It's amazing what a year out of the "sick cycle" will do to an immune system. My dear wife, who was kind enough to let me take over the domestic engineering vacancy in our residence, has been at home with our daughter for the first year of her life. This was no small feat, and she probably deserves a medal or two. But a year at home means that you were out of the natural immune system stimulant that is life with other people. On her first assignment after returning to work, she brought home whatever the sick kids had, and immediately started to be stricken with the sore throat/mucous/coughing thing that we all get this time of year. Consequently, my daughter also got sick as she loves to kiss mommy when she gets home from work. But this is a good thing for my daughter, as any germs she is exposed to now will create lots of antibodies so that she will hopefully be able to fight future illnesses of a similar nature. I made it through a week, and last night, I felt "the tickle." No, not that tickle! I am talking about the tickle you get in the back of your throat before all heck breaks loose on your lymphatic system.
To those of you who haven't met me, I'm a pretty big guy. And for those of you who have been around me when someone hits on the ladies in our group of friends while we're out for drinks, you know I can be intimidating. My College Dorm Basement Amateur Boxing (CDBAB) record is 2-0. I say all of this to let you in on a secret - I'm a big softy when I get sick! I'm such a wimp. I channel my inner hypochondriac, and I begin to fear the worst (I'm going to lose a leg! - this actually almost happened) Not only that, I begin to fill my gullet with anything available for colds/fevers/aches/inflamation/hemerrhoids/flu/cough/mucous - WHATEVER IS AVAILABLE! My wife thinks I'm crazy and I overreact. Well, this partially comes from the fact that I never felt like I could miss work. Since beginning my full-time work after college, I have only used 2 sick days. I keep going, fight through it, and keep working. It's what I do. But it was so much easier before. None of my previous work locations had beds!
It would be awesome if life had immunity idols like Survivor. Whenever something came up that I did not want to do - like get sick - I could play the immunity idol. Someone I don't like wants to come over for dinner? Immunity idol! My township wants to increase taxes? Immunity idol! Virus on my Facebook account? Immunity idol! And you know that I would find all of the idols first since I am at home more than my wife, and if my daughter found one, she would just try to eat it, so I would have to take it away from her anyway. But guess what, life doesn't have immunity idols. And it sucks. So, I'm going to get sick as this "tickle," that my child so lovingly decided to share with me, develops into full-on sore throat/mucous/coughing thingy, and I can't do a darn thing about it. Thanks kid.
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