It seems these days that I only get sick at the most inopportune times. Before major surgery. Before major races. While on vacation.
I used to get sick all the time–strep throat, colds, bronchitis, pneumonia. My immune system is shot. Blame mononucleosis, cancer, 9/11 smoke and nasties, endometriosis, some other sis, but my doctor once told me I have the immune system of a HIV patient without any drugs to help. Every time I go to a kid’s museums (one of those science museums where they encourage you to touch things) or a huge event filled with families, I will get sick. I always ask my friends with children if their kids are sick before I come over if I have a major event planned. They always say no. And then I get hacked on by a three year old for hours. So I get sick.
And not just a cold–strep throat or pink eye. Yes, I have had pink eye multiple times as an adult.
Working at home has not increased my immune system, but it certainly keeps me isolated from all the germ-carrying denizens of the world. Instead of being sick five or six times a year, it’s down to maybe two.
Unfortunately, Artboy works in a cesspool known as a major video game studio. He is surrounded by overachieving programmers who don’t like to miss a day of work, even when they have green snot running towards their lips from their crusty nose and their coughs propel any number of wayward germs onto all unwelcoming hosts within 100 yards. It’s an understatement to say “something is going around” there. Something is always going around there.
In case you hadn’t figured it out: I have a cold. Yes eight days before I go run 19.3 miles in the Dumbo Double Dare, I have a cold. You might be thinking that is plenty of time to rid myself of a cold, but when I get sick, I don’t get a simple cold for three days. No, I get a massive sickness that lingers for a month.
I got this cold from Artboy who is still sick almost a month later. I held out for three weeks and then on Friday it hit. The night before a 10k, go figure. So if he’s had it for a month, I should have it for two. That’s just the way it works out.
Before the Wine & Dine last November, some really horrid woman at Epcot coughed all over my head as I walked by. Luckily, my head was turned to talk to a friend who described it as phlegm shooting into my ear. I actually felt my hair move. It hit closer to the back of my head than my ear, but I refused to touch my hair to find out. Yeah, I got the flu the night of the race.
At Coachella, I had avoided Artboy for a week (he got sick on our work trip, along with several other people of course). Friday at Coachella, he kept touching my back as we walked through crowds. I screamed more than once: Don’t touch me. Everyone laughed until I was sick Saturday morning. Saturday I kind of survived, but Sunday I spent a lot of time falling asleep in front of stages. Did I mention, it was like 100 degrees.
So even if I make it to the event healthy, I will be sick before the big day it seems. I’m pretty much doomed to be sick during all major events. Maybe I stuck a lot of leeches on people in a past life and this is my karmic retribution.
I’m currently running through this cold, but a sore throat and stuffy nose does not make it easy to train. I’m already so slow, so it’s not as if I can afford to be slower. I’m ignoring it for the moment. Because in 8 days I’ll be at Disneyland, the Happiest Place on Earth, and I cannot have a cold. I just cannot.
