A Double Celebration

I'm very rarely sick. In fact, the last time I had a fever was roughly five years ago.

But two days ago, I felt kinda woozy. I wasn't entirely sure what was up. I felt kinda hot but what with the crazy weather we've been having here, I simply thought my body wasn't handling El Niño very well. I'm prone to having my rhinitis attacks when the ambient temperature goes nuts but I wasn't having an attack. Hell, I wasn't even sneezing. There was only one possible explanation.

I was really, truly... sick. Complete with chills and pain in places you didn't think would be painful.

I was only a few degrees centigrade from crawling under the covers and calling my mom but godammit, I had to go to work.

Probably one of the annoying things about being a resident, I guess, is the fact that even if you're sick, if you can't find someone to go on duty for you, you sure as hell have to show up.

Okay, so that may be an exaggeration but really, if you're well enough to walk, if you're not pushing out a whole human being out your vagina, aren't contagious, and haven't been lucky enough to find a reliever, you have to go on duty.

So there I was, sporting a temperature, shuffling about the ER in my sick face. I was on ward duty and the hospital just had to pick that particular night to be really busy with ward calls. Now, I get really cranky when I'm sick but as a doctor, you can't really be mean to patients, even if you might as well be a patient yourself. So all manner of mean-ness was sequestered in the bitch center of my brain. Sneak a peek at a few of the rather snappish exchanges locked in my head.

Nurse: Doc, referring a patient admitted for cough. He says his back hurts and we just gave him intravenous Tramadol 2 hours ago.

Sick Farina: Really now. Well, tell the patient my eyebrows hurt. See if he can top that.

Nurse: Doc, patient whatsisname has a fever and he has no standing order for Paracetamol.

Sick Farina: How high is his fever?

Nurse: 38 degrees Celsius.

Sick Farina: Ha! Mine's 38.5. And that's after I took Paracetamol.

Anyway, I don't know if it was by sheer willpower alone or a combination of Biogesic and some pretty strong non-opiate analgesics but by morning, my fever was gone and I was back on the wai-wagon.

So, in tribute of my journey on the road to recovery, let's celebrate... Karsten's birthday!

Hehehe...

Happy birthday, Karsten.