The Full-On Camille Syndrome

I feel like crapcake on toast, which is a familiar "Play It Again, Sam" kind of refrain around here now that I live with Little Typhoid Mary's Cousin from Chongqing.

Both Jarrah and I have been languishing all week, and today the indignation level rose to burnt sienna when we had to miss a much-anticipated birthday party at Playtown. So David took Jarrah off to see her doctor and I girded my loins for the long weekend wait at Urgent Care.

The results, Dear Readers? Matching mother-daughter flus, with coordinating stoles! Jarrah told me that she "cried and cried" when they put the stick up her nose. I didn't cry, but I didn't like it. Nor did I like the various other swabs of my mucus membranes. Or the hour-long wait to see the triage nurse with some sort of "Playboy Bunnies Marooned On a Desert Island" movie-of-the-week blaring directly over my head. In concert with a symphony of hacking coughs. I went through an entire box of tissues while I waited.

The doc was funny, though. She sat down next to me and said, "I'm sorry to break it to you, but you've got some serious crud." Having heard from the nurse that my daughter had just been diagnosed with flu, too, she continued: "As a mother myself, I want to tell you something about children: they're cute, but they're dangerous." She was so jaunty, I almost forgot that my throat feels like the face of the sun.

After I explained that codeine makes me feel like I'm having a heart attack, she prescribed what Wikipedia describes as "a non-narcotic opiate for moderate to severe pain" which apparently I've built up a tolerance to without even taking, as the first dose barely took the edge off. Tonight I may have to dive whole-hog into "junkie in training" mode--I'm that desperate for pain-free sleep.

And later I cried to my husband, "I know I'm feeling sorry for myself, but I'm the one most qualified for the job!" So far he's the only one holding steady at Chez Virusenia.

But enough about me...what do YOU think about me?