By the time Other Half and I loaded the last taxi yesterday - meaning she did all the heavy lifting (playing a dangerous game of Suitcase Tetris) while I carefully supervised - I was exhausted. I had been feeling pretty ill at work that day; my nose, ears and throat all hurt, I felt dizzy, disorientated and kind of like I was walking underwater. My brain appeared to be attempting to escape by tunnelling through my temples, aided by the tiny furnaces burning behind each of my eyes. When we finally returned home, I immediately fell into bed in a sad, bedraggled heap. It was clear I was sick and/or dying.
I am so susceptible to flu and colds it's almost laughable. If even a whiff of something gets within twenty feet of me, bam! I'm sniffling and wheezing for days on end, sinuses clogged up so that my voice comes out as a kind of nasal shriek, if it comes out at all. Other Half hardly ever gets sick. She considers it a sign of weakness. However, when I am dragging myself around, looking at our empty fridge with large, mournful eyes and making pathetic whimpers punctuated by spluttering, she does not hesitate to take care of me. She's pretty awesome, even if she does roll her eyes at me a lot.
I tweeted this morning how crap I was feeling and many of you very kindly replied with nice get-better-soon-tweets. That really cheered me up and definitely contributed to how much more alive I'm feeling now. One particular fellow twitterer suggested that I blog about the things that make me feel better when I'm sick. I liked the idea and so I shall.
Here's the situation - you're ill, so you've taken the day off work. What do you do with your time other than lie around, vomiting, sweating and feeling sorry for yourself? Here are my helpful suggestions:
1. Firstly, eat something. If you have Other Halves/flatmates/family/pets that you can bribe, blackmail or make mewling noises at, like I do, then you'll find it easier to obtain food. If you're alone, best order in. You can't go out like that. Look at the state of you. No, sit down. I'll get the takeaway menus.
2. Secondly, take a shower or bath. You'll feel better when you're clean. I like to take both at the same time so I can imagine I'm sitting in a lagoon while a waterfall cascades gently down on top of me, like in the Herbal Essences shampoo adverts. You don't necessarily have to do this but it may increase your overall enjoyment of shower/bath. I hope Other Half doesn't read this because she'll be all blah blah wasting water blah blah environment and I'll nod along in the right places but I'm totally still thinking about the Herbal Essences advert and how I'll brush aside the palm fronds to find that Laura Dern is sharing my lagoon and, how inconvenient, her shampoo just ran out and she needs to share mine. Sweet.
I also recommend singing as the steam generated by the hot water will clear your sinuses out. You can choose any song, but.I personally prefer I Feel Shitty, set to the tune of I Feel Pretty. Today I also incorporated a Tenacious D medley, which really opened up the old airways.
3. Once you're clean and have eaten, you may begin to get bored. Never fear, the internet is here! I don't know if you've noticed just how damn awesome the internet is, but let me tell you. It's pretty damn awesome. There's Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Stumbleupon and all kinds of interesting sites just waiting to help you find newer and better pictures of kittens or to fill up your friend's wall with posts about complete crap or to read new blogs. In addition, much fun can be had by simply browsing. You never know what you might find just by clicking from one page to another, leaving a little breadcrumb url trail behind you as you trudge further into the darkness of cyberspace. Here are a couple of links to things I've enjoyed recently, to start you off:
http://www.nerdist.com/2011/02/murmurs-of-middle-earth/
This is an Australian DJ who has, brilliantly, remixed music and words from the Lord of the Rings films to create one super-awesome master track. I played this to Other Half and was overjoyed to see her respond with something other than apathy (her default setting), so it must really be good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1HSNV9y25A
This is a man doing the best impression of Ian McKellan you have ever heard or will ever hear. It is a massive bonus that he's reciting the lyrics to Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Recommended by a twitter friend, to whom I am now forever in debt.
http://www.babelgum.com/5001744/glee-60-seconds.html
If you've heard of Glee (and come on, who hasn't these days? There's even a Glee perfume. Other Half and I were so excited/appalled about this that we took phone photos and sent them to everyone we knew, and then I spent the next two months making Glee-related facebook status updates that said things like "I'm Blainesexual" and "You think that's hard? Try fighting a spider army with nothing but a cup! That's hard!") then you will hopefully find this link particularly amusing. It's a summary of the entire first season of Glee in 60 seconds and it does cover all the major plot lines in a very amusing way.
4. Make a pillow fort or duvet cocoon, resplendent with all the blankets you can find and have a nice nap. You'll wake feeling as good as new. Except if you've had crazy fever-dreams about Other Half cheating on you, and then you wake up and you're incredibly angry until you realise that you can't actually accuse her of anything because technically it never happened, you dreamt it, but you can't stop being mad that she kissed some stupid blonde girl on a ski slope and left you in the hunting lodge with your face pressed sadly into the window as you watched them ski off together into the sunset.
Repeat these steps as necessary until the illness passes.You'll thank me for this, I'm sure of it.
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