ANOTHER RUBELLA SURVIVOR

I spent last week at home, shuffling between bed and the computer, burning in a 38.9 degree fever, nursing a splitting headache, breaking out in a scarlet rash. I was down with rubella, and all common senses seemed to be knocked out of my head for once. I wanted to stay in the shower all day and had my body washed down with a steady gush of ice-cold water, I wanted to take paracetamol and acetaminophen at the same time, I wanted to hunt down the person who had infected this disease to me and killed her with a stone.

I abandoned coffee for days, lost interest in chocolates, and began having a curious paracetamol fetish. I cursed a friend who had the nerve to text me saying “You have a whole week to play The Crims at home. You sure have a wonderful life,” and then without thinking went to the computer, connected to the internet, and started playing The Crims. All while looking and feeling a feverish scarlet monster.

Ah.
These are some new things I learnt during the week:

1) Wikipedia is a reliable source of information. Everything it says about rubella is true. I had all the symptoms listed there, I had exactly the medicine it said to be the only medication available for treatment prescribed for me by an internist. I began recuperating at exactly the time it said I would. So I wasn’t too far off the mark when I chose to put excerpts from Wikipedia into my scientific journal and my lecture materials. I shall do that more often in the future. But please do not tell my department head, because the poor man has enough problems on his hands.

2) I can tell that I am down with a rather serious illness when my brain starts pumping up really bright ideas to spend a week in bed: by studying electronic engineering fundamentals, or rereading modern physics, and writing a popular physics article about light’s dualism longhand. On the other hand, I can tell that I am on my way to a full recovery when the very same brains starts pumping up dreams about fried sausages and hot panadas, and really bright ideas to spend a week in bed: by reading Tintin (all 16 of them) and writing my novel longhand.

3) I found out that I actually loved writing that much: No matter how uncomfortable it was having to deal with a high fever and splitting headache and burning rash all over my body, I made it a point to work on that stupid 50,000-words novel I wanted to finish by the end of the month.

4) Writing alone has been my consolation, my therapy. But six hours into the first day in bed, I missed my lecture rooms already and I found out that I actually loved lecturing that much.

5) I am blessed with a job I love, something I wouldn’t mind to spend hours in, and sometimes it takes something as nasty as a rubella to make silly thick-headed me to realise just how lucky I am.