Temerity Jane

Let’s play doctor.

Not THAT kind of doctor, the kind where I tell you how I feel and you tell me what’s wrong with me.

Symptoms: None.

Well, none like, I have no sore throat, no upset stomach, no real headache, no runny nose, no sniffling or sneezing or coughing. Nothing like that at all.

What I have, Internet, is hurt. Aches, you know, like when you have a fever? Is that just me? I can handle any kind of being sick. I rarely get sick. The last time I was really sick was in 2005, I had the flu for the one and only time in my life. I can handle anything at all about being sick, except for fever and the aches that go with it. I can’t stand it, I find it intolerable, I moan and whine and hurt and complain. The idea of a hot shower sounds fantastic except for the part where I feel like water hitting me might actually kill me. I had to step out of my car to get gas this evening and nearly cried through the whole event, because the cold made it so much worse.

I also have a low fever, though I have not taken my temperature, I am just assuming I do, because I have all of my own traditional fever signs. 1) I hurt, 2) my eyelids are burning my eyeballs when I blink, and 3) I’ve got the dumb. Seriously, if my temperature crawls even one notch above 97.8 (I know it to a science), I am suddenly beset with stupid. I turned down a 1 way mall entrance tonight the wrong way. I had what I am sure is a completely nonsensical conversation with Phil for the entire drive home this evening.

But that’s all, though. Just the hurting, that’s the thing. The kind of full body aches where you need to be in sweatpants, a t-shirt, a hoodie and 4 blankets and then and only then will you feel any kind of comfortable. Nothing else at all. No sneezing or coughing on people, no puking. My head and stomach maybe hurt a LITTLE, but that could also be fake in that I am worried I am getting sick which, did I mention, I NEVER DO?

So, while I am mostly convinced I am going to feel 100% better in the morning because my immune system is actually made of titanium and WD-40, I have some questions I would like you to answer for me, Internet, because it is way easier that convincing myself I have a bone eating parasite.

Question 1: Tell me I am not alone in the whole body fever aches and that I didn’t just spend an entire post talking about something like you all knew exactly what I was talking about and I’m just totally weird.

Question 2: What the hell kind of potentially flesh-eating super disease can a) bring me down (because seriously, as if) and b) causes no symptoms other than terrible aches and a reasonable certainty of lowgrade fever?

Question 3: If you do indeed have a fever and you do indeed have some painful aches but otherwise feel absolutely 100% fine, do you go to work or stay home?

I was going to write a post that just said “I ALL OF A SUDDEN FEEL LIKE CRAP FOR NO GOOD REASON!,” but I figured I could put you all to work instead. I would like to see who can come up with the most plausible (by symptoms) but ridiculous (because I’m rather certain I do not have anything, let alone like… ebola) diagnosis.

And then I will take that internet-supplied ridiculous diagnosis and call my mother and tell her that’s what I have.

Because if I am anything at all, if there is any one thing that will define me as time moves on forever, if there is a characteristic or designation that will forever fit me to a T, it is a terrible, terrible child.