If You Miss Your Birthday, Does it Still Count??

It started on Friday, the day before my birthday. I was going to a house warming party and it was a cold and miserable night. There was a different chill in the air and it was one that left your bones aching.

Right before I left and throughout the whole party, I was soooooooo cold. I mean ridiculously cold and shivering. It was a torturous cold and no amount of warming methods were helping. I heard that at times I kept up with conversation, but I barely remember anything other than being chilled.

(Me with my dart team at the party, notice my red face and nose preparing to be ill.)

By the time I got home that night I was miserable. I grabbed a few blankies and then a few more, until at last count, I had six blankies covering my body, that was still shaking from the sensation that I was laying in a bed of ice.

I started to finally fall asleep, but a horrible pain on my left side woke me up. I started coughing a lot, that only made my side ache that much more. By morning, I was weak and fevered. This continued through my birthday, forcing me to miss my little celebration with friends on Saturday night, and ended sometime Tuesday.

I remember a few years ago when I walked outside to get into my car. There was gravel all over the road for some reason and my house was on a steep hill. Upon stepping onto the street, my feet started traveling on the gravel. I had no control and when my feet flew into the air, by full weight came down on one elbow and then my hip. It was painful and I remember thinking about how, as an adult, we rarely fall. As kids, it is a daily event, but as grown ups, we don't experience this too much and it brought back the memory of all those bike wrecks of youth. In the same way, this flu made me remember how much it sucked to be sick. It rarely happens with such severity, fevers and flus, were you get older. You forget just how sick a body can get and then, you get amazed that it can heal from that.

I was sad that I couldn't celebrate with everyone and had looked forward to getting together with everyone, even though, secretly, I had wished I could just spend this day by myself, mourning my youth, being whiny and pathetic and all alone.

It gives new meaning for me to "Be careful what you wish for...........". But, just for the record, I never said ANYTHING about a fever!!