My Learning Curve Is A Circle...

...because I always seem to end up right back where I started. It was just a few short weeks ago that The Sheep was bemoaning the fact that she had tempted the Viral Fates by joking about the stomach flu. Predictably, she was struck down within days of this statement.

The other night, (in a phone call to camadsmom) I was extolling the viral resistance of my Sheepie body this school year by citing my record of cold and bronchitis avoidance. She was suitably engrossed and enamored by my newfound ability to avoid the plague that seems to have befallen every other educator in the state. Well, actually she was fielding 47 questions from child 1, a myriad of needs generated by child 2 and preparing for the week ahead while commenting in all the right places whilst I rambled on and on about me, me, me. She's a mom...go figure. Apparently this ability comes with the pregnancy test.

At any rate, I was awoken at 4:30 this morning by the vague sense that something was not right. I happened to have a face full of cat at the time (Persephone has developed some weird sleeping positions of late) so I first thought that this might be the problem. Wrong.

I seem to have contracted a cold of near biblical proportions. My face is swollen, my nose is gushing and many children were kind enough to point out that there are some really nice red veins now fully visible around my nasal area thanks to the incessant blowing. I have sneezed a total of 3,864 times today. Once I was even able to propel myself a few feet as I sat in my wheeled teacher chair. The students, momentarily distracted from my glowing nose veins, were suitably impressed.

The worst part is that I really can't take anything for it during the day. The Sheep suffers from ADD and has paradoxical reactions to antihistimines. The first dose will induce the expected grogginess. After that it's something of a crap shoot. I can remain pleasantly foggy or I can get super wired and start crawling out of my skin. If I took it during the day today, I ran the risk of not being able to sleep tonight. So, I suffered. As did those around me. I will not go down alone. I am self-centered and needy. What of it?

But I'm home now and appropriately dosed with NyQuil. Things are starting to dry up and the aches and pains are subsiding a bit. I'm thinking that tonight is not going to be a big "production" night in the way of knitting. Instead, I think that I shall curl up on the couch with whichever feline happens to be closest and leave it at that. I'm guessing that it will be Persephone who is on comfort-duty as Desdemona is, inexplicably, afraid of sneezes.

That story will wait for another post. For now, just know that Desi will be hiding in the spare bedroom for the night. I am a sneezy, wheezy Sheepie.

SA