Have you ever seen the movie Bubble Boy staring a young Jake Gyllenhaal? It's one of those fantastic "stupid-humor" movies like Bill and Ted's, Spinal Tap, Animal House, etc. As the introduction to his character, Jimmy Livingston [Gyllenhaal] tells the audience in first person narration, "I was born without any immunities."
I say that a lot.
Though I was not born without immunities, mine failed me in my early 30's. I like to think that has made me follow the advice of Thoreau "to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life," helping others do the same. Sometimes I am successful in doing that with humor [be that heavily steeped in sarcasm]. Other times, it just makes me weep. Oh well. You can't win them all and I am doing so much better than I was last year or the year before at this time.
That said, I went in to see my GP (general practitioner) the other day because I am now a justified hypochondriac with these symptoms.
- Severe fatigue.
- Headache.
- Sore throat, which sometimes can be very severe.
- Chills, followed by a fever.
- Muscle aches.
Can you guess what I have? They tested for Strep Throat, negative. They tested for Flu, negative. They did a blood draw. Aaannnd....? How the bajeebers does one get Mono at 37, having been married for 11+ years and neither of us making out with anyone but each other???
Turns out the virus can lay dormant for 18 months in a persons system. The most common and successful means of transfer is exchange of saliva. Maybe I took a drink for the wrong drinking fountain. Maybe that frozen pole I licked on a double-dog-dare was... wait a minute! That wasn't me. Well it looks like the world will never know. But we can surmise that if I was born with immunities, I would have been able to fight this off.
I am excited to get over this to see how much my running improves without the additional fatigue. :)
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