Perpetual Ruminations

Thursday

I got another day off from work this week, instead of being at work, I'm home sick. I'm not sure what I picked up, but it has me feeling pretty beat. I actually got sick yesterday, or at least, that's when I noticed I was sick, but looking back, I'd have to say I was feeling some of the symptoms for a few days prior to that. I had some aches and pains throughout my body, headaches, chills, and feeling run down for about a week. The last few days also had me retaining a lot of water, especially in my legs.

When I add up all the symptoms, it's looking like I may have the flu, even though I did get my annual flu vaccine earlier this fall. It's not surprising, considering I work in a job that has me coming in contact with a lot of people every day, and most people do not even try to turn their heads or cover their mouths when they cough. It's also a bad year for the flu, and it seems like everyone is sick with something. Even the weather has been prime for spreading sickness and germs.

The temperature fluctuates between sub-zero and thawing, just like the humidity goes from humid to arid. We just sent through a few days of very dry air, and temperatures that barely climbed into the teens by day and dropped well below zero at night. The wind blew hard for the entire time we had the cold temperatures.  Then the wind switched to the south, the temperature climbed into the upper twenties or lower thirties, the humidity shot up to eighty percent range, and we had a complete turn-a-round in the weather. It's been doing this since November's arctic attack.

Just the jumping up and down in temperature is enough to get people sick, and the extreme cold spells keep homes and buildings sealed up, spreading the germs to everyone inside. Even resilient individuals seem to be having a tough time with colds and coughs this year. It seems to be throughout the country, too, not just in a few areas or regions.

It seems like this is my year to be sick anyway. I did pretty well through the summer but had a terrible time with allergies in the fall, and even ended up with a severe sinus infection and eventually pneumonia this past fall. I did get treatment and healed, but my sinuses have continued to give me problems. Part of it is the dryness, another problem is living close to a grain elevator and having some allergies. I suppose this had my immune system run down, and not getting enough sleep only made it easier for me to catch this when I was exposed.

Since I did have my flu shot, and I'm getting plenty of rest, I'm hopeful that I won't get real sick and will be over this quickly. I didn't work today, and if I must, I can take tomorrow off, too. If I'm up to it, I may work a short day tomorrow and Saturday so that I can continue to get plenty of rest and recover quickly. One thing positive about being sick, it has given me a bit of time I wasn't expecting.