It all started on Sunday; I can’t really remember at what moment I started feeling it or how it came about but I do remember feeling like trash Sunday night. I had gone to local club Mystik on Saturday night and after a nap and then some proper sleep I woke up at 4PM feeling a little groggy. All good there, since I feel groggy when I wake up every morning anyway but as the afternoon shifted into the evening and I exposed myself to cold temperatures left and right, when I finally got home after a drive and a movie at around 10:30, as I lied down on my bed I started getting what you could call “the shivers.” Monday morning was when the hell started. Take it away, Wikipedia:

“Acute viral nasopharyngitis, often known as the common cold, is a mild viral infectious disease of the upper respiratory system (nose and throat). Symptoms include sneezing, sniffling, nasal congestion; scratchy, sore, or phlegmy throat; coughing; headache; and tiredness. Colds typically last three to five days, with residual coughing lasting up to three weeks. As its name suggests, it is the most common of all human diseases, infecting subjects at an average rate of slightly over one infection per year per person. Infection rates greater than three infections per year per person are not uncommon in some populations. Children and their caretakers are at a higher risk, possibly due to the high population density of schools and the fact that transmission to family members is highly efficient.

The common cold belongs to the upper respiratory tract infections. It is different from influenza, a more severe viral infection of the respiratory tract that shows the additional symptoms of rapidly rising fever, chills, and body and muscle aches. While the common cold itself is rarely life threatening, its complications, such as pneumonia, can very well be.”

In other words, this shit could kill me. I feel it munching on my soul, like a pesky rat feasting on Swiss cheese. Now, being raised on the very monk-like conception that your body can fight any virus that invades it if you give it time, and no help from those sexy drugs, my mother is not like regular moms that look after their kids by making them chicken soup and putting a wet towel on their foreheads while checking their temperature. No, no, no. My mom thinks my spirit is powered by Conan, the Barbarian. Back at school I could be rotting, literally rotting away, my eye bulging out of my eye socket while my arm dropped on the kitchen floor as I tried crawling back to my room since I had lost all feeling in my legs and she just wouldn’t care: she’d toss all of the pieces of me scattered across the house in a picnic basket and drive me to school. It was ridiculous, I don’t know if it was because she didn’t want me at home, or she got mad at me for being sick or what but I have always resented that. Every time put my foot down to stay home (not often) my mom and I wouldn’t talk for a week. This behavior went straight into my teens, too.

I’ll never forget it: It was Grade 11, high school, and my class had to mount a production of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” Our class was a group of lazy bums and the English teacher at the time was out of this world in the coolness factor so between me and my friend Chirag we took it upon ourselves to rewrite the play so that everyone in class felt a little more attracted to the material. I wish I had the original copies but I think they got lost in a fire somewhere. Anyway, the week where we had a preview show mounted was the week where I not only got a cold, but that Sunday I saw it as it progressed before my very eyes into influenza. I felt like garbage that Monday morning. My muscles hurt, my bones hurt, the very center of my being hurt but she still sent me to school. She wouldn’t pick me up unless I was dying too, so I was stuck there. All day, doing nothing but trying not to die in a pool of my own mucus. The rehearsal preview thing was on Wednesday and my damn class appointed me to be Hamlet, so I had to be there… so I’m giving the first monologue, sitting down on a chair and facing the audience while I felt eye goop form on the sides of my eyes, fumes emanating from my shoulders from the scorching hot fever I had and a thick piece of phlegm that kept playing Guitar Hero with my vocal chords. Sexy mental picture, eh? Alright, keep that feeling you have right now, strap some dynamite on it, explode it and the result of that, I want you to take it and throw it at the sun; that’s how bad I felt.

They were the worst 5 days of my teenage life and my mom didn’t feel sorry for me once. In retrospect it’s things like those that have developed my independent tendencies as well as my disregard for authorities I can’t find myself to respect (if I didn’t respect my mom I would’ve just bailed out of school without telling her… not a difficult thing to do, but what can I say?). Still, it would’ve been nice if someone could give me a breather every once in a while… the only times where I skipped school because of sickness were because my mom’s say was overpowered by my doctor’s, and those 2 times the doc said I needed to be hospitalized… I came up with pneumonia. I’ve always had issues with temperature and I’ve never brought myself to ponder as to why that is, but apparently my weakness is extreme cold; the first time I got pneumonia I had just seen “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” on video with my dad and I went to sleep. A few hours later I woke up and I was trembling uncontrollably… Imagine waking up you normally would and stepping outside the bedroom but your entire body seems to be going through an earthquake and you can’t control it. I made my way outside and through the kitchen, laughing as I shook, and said:

“D-d-d-d-d-da-a-a-a-a-a-ad-d-dd-d-d-d…. I’-m-m-m-m-m li-li-li-li-li-k-k-k-k-k-k-e-e-e th-th-th-th-th-e T-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-ermi-mi-mi-mi-mi-nat-t-t-t-t-t-t-o-r-r-r-r in th-th-th-th-e-e-e m-m-m-m-m-m-m-o-o-o-o-ov-v-v-v-v-i-i-i-e-e-e-e….!-!-!-!-!”

I was never big on sleepovers so when the doctor said I needed to stay in the hospital for a week I panicked; I had never slept anywhere where my family wasn’t 2 steps from where I was. I was scared of all the strangers, I was scared of the needle, of the hospital smell, of not having my toys nor my nightly milk nor my grandma’s cooking and I wasn’t prepared for the change of pace. I settled in quite nicely afterwards, though; the I.V line was a bitch but I couldn’t get enough of the hospital bed… I felt like I was riding a mech more than half the time. And it wasn’t so bad… my dad worked at a bank that was 2 minutes away so he was always coming in bringing me McDonald’s and what not. My grandpa was really worried so he’d spend a lot of time with me while everyone else worked and my mom would sleep over every night. I eased into the hospital thing, but one night after dreaming I was the fifth Ninja Turtle (I’m not kidding) I woke up to a pool of blood on the side of my bed and silhouettes running back and forth the hall my open door led to. As it turns out, I chopped RockSteady on the neck as I fought him and back in the real world that caused the I.V needle to zing out of my wrist and cause a spill of Shogun Assassin proportions. Besides that, though? Without a glitch; I felt it was like a vacation… afterwards though I had to go back into the E.R every Saturday for 2 months in order to suck on an oxygen tank for 15 minutes only to get a shot on the ass afterwards. Not fun.

I don’t remember much about the second time I has taken in due to pneumonia but it was later on in my life, probably 6th or 7th grade. Not sure really, but it wasn’t nearly as exciting as the first time. Ever since that first incident though my nose has become quite sensitive… I know I’m cold because I touch my nose and it’s freezing. I know the spice I’m eating is good because my nose (and nowhere else) is sweaty. Really strong smells make me slightly dizzy, but I like that. And well, apparently my nose lacks cartilage so I have the ability to stretch it as far as I want, only for it to bounce back into place when I let it go. Yes, I am a freak.

Anyway, my friend Baxster’s gonna take me to the doc now. I’ll see if I can score a few sick days out of this because Marley knows I need me some TLC and a vacuum cleaner than can pick up buckets worth of mucus. In other news, today is the International Talk Like a Pirate Day. AHOY, MATEY!

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