The Plague

A man's illness is his private territory and, no matter how much he loves you and how close you are, you stay an outsider. - Lauren Bacall

Tuesday, March 27th, the plague struck. It started simple. A sore throat struck in the evening and I just figured it was not going to be a big deal. I drank a lot of water and went to bed at a reasonable time that night.
Wednesday, March 28th, was a punch in the face and the gut. I woke up, if it could be called waking, feeling like a cement truck had parked on top of me. My throat continued to burn and my head throbbed. I decided the only acceptable option was to go comatose. Which I proceeded to do for the duration of the day.
Thursday, March 29th, was a minor improvement. I think the cement truck had pulled forward a little bit. The sore throat ravaged on, the headache remained, but the crushing exhaustion had lifted. Then the headache got worse. Then the headache got worse. Then the headache got worse. I was hit with a full force cluster headache. It had been a long time since I've had one of those either - but there it was, the sense that some mysterious force was grabbing on to both of my eyeballs and squeezing as hard as it could. It was tortuous. I took pain killers along with medicinal caffeine to try and break out of it, but it didn't solve it.
Friday brought the treat of a cough. So far my symptoms had only been a sore throat and exhaustion, the cough was new. And combining a cough with a sore throat is not a pretty thing. So yeah, Friday was pretty bad.
Saturday brought massive amounts of nasal congestion. It felt like every day a new symptom was being added onto the pile. The older symptoms weren't clearing up I was just slowly going down hill. I thought the exhaustion was getting better, but the four hour nap on Saturday may have shown otherwise.
Sunday. What new symptom was left? Sore throat? Check. Headaches? Check. Cough? Check. Nasal congestion / runny nose? Check. Well, the obvious guess would be fever, but thankfully no. Instead I got an ear infection. Yep, an ear infection, because I am apparently 10 years old again.
So on Monday I went straight on in to the doctor who gave me delicious delicious antibiotics and by Tuesday afternoon I was feeling "a little better." Sure, maybe it's placebo, but I will take it!