vacation virus strikes again

This is the first time in about 36 hours that I've felt up to sitting at the computer. I got hit with a chest cold/virus thing that started out slowly Friday night. Some congestion, nothing too terrible. I slept late Saturday and thought I was getting rid of it. But by 6 pm I had a fever of 101.5, headache, and a bad cough. I felt really lousy. Last night was really bad, because I was tired, but couldn't sleep because I couldn't breathe properly. Then all the shallow breathing started causing an anxiety reaction. Horrible. Plus I had to keep getting out of bed to cough up phlegm. I think I finally got sleep around 5 this morning. My fever broke around noon today, so I'm definitely on the mend. But I'm trying to take it easy. Once I get off the computer I'm heading back to the couch. I ought to grade some papers, or read my colleague's third-year review dossier. But I might just have to watch another episode of Queer as Folk on DVD.

If I get sick, it nearly always happens in the vacation at semester's end, rather than during the school year. Once I relax a little, my immune system also relaxes I guess. So maybe getting this now means I won't get sick in the longer winter break, right? I'm trying to put a positive spin on things, since I really hate to be sick. I am a lousy patient. I get really frustrated with not being able to do my normal activities. And then that often prolongs the misery because I start back too soon. So I'm really trying to take the rest of today off. I have to be functioning tomorrow and the rest of the week. At least the fever burned out the germs pretty quickly. But it left me feeling wrung out and tired.

Blech. OK, I'm heading back to the couch. Now I really wish I had a laptop so I could snuggle up in a blanket and read blogs at the same time.