Yuck.

There will be no photos to accompany this post.

There will be no photos because I don't want any visual reminders of the last four days.

I was supposed to spend the last four days being productive and having fun. Instead, I was sick.

Not my normal "sick", wherein I battle the evil martian death cold for five days and then spend the next few weeks moaning and groaning about losing my voice (very quiet moaning and groaning, of course).

No, this was real sick. The lay on the couch and watch the weather channel for hours on end kind of sick. The unable to successfully eat or sleep for four days kind of sick. The kind of sick where your nightly pajama choice is based on the kind of impression you want your remains to make on the policemen who come to investigate complaints of a foul odor emanating from the apartment that you haven't been seen entering or exiting in over a week.

That kind of sick.

The kind of sick that messed up all of my plans.

Instead of sleeping Wednesday night, I was trying to figure out why my sore throat had come back just three days after most recently defeating the evil martian death cold.

Instead of teaching with my usual flair on Thursday, I sat in my desk chair and randomly gestured at the board with the longest of my pointers/swimming noodles.

Instead of gushing about the kidlets at a 5-hour parent teacher conference session that night, I spent two hours trying not to puke on parents before being sent home by the vice principal.

Instead of going back for a few more hours of conferences the next morning, I went to the doctor and begged for meds.

Then, instead of spending the rest of the weekend getting my car's oil changed, cleaning my apartment, doing some pre-Christmas decorating, helping with the library benefit, setting up for and attending Elizabeth's fundraising concert/dinner, and giving the doctrinal training in stake welfare meeting like I was supposed to, I laid around feeling totally and completely wretchedly horrible while wondering how on earth I could be this sick for this long.

Turns out, I had a nasty, over-achieving case of strep. It was Hitler-esque strep. Instead of being happy with the nice piece of real estate it had conquered fair and square (my throat), it insisted upon invading all neighboring territories and wreaking havoc on every bit of my person.

Stupid strep.

But now I am feeling better. The fact that I have been able to sit here and write a whole post complaining about the last few days without 1)passing out face-first onto the keyboard 2) vomiting onto the keyboard or 3) writing an four page essay on why all kidlets should have to be sprayed down with Lysol before and after every class period is evidence of that.

And I do want to thank all of those wonderful people who helped take such good care of me. I love you all desperately.

And now, if you will excuse me, I am going to get ready for bed. I am really looking forward to a night of sleeping for more than 30 minutes at a time, in my bed instead of on my bathroom floor. That means I should have more than enough energy to post some fun Canada remembrances for Tuesday, the 9 year (gasp!) anniversary of my return from the mission field.

Wow. Suddenly, instead of sick I am just feeling really, really old.

But I will take old over sick any day.