Sick Day, part 3

I’m sick. Again? Still? Not sure which. Don’t really care, as long as the medicine kicks in FAST.

I had to fly out of state this weekend for some meetings. About half way into the first leg of my journey, my head started spinning. Things cleared up during my sprint through the airport to catch my next flight. Airborne again, I nearly passed out. I’m a pretty easy flier, so I wasn’t sure what was happening. For the next 24 hours, I pretended I was fine to all those around me, even hiding a fever and a neck that would barely move. I had no car, no way to get meds, nothing to soothe my pounding head and burning throat. Back on the plane to head home I thought I might need medical assistance when we reached cruising altitude – my ears nearly turned inside out. I pressed my hands to them and cried the entire trip. The guy next to me had to have had visions of the scene from “Rain Man” where Dustin Hoffman does his “Hot water burn baby” sequence. A few times he patted my arm so that I knew he cared, but he also knew there was nothing he could do so there was no need to try. He could’ve sat in the seat he was assigned and freed the seat next to me so I could have laid down, but he didn’t think of that. The flight attendant just handed me a pillow and blanket and gave me soothing looks while the hyper Chinese-speaking child behind me kicked my seat for 2 hours.

I have never been so glad to touch my feet to the ground. First thing this morning after a sleepless night, I headed to the doctor to find out I have a sinus infection, a fluid-filled inner ear infection in my right ear and “just a regular” ear infection in my left ear. My doctor had no idea how I survived 35,000 feet without my ear drums exploding (great, thanks, Doc).

The greatest part? I’m out of blasted sick days. Yep, those little creatures called children bring home diseases from every nook and cranny and get sick, so I stay with them. Then I get sick and go to work. The doctor wrote a prescription for my husband too – “surely he’ll get something before long, save him now.”

So even though the laundry is piled, the grass needs mowed and there is a “to-do” list a mile long, I think tonight we’ll be grabbing take-out and curling up under the covers to watch our 6 hours of ti-vo’d shows from last night that I missed while testing the strength of my ear canals flying home.