Unwell

I got home late Sunday night. It had been a crazy weekend, filled with lots of fun, but not enough sleep. As I crashed, something felt wrong. Monday rolled around and when I awoke, the feeling was confirmed. I had the flu.

Monday and Tuesday consisted of sleeping, drinking hot soup, drinking hot tea, being a television zombie, missing coffee, taking medication and more sleeping. I've slept and ate more in the last forty-eight hours than in the prior week, which is a sad commentary on how well I was taking care of myself. As payback, I'm having to flake out on most of this week's fun.

As I wrote that sentence, I could hear my mom's voice in the back of my head saying, "That'll teach you. What have I always told you? Take better care of yourself. But do you ever listen?" She says other things, but to summarize, they are finely crafted sentences meant to maximize my guilt.

I'm back at work today, operating at 70% capacity. Hopefully, I won't regret that decision. Tonight, I plan to continue with the remedies to fully recover before the weekend.

So, as I sniff and type, I ask myself, "What lessons of the obvious have I learned from this experience?" My answers would be...

• Don't scrimp on eating, sleeping or exercising. It's too easy to overlook them on healthy days.
• Pace myself. It does nobody any good if I run myself ragged.
• Listen to my body. When it told me to ease up last week, I should have complied.
• Soap operas are evil. It's very easy to get caught up on or hooked on those programs.
• Keep laughing. Being sick may make me grumpier, but I refuse to let it sap my sense of humor.