Sunday, January 22, 2006

God Hates Me

So there I was, last week, thinking I'd turned the corner and was getting better. My throat had scaled down from screaming, raw-ended nerves to a monotonous dull roar and I was starting to eat solid food again. A light had appeared at the end of the tunnel.

It turned out to be a freight train.

For most of the week, I suffered through severe chills and fever, achy body and swollen head and sinuses, the nights worse than the days. One evening I got chills so bad my teeth chattered for hours. Nothing -- not sweatshirts and blankets, not hot tea and handwarmers -- could stop the cold inside me. When I finally got over that, my temperature shot up to 103°, and stayed there for most of the rest of the night. The fever finally broke the next morning, and I found myself drenched in a pool of sweat.

I thought it was a flu bug I'd picked up somewhere by foolishly taking a couple of short walks around the neighborhood. I'd been suffering from cabin fever, looking at the same walls since I got home from the hospital, and figured a little exercise could do me good. Walking just a few blocks was more difficult than I expected; not having eaten anything, I had no strength at all. In fact, I lost 25 pounds in the first ten days after I came home, and haven't gained it back yet (that's a good thing, I suppose). Anyway, I went out, walked around, caught a couple movies at the local theaters (Match Point, The Squid and the Whale), and figured I was well on the mend. Then I got hit by the train.

I've since figured out that it wasn't a flu bug at all, but rather an infection in my throat. I talked to a doctor, who phoned in a prescription for some antibiotics that I'm about to start taking, and with luck, I'll be better soon. Unless that bastard God -- who I don't believe in, by the way, are you listening up there, you non-existent bastard? -- decides to send something else my way, like frogs or locusts or boils.

Boils. Wouldn't that be a way to go?

Oh yeah, and during all this, Wilson Pickett died. God damn, now that's just plain-ass mean.
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