24 Hours

I just recovered from a 24-hour cold. It was absolutely fascinating...okay, it's absolutely fascinating in retrospect. At the time, it was pretty crappy. When I woke up, I felt fine, except for a very slight scratchiness in the throat. It didn't hurt as much as it usually does before the onset of a cold, so I decided to deal with it later (especially since I was already a little late for work). I started sniffling at around 2:00 pm, prompting me to make a mental note to take some medication before I went to bed that night. I didn't have a chance to do anything...by 4:00 pm, I was sneezing and congested. By the time I got home, it was a full-blown sinus attack. I lay on the couch in front of the TV like a slug until it was time to take some drugs.

Sidebar: The apple-cinnamon Neo Citron kicks ass. Not only does it actually taste like both cinnamon and apples, but it works like a charm. A little promo just in time for cold and flu season.

So I took the Neo and passed out for the night. By the time my alarm rang this morning, I was perfectly okay. Other than some residual sniffles during the day, you couldn't tell that I was sick as a dog the night before. It was like a week-long cold compressed into 24 hours. If only all of my colds were like that...

24 hours can do a lot to a person. For example, you think that you're going in to get your chemo treatment tomorrow, and then 24 hours later, you find out the chemo isn't working, and just for extra kicks, it turns out that the reason why you can't breathe properly is because fluid has been building up around your lungs and you have to go into the hospital to get it drained out of your body. It was the first time I personally saw my boss cry, which was pretty upsetting for me. You have to hand it to this woman, though. She finds out she's only got one working lung, but she comes into work anyway while she's waiting for a bed in the hospital to become available. I swear, she is my personal hero. Meanwhile the blood clot in her right arm hasn't cleared up yet, so she's in constant agony. It's astounding when you think about how life can be so unfair to really nice people. She's supposed to be in the hospital for a couple more days, so I'm going to try to visit her tomorrow. Just another 24 hours.

"I wanna hold you high and steal your pain away"