Gosh, I hate being sick.
As systems go, my immune system is quite strong, so strong that sometimes it even attacks me (psoriasis for the win, wake up and smell the sarcasm). The rather fortunate by-product of this is that I don't get sick a lot. Actually, you can say I only get sick once a year, which is frakking awesome. The problem is that, when I get sick, I get bloody sick. I get so sick that if were a little sicker, I would be treated not by a doctor but by a coroner.
Yeah, it sucks.
This year, the only illness that had affected me so far was depression. Totally understandable, with all the whole "move to another country to get on with the rest on your life probably leaving everything you know behind and even if you come back it won't be the same" thing. Nothing that my leukocytes could work on, too. So, on the medical front, you could say I had had a good year.
Until I got the flu (complicated with bronchitis, but that's a minor thing).
You see, it is winter here right now. Last time I checked, the lowest temperature was 4ºC, four degrees Celsius (for the Fahrenheads out there, that's 39ºF). After that I didn't check the temperature anymore, I was too scared. That's the coldest I've ever been in my life. As I told Vicky, I'm not cold, I'm Peruvian. Born in Lima, I'm just not made for these temperatures. Not even in Cuzco it had been so cold, I went there in spring.
But, then again, I'm a cold person, so I went along with my life with a shirt and a couple of t-shirts tucked under for good measure.
No problem. I'm hardcore. Hell yeah.
Ok, ok, I'll say it: "You Moron! That's like tying Satan's shoelaces while he's not looking, telling him that the ice cream truck is coming, and staying to see the fun!" (Shamelessly stolen from Strike Fiss's "Shinji the Casanova", but, hey, it IS an appropriate quote, and darn cool too).
So, when it finally came, it came with a vengeance.
Monday 17: I felt fine. Top of the world , ma! I was in such a good mood that I even made a little holiday shopping.
Tuesday 18:
All systems go. Press to MECO, Houston. MECO. Welcome to space, guys. We're flying HIGH!
Wednesday 19:
All systems nominal. Standard stuff. And after Andrea's final, I was almost singing Still Alive, the Portal Song. That was a triumph, I wrote a note there, "Huge Success." Words couldn't overstate my satisfaction.
Thursday 20:
Hey, I think my throat is itching a little bit. Thankfully, Vicky's final was more writing goodness, so I didn't care much about it. Alternative learning for the win.
Friday 21:
It is starting to hurt a little bit. That's not good. Not good at all. And where the hell was Kushal, anyway? Sucker and me never got to meet to integrate stuff for the Calc I final. I waited for him until almost 6 pm, but nothing. Kill kill kill. Oh, well, at least I got some really tasty cinnamon sticks, which tasted almost as incredibly good as the "Churros" sweet-sticks we've got back home (courtesy of Miss City Liu, a girl made of awesome and win, who would play a role in my eventual undoing 24 hours later - this is called foreshadowing, kids).
Saturday 22:
Calculus Final. As I'm made of godly amounts of awesome and Spartan win, it was a breeze, except for ONE problem in which I spent almost two hours working. Tough luck. Oh, well. Problem was that for the moment I finished the final (and officially finished the Fall 2007 Semester), my throat wasn't hurting anymore. It was on FIRE. Of course, being the proud bastard I am, I didn't say anything to my brother as we spent our first free day basically hanging around and shopping stuff (that shopping stuff part ended up in The Victoria's Secret Predicament, but that's material for another whole post altogether).
Until that moment, no problem. Yeah, my throat hurt like stepping on barbed wire, but I'm strong and I could handle it, and I had lots of experience making Spanish sounds with a sore throat. Things began to complicate when, right after walking out of Victoria's, I run into City. Since she can't speak Spanish and my Mandarin doesn't go beyond "Ni hao," me and my throat revert into Basic English Communication Mode, Sub-Rutine 1.
Now, my throat wasn't expecting that. Since English has a couple more sounds than Spanish, I was extending and relaxing and in general moving along inflamed muscles that weren't trained and didn't have the endurance to withstand the pain that came with their use when sick. The result: you could have detonated a nuclear warhead in my throat and I would have felt better.
Bloody hell.
