You could have fried your brain!

Josh:

I don't know if you can tell or not, but all semblance of chronological order has really gone out the door. The main reason is because I'm not as diligent in writing down the events of the day in my notebook; I'm sure there are tons of hilarious stories that I'm missing out on writing. The good news is that the ones that are important pop into my head every now and then.

After I posted the entry about the housewarming party, I looked at the other pictures and I remembered why I was frequently covering my mouth or ducking into the back room: I was deathly ill the day before. For those of you who don't know my patterns for being sick very well, let me explain a little. I tend to not get sick very often (knock wood), but when I do, it doesn't mess around.

Any of you heard the story of my first date with Audrey? I asked her to go see a movie a few days earlier and everything was going fine. The day before I started to feel a little sick but thought nothing of it. The big day came and I woke up feeling a little worse but I figured it would be okay. I met up with Audrey and we went to the movies. Everything was going great (we saw 300 so that really made it epic) until I started losing hearing in one of my ears (I think it was my right). I thought it was just plugged (like when you drive in the mountains) so I tried to clear it to no avail and gave up and ignored it. By the end of the night I had lost hearing in that ear completely and started to feel a little delirious. Naturally, I couldn't be a wuss and say, "I think I'm sick, boo hoo," to the girl I was attempting to court so I didn't let her know. After we said goodbye, I went home as fast as humanly possible and I thought I was going to die. I felt so bad I asked Grant for help and even called my dad to figure out what was going on. I took my temperature and it said I was perfectly fine for some reason. After deciding it was best to try to sleep it off, I laid down and had a fairly restless night. I woke up the next morning with a small puddle of blood and earwax on my pillow. I decided it was a good idea to go to the doctors at the point. It turned out that I had two types of ear infections (internal and some kind of external) and had to take two different medicines to try to clear it up. I had to sleep on a pile of tissues for about a week because I didn't want to ruin my pillow. I don't remember how long it took me to tell Audrey but I'm pretty sure it was somewhere along the lines of after a month or so. She wasn't really too happy with me,

"You were that sick and you didn't tell me?"
"Well, I didn't want to be a wuss and miss out on a first date."

I have a bad habit of trying to play the "tough guy" card when I get sick. You know why? Because I OOZE TESTOSTERONE, BABY! I'll let that mental image sink in before I move on.

Anyway, that story pretty much exemplifies every time I get sick: I get deathly ill, I don't tell Audrey, she finds out later, she gets mad. Surprise, surprise, that pattern exists even outside of the US.

I started feeling a little sick during the week before our housewarming party. I didn't think much of it and was just a little annoyed by it. I wasn't at the point where I could stay home but I was certainly at a point where I could feel it. You remember the post where I mentioned to my students that I wasn't feeling well and couldn't talk so they all were quiet for me? That's the week I'm talking about. My throat slowly got progressively worse and it became harder and harder to talk. On Thursday night it all culminated into a very bad night for me. I woke up almost every hour because I felt so sick. I even felt my forehead and it felt really hot. It's pretty bad when you can feel your own forehead and feel that it's hot. Audrey was sleeping peacefully so I didn't want to wake her because she had to get up early. After a long night of tossing and turning, the alarm went off and we were both awake. As Audrey was getting ready I asked her if she could call Ms. Kim and ask her to take me to the doctors because I was in pretty bad shape. She felt my forehead and it was still really hot. She called Ms. Kim and Mr. Chu and told them both that neither of us could come in (she wanted to make sure I was okay). Ms. Kim offered to drive us to the hospital around 9AM so I tried to go back to sleep; Audrey would frequently bring me water. Luckily, by the time Ms. Kim picked us up the fever started to go down. We went to a shady looking doctors office (turned out it was pretty good) because it was recommended by another teacher. After waiting a few minutes and seeing other patients ham it up, I finally got to see the doctor. He examined me and took my temperature. I don't remember what it was exactly but it was somewhere around 38-39C (which is 100-102F). Keep in mind that the temperature the doctor took was significantly lower than what it was when I first woke up and when I first woke up it was lower than what it was at night. We guess it probably got around 104F or so. So the doctor pulled out a needle and stuck it in me to reduce the fever and then prescribed medicine (which we picked up right after). Ms. Kim then took us to a rice porridge place to help make me feel better. She was really nice and paid for the taxis and for our meal. She really is one of the most supportive teachers I've met. After that, we went home and I just relaxed for the entire day (we decided not to cancel the housewarming party because it was so close and people were already on their way over). The next day I still felt really bad but I was slowly getting better. I did receive a talking to from Audrey, though.

"Why didn't you tell me you were sick?"
"I didn't want to wake you."
"If your fever was higher than what it was before, it was dangerously high."
"Yeah, but you had work in the morning and all that."
"You could have fried your brain and I would have been stuck taking care of you forever!"
"I guess if you put it that way...but I was fine and I just didn't want to wake you."
"I'm gonna kill you."
"Not if my temperature does first! Hahahahahaha....too soon?"

I kept that last line to myself because I could tell it wouldn't have been as funny to her as it was to me.