the dreaded flu!

 We’ve been in bed a lot lately. There’s been lots of horizontal action, with additional bodies in our bed and plenty of sweating and moaning. Yes. Our family has had the dreaded flu for the last two weeks.

It’s a long standing issue of mine that being a classy lady doesn’t come naturally to me. I’d like to be of class and grace like the Queen, but it eludes me. Indeed there is photographic evidence on our wedding day of a bride reaching deep to retrieve undergarments from whence they should not have rode. Classy.  Influenza does not help my cause.

I woke up on the day of my last exam shaking like a leaf, with a throat that felt like I might have gargled acid and with a head which throbbed with every step. My voice had changed too. It was a cross between an aged lady who’d smoked a pack a day all her life and someone who worked for one of those $4.95 per minute call centres. Hot.

It’s such an unattractive illness. There’s the cough. A hacking cough which has bystanders witnessing the sound of phlegm ricocheting around your airways. Sexy.

Then there’s the vomiting. Pulling my car over to fertilise the roadside near Roberts’ on my way home from the exam wasn’t on the agenda, and I don’t think I’ve ever blushed and wretched at the same time before.  No class points there.

I hopped back in the car and imagined that if I was a cartoon character they’d draw me with a red bulbous nose, bloodshot eyes, white skin and a sick green haze trailing my infectious bag of aching bones. What a birthday present!

My biggest nuisance is boogers. As a student nurse and mother I am comfortable with most bodily fluids, blood does not faze me. I can change a colostomy bag as if I were arranging a vase of flowers, but boogers, oh boogers really are a cruel thing to make a lady suffer. Does the Queen even have a sinus cavity? Or is it that she is afforded the time to hide in these situations? I argue it’s an impossible task to emulate her highnesses ladylike qualities otherwise. But then, a lady probably wouldn’t discuss any of this anyway!

So to those who are suffering with colds and flu’s right now, bless you; get better soon. I know how you feel!