A (Sick) Day in the Life

Readers,

It’s been over two years since I was actually, truly sick. 

In March 2011, I visited New York City for the first time and picked up a horrible cold/flu/ick from a lovely little Domme who thought she’d shake hands first and announce her current awful cold later. It took about 72 hours to kick in, as these things do, so I was feeling pretty terrible right about the time I left the City. 
I was sick for two full weeks, and blamed the fact that I’d never before experienced NYC germs. Like the people there, I believe that the germs have a zeal and zest for life and survival unlike many.

Flash forward two years plus change, in which time I have been extraordinarily healthy in the seasonal-illness department:

Last week I visited family in Texas – a trip I hadn’t made in a year – and naturally went through several airports in order to do so. While the trip wasn’t the awe-inspiring thing of vacation dreams, it was nice to go back where I came from and hug a few people. When I arrived home, I had two days in Las Vegas before heading back out for Dallas, St.Louis, and Kansas City.

I felt fine until two days ago, and nearly at the halfway point in my flight from Nevada to Texas when, all of a sudden, every part of my head began malfunctioning at the EXACT same moment. My head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, my nose began to stop up and run at the same time (which has always perplexed me), and the sneezing began with much abandon.
This caused no small problem because I was, as always, sitting in a window seat, so my co-aislers had to get up three times over the course of an hour so I could make my way to the minimal privacy of the airplane restroom where much nose-blowing did take place. This, in addition to my having my scarf fully covering the bottom half of my face (don’t want to make others sick, doncha know) likely caused more than a little suspicion. (Sorry Mr. Air Marshall, I wasn’t doing anything suspect – I do the suspect stuff in hotels.)

An otc cold remedy bought on my layover helped a bit, and I was able to make it to the hotel where I enjoyed a lovely dinner with The VBB and his Wonderful Wife, who’d driven quite some distance to meet me there. Naturally, I found the energy to carry on with The VBB’s cane breaking marathon/punishment, but spent nearly as much time spraying him with alcohol than I did breaking canes, just in case one of my likely-germs came in contact with his bum. We passed a fun few hours that evening, but by bedtime I could tell that I was in trouble. So I made the unhappy call home to announce my full-on illness and request an immediate change of flight plans. I was going home. Asap.

It’s not been often that I have had to cancel travel plans, and it’s a blow to my enormous empathy organ to have to postpone playtimes with my friends around the country. Many don’t have the opportunity to play often, and only the chance of infecting them with some icky little South Texas germ has kept me away. (To those of you I’ve missed, my sincerest sniffly apologies. I’ll be back just as soon as I can.)

Meanwhile, I’m going to disinfect this keyboard and get back into bed.

–  Dana