With a little help

I'm nothing if not stubborn persistent.

So I mentioned I was sick, right? I actually went to the doctor yesterday, and she was like, "You have a virus." Which I of course heard as "There's nothing wrong with you." Which was, of course, wrong. And, doped up on ibuprofen and Cepacol, right, I got a little delusional this morning and started thinking, well, I know I said I wasn't going to be there today and arranged coverage and split my patient load between two of my colleagues (and I have a service full of rocks, so, I was guessing it wasn't going to be too awful)...I could probably make it through the morning. Never mind that I didn't sleep more than thirty minutes in a stretch last night or that I'm pretty sure my throat is the relative consistency of steak tartare, forget my barking cough and unit full of old people, ignore that I'm sweating like a sinner in church and I haven't even gotten out of bed yet...I'll be fine.

After all, there's nothing wrong with me. Just a "virus."

(Okay, what she actually said was "viral bronchitis and oh, hey, your spleen is enlarged.")

(Minor details. Who pays attention to that? There's nothing wrong with me.)

Ahem.

So I dragged my still-feverish self out of bed this am, pulled on the uniform (black pants, black sweater, some sort of shirt), and headed out the door. And fortunately for me, I stopped for coffee between here and work. Where my friends all took one look at me and went, "What are you, crazy?! You look awful. Go back to bed." And Sparrow (Goddess that she is), over text, was like, "What? I'm already en route to cover for you. Feel better."

I argued. I rationalized. I was stub persistent.But in the end, cooler heads prevailed (as in, those with a normal body temperature).

I actually went back to *my* apartment today. Which, honestly, I probably would've napped better at Shady Pines. The combination of pollen, accumulated dust, and dog hair in my bedroom (where I haven't slept since the end of March) turned out to be too much for my tenuous upper respiratory tract. But I did get a Cook Out milkshake out of the deal, and hey - that'll heal anything that ails you.