January 24, 2010
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Recovering from flu, 2010
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0 hit(s)
A friend at work responded, when I reported that I wouldn't be going in that day—again, that she remembered I'd had the flu about a year ago. I think I was still claiming that I have just a cold, at that time, and I really thought so. On Thursday, I became very aware it wasn't a cold, and Friday and Saturday were miserable days with all the true respiratory flu symptoms.
This morning, I went looking for any blog entries about having the flu a year ago and, sure enough, there are a couple. I'm simply amazed at the difference in symptoms.
As you can read, in that earlier incident the symptoms were all dramatically apparent, both coming and going. This time, nothing of the sort. I'd convinced myself I had a cold, only taking off the time from work because I had it available. By Friday, I couldn't have gone to work, anyway. And the whole fever thing was different. Last year, it was dramatic and constant until it broke. This year, it came and went as it felt like, sometimes not staying for more than a couple minutes. Now, on Sunday, I feel pretty good but not perfect, and will spend the day with guiltless entertainment.
You see, when you're sick, you have few obligations. If you're conscious enough to read or watch a screen, then you can choose whatever you want. For sure, I didn't have the power of concentration that any of my several subjects of study would have required, so I pigged out on pure couch-fare. Here are some of the things I encountered.
I went through a Julie London phase a couple years ago (probably documented in this blog), and looked for any of her films that might be available on DVD. Poor pickings, but I found a couple. A week or so ago, I wrote to a friend with a quotation from Julie London about her voice ("just a thimble-full," she wrote), and he responded with the incredible coincidence that he had just watched a Western on TV in which she starred! [Man of the West, with Gary Cooper] Oh, my gosh. So I looked it up and saw that not only is it now available (and wasn't when I had my first Julie London moment) but that it had rave reviews both in its first release (1958) and in citizen reviews on Amazon. No brainer, and it had arrived as I was starting my time-off. I even got the second Western she did that year (Saddle the Wind), another wide-screen, full-color extravaganza. As a kid who grew up in the 1950s, watching Westerns during the day was the big plus of being sick. Man of the West greatly rewarded my viewing. The only thing in the film that didn't work well was the action sequences—mostly fights, I guess. Gary appeared to be in great shape (at 57), but it just wasn't there. Everything about the film is special, and I gave back the star I took away for action sequences, when I realized afterward that it is one of the few 1950s Westerns you can watch in the 21st century. Saddle the Wind didn't fare so well, and does in fact seem like a 1950s Western.
And I read a wonderful novel by John Crowley called Four Freedoms, 2009. Although I see that his reputation is in the fantasy world, this book is about the homeland experience during World War II, primarily about plant workers during the incredible civilian industrial transformation in the United States during that time.
By Saturday, I was looking for a long uninterrupted entertainment experience for that afternoon, and found it among my DVD collection of mini-series. This one, the 1995 BBC production of Pride and Prejudice that I've already seen a jillion times. Wonderful, and by the time it was over, the extreme effects of this flu incident were over. I'm still somewhat tired and still discharging that stuff from my head that flu so efficiently produces, but it looks as if I'll survive another bout. And I've still got a couple Westerns in my collection to see me through the rest of the day...
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