T w e n t y S i d e d

On the upside, I lived, and will be able to continue to write on my blog. The downside is that I was incredibly sick and mere survival seems like a piss poor trade. I mean, I got my life. Big deal. I had that before I got sick.

That’s the thing with illnesses. There’s no justice. If you get bit by a wolf, you can get better and hunt down that son of a bitch. But you can’t go out and even the score with a pathogen. Well, technically I killed it in the process of getting better, but its progeny will live on, mutate, and infect other human beings. In fact, someday those twisted offspring will be back, and I’ll have to put them down again. Assuming I’m up for it.

I was the last person in the house to get sick, so I saw this coming a week ago. I saw the others get picked off, but there’s nothing you can do but wait for your turn. When I finally got sick, everyone else had pretty much recovered. I went around the house mocking myself saying, “I am suffering in a painfully unique way and nobody else understands what I’m going though!”

This particular illness is ridiculous. It’s some sort of multiple-personality disease that draws symptoms at random. It starts off with fever and intense headache. Six hours later those symptoms are gone, replaced by aching joints and stomach cramps. The next morning it’s a thundering heartbeat and extreme drymouth. Dizziness and congestion! A dry cough and a neck ache! What is this? Some kind of Whitman’s Sampler of esoteric symptoms?

The most interesting was the interval on Saturday where the only symptom was that my face hurt. Not my sinuses, my eyes, or mucus membranes. I’m talking about teeth, cheekbones, lower jaw, and nose. It literally felt like I’d been beaten and I was just waiting for the bruises to appear. I’ve never even heard of a sickness doing that. I’ve somehow caught a bug that can punch you in the face. Our science isn’t ready for this!

So that’s what I did on my weekend.

You might want to go wash your hands when you leave this site.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.