Thankfully City was busy so we (actually, she - I wasn't up to the task) didn't talk much, and as soon as she was out of sight I was running up the stairs to get a Chai Latte at Starbucks. Mmm, Chai. Hell yeah. The pain soothed for a while, and I was on my feet, on the floor, good to go, as soon as I finished it. Dude (my brother, from here on called Dude just for the sake of it) came along and told me to beat it because he had to write a letter to the lady he was buying stuff at Victoria's for, so I beat it and parked myself somewhere quiet where I could call Mili (Miss Milagros Laguna; for reference, read Five Girls in Lima, if I ever get around to write that) just to waste time and because I just love to talk with her.
That was the second big mistake.
Although my throat was used and trained for action under Spanish fire, the new hurting put forward by crossing the English Channel had totally obliterated any kind of endurance my vocal chords had. Even worst, since I was used to throaty pain, Spanish Inquisition Style, I didn't even know I was aggravating the catastrophic damage I had already incurred.
Wow, those were two fancy sentences.
When I finished, my throat was on NUKULAR FIYA. I could only think of one thing: Chai. Latte. NOW! Since by that moment Starbucks had a line a mile long, I hunted the mall for any other venue that could provide me some tea. 2.35 minutes and a couple of killings later, I got my tea.
Yup. Tea. Good. Oh yeah.
Dude finally finished his letter, and he had arranged for some backup to help him pick some panties for his significant other, so he was back to Victoria's Secret for the kill. By then, it was time for me to leave to pick up mum from her work. I goodbyed Dude, and run into City again. Under most circumstances I would consider it a most fortunate situation; as I said before, that girl seems to be made of awesome and win. Unfortunately, this was not one of those, so I blurted out as much small talk my nuclear furnace of a larynx could endure and I bolted out. I don't think she understood anything I said - I sure as hell didn't and I was the one doing the talking.
Thus, it is possible to deduce that I was screwed.
With the fire of a vengeful god licking away the walls of my throat, I walked fast and swiftly to the car. The door closed and locked before it even was half opened, I rev up the 4.7 litres of my Ford Escape 2005's engine to their structural limits, and manage to make a ten minutes trip in NINE minutes (traffic, enough said). A totally futile haste, for mum still took another 20 minutes to come out. Dayuuum. By that moment I was thinking about drinking hydrochloric acid - even if the damage to my nerves didn't stop the pain, the acid would eat away my stomach and kill me, which under the circumstances was more than acceptable. No such luck, though, as there is not a single drop of muriatic acid in The Great Escape (TM).
When mum finally got in the car and said the Spanish equivalent "Hi," I could only mumble a guttural grunt from the very bottom of my innards (produced more by the duodenum than by the diaphragm) as a bloody answer; bloody not because I could feel the blood sweeping through my throat, but because I was very bloody willing to kill the next person that forced me to emit a sound. With the skill provided only by utter desperation, a murderous instinct, and years of practice in the extreme export known as Peruvian Driving, I took off again, back to Stonestown to pick up Dude and whatever he coerced Sheila (Backup Girl) to get into the store instead of him and buy. Five minutes late, he was in the car, and I wasted no time in hitting the 280 and 75 miles per hour, for my throat hurt and needed tea to prevent me from losing my sanity out of sheer agony.
And that is how we finally headed home, and I headed into a night full of misery, pain, House MD. episodes, and lots and lots of tea with milk and honey. Since misery, pain, and agony are no fun when it applies to the real life instead of a poor innocent literary creation, I shall not write about that, but let's say that the only time I've been in more pain was that time when I jumped out of a speeding (and very kidnapping) taxi and cracked my head. No awesome, and utter fail for that night.
Sunday 23:
I was feeling much better (I mean, I could TALK, hell yeah!) that morning, so I went to the 49ers game. As expected in an American football game (no matter what you say, it will always be "American football;" the real Football, which you call Soccer, is played with the feet: Foot-ball, get it?), loud, thunderous screams ensued.
...
Ok, now, that was moronic, and I'll never do that again. Once was enough. I screamed so much that by the end of the day I didn't have a voice anymore, and I didn't get it back until yesterday. I cannot even sing at all now, and I had worked so hard for the past four months to get my voice to a "Make cats scream/People laughing at your sucky singing" level from the "People burst their eardrums with pens to escape your singing" level it was before. And don't get me started on the whole staying in bed coughing my lungs off for the whole Christmas week part. Bloody hell.
Well, on the bright side, at least I had a lot of practice with hand signs. Now I can rapidly and efficiently send someone to the lowest circle of hell and hurting with a few gestures. Awesome. ^_^
