This isn't fun

So, about two hours before my dental checkup yesterday, I started getting abdominal cramps. At the time, I figured:

a. They're stress-related; I really do NOT like going to the dentist
b. It's "female stuff," even if it's off-schedule.

Yesterday evening when I got home, I still had the abdominal cramps. And then I was cold. Again, I thought "female stuff" because feeling a little cold seems to be part and parcel of the "early warning system" for me. So I took a hot bath (it helped, some, with both problems) and got into bed.

The cramps got worse - or seemed worse, perhaps because it was dark and quiet and I had nothing to distract myself with. "WTH, perimenopause," I was asking myself. But they still got worse. And I was FREEZING. Like, turn the air conditioner off, put a blanket and quilt on the bed and still be cold freezing.

And then I thought: oh crud, could I have some kind of cyst or something? I vaguely remember a grad student of my dad's who had to be rushed to the hospital for surgery after she had a burst cyst. And it's easy for me to go into full hypochondriac mode when I think of something like that. I wondered if I'd still be capable of driving myself to the ER, or even calling 911 if that event happened.

I slept SOME. The pain quieted down sometime after midnight. Didn't go away, but I decided that its not getting worse was probably a sign I wasn't going to die that night. Also, I stopped feeling cold. My back was also hurting, so for a time I was wondering if I could have a kidney stone.

I don't feel great this morning. I have bad heartburn-like feelings (at first, I thought it was my asthma acting up; sometimes it feels like that).

But when I went down to the office to talk with the administrative assistant, and I happened to mention the heartburn, she said, "Oh....did you have intestinal cramps and a fever earlier?"

Turns out there's some kind of weird intestinal virus going around. I never get very sick with these things so most of the time I don't think "stomach virus" unless someone else reports having had it.

So I guess the upside is that I'm not fixing to die and will not need surgery. The downside is I just have to wait for this thing to go away, which apparently takes three days or so. Probably the feeling of being freezing last night was me spiking a fever with it, which probably broke in the middle of the night. (I did not have a fever this morning). I was planning on doing some fieldwork this weekend but I think I will not; also it is very wet out which makes it less good to do.

I hate viruses.