Day 25

My co-workers are amazed. I can hardly believe it myself. People look at me with wide eyes and laugh nervously as I talk to them. I offer them Munchkins which I imported carefully back from the east coast. They smile and their hands move but when they leave somehow I have the same number of tiny round donuts in my orange and white Munchkin box as I had before. I sit in the back in meetings. I sip at my coffee, my water, my juice. I lean away. They lean away. We are all leaning away.

What is the source of our collective repellence? I’m sick. I am approaching the four-week mark. Jokes about pneumonia and child-bourne illnesses have been replaced with less funny jokes about SARS and consumption and asbestos in the newly active heating ducts above my office.

How can I still be coughing like this after four weeks? I keep myself up at night with the coughing. People can hear me coming. I am like a cat with a bell.

I pulled a muscle in my abdomen I was coughing so hard last week. This is not good. The last time I was this sick for this long was fifteen years ago and it ended with me having my tonsils out and being sedated for a week over my Christmas break.

I have no more tonsils and I categorically refuse to give them any other little bits of me on spec. Plus, I don’t want to be sedated. It’s coming up on Christmas time and I love me some Christmas, so sedation is off the table. I have Robitussin and Chussitussin (I kid you not, the name for Robitussin with codeine in it). I have Dayquil and Nyquil. I have Vitamin C and Airborne. I have aspirin and vitamins and a pile of other pills with vile names I will not repeat here.

This has got to stop sometime.