Managing being sick

I don't get sick a lot and I hate it. I'm now on my 4th day of this and if it's not better by the end of the day I'm off to the doctor.

It's a weird kind of sick. The only symptom I have is a fever 100-102. Nothing, and I mean nothing else. No gunk of any sort coming out of my body. That's why I'm pretty sure it's not swine flu. My doctor said he was not aware of any swine flu that didn't also have runny nose and cough. I got nothin'.

Unfortunately, aside from a few scattered hours here and there (like right now), I've felt generally too crappy to do anything, and I'm incredibly bored. When I was a kid, being sick was an opportunity to watch game shows on TV, which I loved. I remember being upset every day in the early afternoon when Let's Make A Deal and The Price is Right were replaced by One Life to Live and All My Children. I tried watching The Price is Right. It was disgusting. Drew Carey is very unpleasant to look at and not nearly as funny as he thinks he is, the showroom model babe is a complete caricature- huge blonde hair, frightening big white teeth, and leeringly low cut dresses. I like looking at pretty women as much as the next guy, but UGH!

And the people? I guess I have to admit that I don't look like those Michelangelo sculptures I saw this summer, but doesn't anybody go to these things who is not a minimum of 20 pounds overweight? Plus, back in the day, people actually used to try to guess what the price was. Now that everyone's savvy that it's the closest guess without going going over the actual price, the first person would guess $1400, the second one would guess $1401, the third $1402 and the fourth $1 to capture anything under $1400. What's the fun in that? The only thing I liked was the set, which was a melange of neon patterns and looked like it was made out of cardboard.

So the most interesting thing to do is monitor my temperature. I remember from when my kids were little that there isn't anything to be gained by repeatedly taking their temperature. But I find the oscillations fascinating. Maybe I'll record them on a scatter plot and see if I can get a curve of best fit. Up and down, sometimes steadily, sometimes in sudden jumps or falls. Maybe I'm just too self-absorbed, but if my temperature was 100.2 at 6AM and 101.9 at 8AM, what happened during those 2 hours? All I was doing was lying in bed.

The only other thing to do is strategize where I'm going to park myself and whether I will be sitting or lying down. In general, I try to avoid being in bed during the day because it makes it harder for me to sleep there at night. The couch in the den is the most comfortable, but everyone else likes to sit in there too and it's next to the kitchen and therefore noisy. So I stay in the living room. The couch is fine, there's a good TV and it's relatively quiet. So I think I will go in there now and prop myself up at a 45 degree angle and watch something I've seen a bunch of times before.

I think we've just stumbled over the TMI line, so I think I'll stop now.