Thursday, January 18, 2007

So I did get another day off...

Careful what you ask for, you may get it.

Yesterday afternoon/evening I started feeling a sickish feeling in my stomach. I thought, oh, I'm just dreading going back to work. Then I thought, hmm, I'm REALLY dreading going back to work. Then next thing I know, I'm running fever, having chills, and wishing I could throw up or die. I felt AWFUL. Never did throw up, but there were moments I wished I would if it would help. I guess I had some kind of stomach bug. I was still running fever this morning, so I gave work a miss. I'm sure I'm in the doghouse for having the unmitigated gall to take two days straight off of work, but that's just too bad.

I really wished for some Sprite and crackers when I felt so awful, and it occurred to me last night that there really was no one for me to call. K was at A's house, and I wouldn't have asked him to drive on the wonky roads even if it wasn't a good ways away. Family is all out of state. Brian is 90 miles away. I felt very alone, knowing that I really did have to suck up and manage by myself. I do have a couple of friends that would probably tell me they'd be glad to help, but I know they have their own families and lives to deal with, and I'd hate to ask unless it was a dire need. Thankfully, bedtime was easy last night. Not early, but easy - we read all eight of our Curious George books, and as we were reading the last one, J laid down and closed his eyes. He fell asleep before I got to "The End". You talk about a blessing, that was one, because I did NOT have the energy for a bedtime battle last night.

I did toy briefly with the idea of going to work this morning, fever and all - I did feel some better when I woke up. But after being up for a bit, I realized that no, food did not in fact sound appealing, and I really wanted to curl up and take a nap. So I did. There again, I felt better when I woke up, but felt queasy after I'd been awake for a while. No more fever, thankfully, and no more chills, and I do feel mostly better now.

You know, I really hate having a job where I dread taking a couple of days off for valid reasons. I dread it, for one thing, because you never know what nasty unpleasant surprise might land on your desk while you're gone and require immediate attention when you get back. And then there's the whole time off deal. At my work, you can only have so many unscheduled absences in a certain time period - i.e., days where you call in needing to take off that day rather than planning ahead. Even if you take a vacation day to, say, let a plumber in to repair your toilet that exploded unexpectedly, it counts as an unscheduled absence. What, my work is so vital that a day off for the stomach bug, or a home repair crisis, or car trouble, is the end of the world? I think not, but that's how we're treated. You can't exactly plan those things, you know. And unscheduled absence, indeed - what am I, in grade school?! Some days I really do wonder when we're going to have to start showing our hall passes to the monitor when we need to go to the rest room. Come on, new job, work out for me.

I also took J to the doctor this afternoon, so it was a multi-purpose day off. He's starting with a sinus infection, so we saw his doc and got meds for that. I did think it was funny, though, that he was the one who said he needed to go see Dr. Jean and was perfectly happy to go until I pointed out that there'd be medicine to take. Then he was all, "I don't LIKE medicine, I don't WANT to take medicine, I don't NEED to see Dr. Jean, my nose isn't sniffly anymore!" Nice try, son. LOL

And now I think I'll go fix myself some hot tea and call it a night.

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