I never know

I'm still sick. I woke up around 4:30 this morning and at first thought, "oh, crud, I should just call in sick." (I didn't sleep well at all last night - it was an ongoing cycle of not being able to breathe through my nose, followed by coughing from breathing through my mouth, followed by runny nose brought on by the coughing. Also I tried to sleep propped up on pillows - half sitting up - to limit drainage, and I can never sleep comfortably that way).

Then I thought: but next week there are no Wednesday classes because of assessment testing, and you had to cancel classes for next Friday anyway because you're judging the state science fair. And then I thought about that memo we got last year about how if we didn't follow the sick-day procedures TO THE LETTER when we were sick, it would be regarded as "insubordination" and never mind that that memo was probably written to allow for dealing harshly with people who just didn't show up to teach without taking a sick day, still, I have enough of Twilight Sparkle in my personality that I'm afraid of getting busted back to Magical Kindergarten for not dotting some "i" on some form somewhere.

So here I am. I can't take any of the various "reduce your symptoms or at least make you care about them less" medications because I react badly to ALL of them. (Dayquil, Nyquil, you name it). So I'm managing with ibuprofen, Ricola cherry-honey cough drops, a bottle of water, and lots and lots of tissues. And I gargled with salt water this morning, which helped SOME but was not the miracle cure I was hoping for. (I think also part of the reason I'm not taking a sick day is I keep thinking, "A person with NORMAL body chemistry/physiology would just pound down some pseudoephedrine and keep going, so why should I take the day off because my body is too delicate a flower (apparently) to handle any of those meds?")

I'm going to do my prep for the day and see how I feel before my 11 am class. If I get to feeling worse, I think I'll take a sick day (and the secretary will be in to see that all the forms are filled out right. I probably have a bigger fear of being written up for "insubordination" than I should, but I'm an inveterate rule-follower and it does seem that the one time I break a rule, I get caught).

I also think as soon as the church office opens, I'm going to call and tell them I won't make Youth Group this week. Even if I make it through all my classes today I suspect I'll be so wiped out as not to be much good this evening. I have the dvd I was basing my lesson from if they could get a sub on short notice, I don't know.

I know I'm really sick because I didn't even feel like knitting last night - just stared at the tv for a while and then went to bed.