Another holiday is approaching...

...which means that it's time for Jen to get sick. And I mean the big, throw-down kind of sick.

It started at school on Thursday (it came on fast) with a dry, hacking, burning cough. By the end of the school day, I was feeling miserable. I walked down to the nurse's office at dismissal and dramatically threw myself on a cot, begging for a temp check. (Now mind you, my normal temp is freakishly low, usually in the 96s--seriously.) She looked at the readout: 96.4. "Well no wonder you feel like shit," she said. "You're DEAD." She kind of looked at her thermometer. "Don't worry," I said on my out the door. "It's right."

Okay, so my temp hadn't started to rise yet. I came home and went to bed. I woke up around 9:30 WRACKED with coughs (not the dainty little coughs from earlier in the day). I didn't have any meds on hand (shocking, huh?) but Brad has some 'tussin for coughs. I took some and went back to bed.

I woke up at 3:00 am absolutely freezing. I jumped into the shower and turned it on full heat--for about half an hour. Then I lay in bed and shivered some more--until I started sweating. (I still had the cough, too.) Finally, I was like, Fuck it--and I headed out to my nearest 24 hour CVS. Yes, at 4 am.

At this point, for those of you keeping score, I had the cough, the chills, aches and the sweats. About halfway to CVS, I was hit by something else--and I had to pull over to throw up. Yup, the nausea had arrived.

I got back in the car, drove about 5 feet and almost killed myself slamming on my brakes to avoid a stupid oppossum. (Hey, I just saw something moving. It could have been a small child, a dog or a truck for all I knew--my instincts just said STOP! So I did, and whacked my head on the steering wheel. Yes, my belt was on. But it was a REALLY sudden stop.

So I get to the store (they looked surprised that they had a customer, LOL) and stocked up on Nyquil, a thermometer, Jello, Icy Hot, ice cream--shit like that. One of the kids working asked me if I needed help (he looked a little scared, frankly). My voice hoarse, I croaked out the item I was looking for. I sounded like f*ckin Phyllis Diller. (She's the one with the really throaty voice right?) When I left, he told me to "have a great night." I was too tired and sick to even muster up a sarcastic retort to his idiotic comment, considering the state I was in and the items I had just bought. ("Yeah, jackass, it's gonna be an AWESOME night. Never better!! Whoot!!"--oh, look, THERE'S the sarcasm. The Nyquil must be working.)

As I was checking out, another woman working pointed down at my pants and said "I think you have a thread coming loose, hon." At this point, I'm thinking, "LOOK AT ME. Do you think I give two shits about loose thread right now?" But I look down and see that a "thread coming loose" is apparently the new euphemism for "the entire front seam of your crotch has come apart." But even though I was, at this point, basically walking around the store flashing my panties (at least they were good ones), I just looked down, said "Huh" in a disassociated way and then added, "Frankly, the way I feel, it's amazing I remembered to put on pants at all" and they laughed.

I take my temperature in the car (the same kid came out to get my cart and laughed at me--he really was a nice guy--and it's funny that I keep saying "kid" because he was like 23). My temp was 99.5!!!!!!!! Considering my normal temp, that equates to roughly 109. ;)

Thank goodness we have Friday AND Monday off. I think I'm gonna need it.

(I'm not surprised I have this, FYI. Two of my kids have been sick in the last week alone with temps over 102.)