town and waving a 50 out my window, "Hey! Over here! How about some Zithromax? Amoxicillan? Omnicef?"

Day 8. It's Friday. I meet some great friends, some of who are from out of town and I haven't seen in awhile. I take decongestants and ibuprofen so as not to actually appear sick. But, I'm home early and in bed by 9 PM.

Day 9. I feel terrible. My head is pounding, I still have a fever, and I'm only happy that my running group doesn't start until 8 AM. I drank two glasses of Sangria last night as some out of town friends arrived. But, my headache is a lot worse than that. Half way through my run, I cough up part of a lung. Ew. It only slowed me down 20 seconds or so. I'm so glad my kids like pizza.

Day 10. I admit it; I'm really sick. I eat more pizza and don't remember much else. Vince tells me not to run. I am fine with that. I just want to lay down. I watched three movies today.

Day 11. Monday. My fever is 100 upon waking. My husband forces me to go to the doctor, and comes home later with leftover pizza. I love pizza. It's the only highlight of the last 11 days. I refuse to step on a scale. I'll get skinny later. I go to the doctor, and he writes me a prescription for Doxycycline for my admittedly settled-in sinus infection. Bonus: I'm covered for Malaria for a few weeks.

Day 12. Today. Today is the first day I woke up without a fever, and three days of no running. I haven't run since Saturday, and it's Tuesday. No plans to run today.

I don't have a moral of the story--yet. But, I'm sure you'll hear me whining about the pizza I need to work off when I am able to return to life and running.