H3N2 and Me

 

H3N2 subclade K and I don’t get along. At all.

Whether it qualifies as a super flu or not, it certainly isn’t superfly. Day five now, and I am thoroughly sick and tired of this bug.

My bone structure appears to reject the tissues around it. My muscles have declared independence and now live lives of their own, refusing all calls to action. My throat feels lined with sandpaper. My brain seems to be testing the limits of my skull. And then there’s the constant, unpredictable switching between freezing cold and simmering hot — and back again. Sleep is impossible; the nagging pain simply won’t let go.

I haven’t felt this miserable in decades. I had honestly forgotten this was still possible. I drift in some undefined dream state, somewhere between consciousness and oblivion. My attention span has shrunk to almost nothing — probably the worst part, since my brain is my only real asset. Now I can’t even hold a thought, let alone finish one.

At first I tried to fight it. Useless.

So for five days straight I lay on the couch, staring into nothingness. Dragging myself to the espresso machine feels like climbing a steep mountain. The only thing I can do without overexerting myself is listening to music.

Listening might be too strong a word.

It’s more the awareness that somewhere in the background, music is playing.
Until Voodoo Chile — the live version by Randy Hansen — came on.

For the first time in days my mind focused for a full ten minutes without drifting off. Sheer bliss. In my dire state I savoured every note, every riff of that masterpiece. I almost felt good. Completely exhausted, drenched in sweat — but still. A high point in an ultimate low.

Encouraged, I decided music was the way out and started digging through my collection for more lost beauties. The concentration this search required proved too much, though. When I stumbled upon Mudhoney’s Touch Me I’m Sick, I gave up, crawled back to that vague no-man’s-land between consciousness and oblivion, and kept repeating the only sensible thought left:

This, too, shall pass.

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