The Monday before Christmas 2003, I was working for a small IT integrator in a support role, and needed to get to a customer site to assist in the ongoing recovery of data/servers from fire/smoke damage for a customer. Somehow I had picked up the worst flu I’ve ever had.
Because of the importance of the customer getting up and running as soon as possible, I made my way to their office to meet up with my co-workers. The drive from Sandown NH, to Charlestown MA (next town North of Boston) is usually about an hour, but since it was Christmas week, it was an easy ride… traffic wise anyway.
I had to stop about 15 minutes from my house, and take a nap, 30 minutes later, I continued my ride, arriving in the customer’s parking lot, where I took another 30 minute nap. I went in and worked for about an hour, when I determined that I just couldn’t work that day…
I attempted the ride home, but had to stop twice on the way to sleep more. It took me 3 hours to get home, 2 of those I was asleep in rest areas on the way home.
It took me 3 days to recover, and the Christmas eve I had to host a party for my wife’s family. Nothing worse than having 2 cases of beer, and whole lots of hard alcohol around, and not being able to drink a drop of it, as the thought of having even a sip, or a bite to eat turned my stomach so badly.
Not nearly as bad as many of the stories above, but it did make points with the boss (both work and wife :D) for my efforts, considering how sick I was…
Last December…the day before Christmas break. I had the misfortune of eating bad Chinese food the night before.
I’m a teacher and it’s really hard to find a substitute the day before a vacation. Also, It takes a few hours to write up a special lesson plan for a substitute.
Not only was my stomach hurting badly but I was trying so hard to be in a festive mood for my students…Nobody wants a grouchy teacher the day before a holiday.
All I could do is somberly watch the festivities and hold my stomach.
I don’t think I can beat any of these, but here goes:
Last year, I didn’t want to miss teaching a class that met only once a week, so I lurched in there with a really bad lower back spasm and somehow got through it anyway. Then it was off to the chiropractor.
Years ago, I was given doxycycline for a nasty but non-contagious infection. While I was on it for ten days, I couldn’t remember a damn thing from one minute to the next. And still I kept teaching.
I haven’t caught a spectacular stomach flu since I was ten, so my story is not really in league, but… my junior year of college, I came down with mononucleosis the first week. I never missed a class, I just dragged myself there, sat for 45 minutes all sweaty and limp, then dragged myself home to sleep. Sometime during the second week of this, another student made a big fuss about the attendance policy because “what if someone had mono?” Smackdown. Big time.
My boss was out of the office for almost 2 years due to several back surgeries. I am the only other agent/employee in a small insurance agency. I had to open the office and work no matter how sick I was. This also meant no vacation days and no lunch break.
I can remember getting up once sick with the flu, capped off by a nice 102 degree fever to find that we’d gotten over a foot of snow overnight. I dug out my van threw a blanket and a heating pad in and went to work. I shoveled and salted the walkway and steps at work and sat at my desk with the blanket wrapped around me and the heating pad on my stomach. It was the longest day of my life.
I’m a lucky guy - I don’t get really sick very often. I’ve only had to call in sick once, in 16 years - my anus felt like I was giving birth, but nothing would come out. My stomach was roiling with unfulfilled potential - as if a cork had been stuck inside Mount Pinatubo. I eventually recovered. Some sort of food poisoning.
Damn. I bet your kids never get out of going to school when they have the sniffles.
OK, mine is pretty lame by comparison. I had hepatitis when I was a freshman in college, and still dragged myself to class. I could fall asleep anywhere because of it, so I had to struggle to stay awake. I also had no appetite and was getting steadily weaker. Finally, when I was too weak to even get up and walk across my dorm room, I decided it was time for the doctor. I was out of school for two weeks while I recovered.
Last summer as a camp counselor i had a virolent lung infection that had two coworkers in the hospital but i kept on going mainly do to self destructive depression
I thought I had a bladder infection. On the way to work, I had to stop at a convenience store to pee.
Nothing came out.
Great, I thought, now I’ll have to go to work and try to make an appointment to see the doctor that evening. I get in the car and continue driving.
My bladder feels more and more uncomfortable, and then strangely, my whole body starts to go numb. My hands curl into claws, my jaw clenches shut, even my eyelids go numb. Mind you, the whole time I’m driving at 70 mph down the highway. The only thing I can think of is Get to work, you can get help there. Get to work, you can get help there.
I arrive safely, stumble in, and scare my co-worker half to death. I was pale as a sheet and I could hardly talk. They sat me down and called 911, and I was whisked away from the front lobby in an ambulance.
Turns out I was passing a kidney stone. I don’t know why I went numb, I think it must have been stress from the pain. They gave me Demerol and it didn’t work, and then they gave me some lovely medicine that had a T and an X in it and I drifted off to la-la land.
I did go to work the next day, sporting a splitting headache from pain medicine hangover.
