But, then, along came July 5th. It was about halfway through the day that I said to myself, man, I feel kinda drained. But I didn’t think all that much of it. I chalked the fatigue up to me having one hell of a weekend with dancing, karaoke, fireworks and plenty of brewski-stewski’s throughout. I probably had a crap-ton of toxins in my blood. I was still hung over, essentially, not necessarily from all the beer, but from all the fun. The fatigue I felt was my holiday high coming down…
I also thought my fatigue could be attributed to allergies. The summer of 2017 was known amongst ragweed experts to be one of the most intense ragweed seasons Massachusetts had experienced in a long time. Ragweed had a tendency to make me feel very drained. So I thought it was maybe the ragweed getting me down? Yes. Very possible.
My solution to my fatigue was to go out for a run. Now, you would think that running would make me feel even more drained but I’d found that the opposite was usually true. Running seemed to help me sweat all the toxins out of my body and I’d feel like a million bucks afterwards. It was usually the best solution to getting over the hangover of a rather fun (but toxic) holiday weekend.
So I went for a run and, at first, I didn’t feel all that much better. In fact, I felt very nasty. But this was perfectly normal. See, when you first start your run, all the toxins get flushed out of your muscle tissues and you feel gross. However, as your run progresses, you feel better and better because said toxins get processed and eventually eliminated from your body via sweat. Or at least that’s how I understand it. I think it’s pretty close to that.
Anyway, feeling gross during the beginning part of my run was normal and I felt gross. I grew concerned, however, when the gross feeling didn’t dissipate. And not only did I feel gross but I felt very ‘off’. I was probably only about 15 or 20 minutes into my run when I said to myself, “You know, I REALLY don’t feel so hot.”
I ended up cutting my run short. My thinking was, hmmm, maybe I pushed things too far over the weekend. Maybe my immune system got compromised and I was coming down with a little something. But in July? C’mon, who gets sick in July?!
Well, it wasn’t until later that night that I officially proclaimed (to myself) that I was in sick mode. “Sick mode” basically means I shut down life for a little while and watch TV and/or movies until further notice. In my case, I curled up on my couch with a blanket and watched a movie on Netflix. I started getting the chills and I knew I must’ve had a fever, nothing too high, but I definitely thought I was likely in the 100 degrees area.
The next day, I felt the same. Not too bad but bad enough to stay in official sick mode and watch TV. There was a Karate Kid marathon on AMC. I watched most—if not all—of all three Karate Kid movies. Those are still excellent movies, by the way. They pass the test of time. But that's not important right now.
Eventually, my body started to ache and I figured I had somehow contracted a summer flu virus. I figured I had probably partied too hard over the weekend, compromised my immune system and now I was paying the price. “Well,” I thought, “It’s a small price to pay for a good time. Besides, I could use some sick-mode time. It’s a good excuse to veg out like a zombie and watch TV. We need that sometimes.” I’d had plenty of flus in the past and they usually ran their course after a few days and then I would feel better and I’d move on with life.
The problem was that this “flu” didn’t run its course. In fact, it seemed to escalate each day that went by. The middle of the night was the worst. I would wake up in my bed and feel like absolute death. My fever would feel so high. I had sweats. My body ached all over. Every muscle. Some joints hurt. Head was pounding. You name it.
I also couldn’t eat hardly anything. It was a huge chore getting any food down and just the thought of food grossed me out. In fact, I couldn’t understand how I had ever been able to eat food at any point in my life.
I eventually started taking an Advil here and there and then a couple of Extra-strength Tylenol. These medicines seemed to make me sweat profusely but then my fever went down and I was able to eat a little something before the drug wore off and I felt horrible all over again.
By day four or five, I was extremely concerned about my health. In fact, I had never been sick like this before. Everything seemed to be getting worse and worse and I couldn’t seem to get a grip on it all. Was this even the flu? Well, I needed to check on that.
I knew I needed to see a doctor.
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