Because I am still All The Sick

[commodorified]

Poll #17162 The Worst

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 75

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What is Ther Worst Viral Thing? (Based on personal loathing, not actual/potential severity)

View Answers

Head cold, the runny kind
5 (6.7%)

Sinus cold, the stuffy kind
9 (12.0%)

Tonsils/strep
6 (8.0%)

Chest cold
6 (8.0%)

Stomach bug
27 (36.0%)

Influenza (get your flu shot, everyone!)
22 (29.3%)

ETA: "stomach bug" includes viruses causing *both* kinds of digestive distress. Possibly I ought to have said "digestive system" rather than "stomach", but I am the sort of person who would rather clean up after Norovirus for a week than discuss the topic for ten minutes, sorry.

Comments

[lexin]

Influenza FTW. Or, rather, not.

I once got influenza while away in Wales, and it was just the worst thing.

First there was the dreadful sore throat that felt like I was having my tonsils removed with a rusty spoon, followed within a very few hours by the dreadful pain in every bone, including every individual tooth, every bone in my spine, my hips, my knees, my feet, my hands and every individual hair on my head. Everything hurt. My legs were a particular misery as I had a pain from my heel to my hips, like sciatica. I hurt so much I was in tears.

Then I got a cough so severe that the hurt of everything listed above rose x 100 every time I coughed and I had to hold my head to stop the top of my skull from flying off. Plus there was a post nasal drip as described by commodorified, which made me feel sick, stuffed up my nose, made the pain worse and caused my cough to increase to the point that I dribbled a little bit of wee every time I coughed and I felt as if the top of my head were flying off.

I would have sent my friends to fetch cold medicines, but every one of them had caught it, too. We were a very sad little crew that year.

Two days into the illness, I had to travel home by train. I practically crawled off that train and got into a taxi. I didn't care how much it cost, but there was no way on god's green earth I was going to be able to get home by public transport. The taxi driver looked a bit worried that I was going to fill his taxi with germs, but I was adamant that I was taking a black cab from Euston all the way to Leytonstone and bugger the expense. Even then I had to carry my suitcase up the stairs to my flat, and that about wore me out.

Even months later, my brain was scrambled and I was putting the remote control into the fridge, losing my way to places I knew perfectly well and forgetting my keys all over the place.

It was then I decided that whatever the charge, I was getting a flu jab every damn year. I'm never, never, never going through that again.

[recessional]

So much sympathy on the travelling while having influenza; my first bout with it three days in I had to fly from northern BC to Vancouver Island. Originally I was supposed to fly to Vancouver Airport and then take the bus-and-ferry back over to the Island, but my mother went "NOPE" and got me on one of the little airport-to-inner-harbour float-planes.

It was absolutely fucking awful. I even had to use my airsickness bag on the descent into Vancouver. And yet, the guy in the seat next to me didn't stop trying to flirt until I actually threw up. I mean it didn't actually make anything worse because I literally just didn't pay any attention to him, but I remember sitting there going "I look like death, I have cold sweat at my temples, I've been curled up in a miserable ball with my headphones in my ears the whole flight, I'm not even looking at you now, and I'm holding the airsickness bag: WHAT PART OF THIS IS ALLURING?"

Then I likewise crawled into a cab and into my apartment, tried to eat some ramen, realized the only thing I wanted was the broth, drank the whole thing and passed out in bed. My roommate was O.O

Anyway. /share

[lexin]

Oh, that sounds horrible. And to be flirted with on top of your troubles - what makes men do that kind of thing?

[recessional]

I could not figure it out. Like it didn't even bother me because I was too miserable to care, but it BAFFLED me. I remember sitting there with two parallel thought-streams: 1. Am I going to actually throw up? and 2. What in the name of GOD is actually attracting you to the idea of even talking to me right now? Like do you just literally feel so entitled to female attention that you're not even looking at me, you just went "ah, a female person, I will talk at her and she will pay attention"? I AM SO CONFUSED.