Don't laugh - I'm Dying Here!!

So - In light to the reaction of a post I made a while ago somewhere else, I must address the REAL reason this blog has come into existence.
This is important. I made illustrations (well, one, maybe two) to prove it.

I'm pretty sure other people have all sorts of self-comfort remedies in times when fevers run high and noses clog or aches and pain relegate you to the smooshy lubbely warmth of BED.
I adore my bed in times of sickness, but it seems my body has it out for me and enjoys furthering its vendetta against me in all sorts of epic and bizarre ways. Sometimes, the outside world tries to collaborate and invents all sorts of evil contraptions to torture me with.
So without further ado, I present:

Tara's Fevered Adventures! now with 20% spittle!

So anyway, one time, long ago, during my University years - I had a 3000 word paper due. I had some sort of flu, or cancer. But I am ok now, so I guess it wasn't cancer.

I didn't really realise I was sick. Our dorm was always cold and I slept next to the window. Further, I had a habit of sleeping with long johns, pyjamas, leg warmers, socks, arm warmers, a scarf, gloves and a cute sleeping hat not unlike the one Naruto wears except that it was a yellow hat, with a smiling cat face on it...
In theory, it should have been cute. I think my roommate had the feeling that she was rooming with a mildly psychotic cat lady, without the cats, except the one on my head.

Anyway, I had a paper due that week and I was steadily getting sicker and sicker by the hour. By the time I trudged into the Uni library to use their computers to write my paper I was pretty much swaying along the hallway and amiably ambling into invisible, warm cuddly people otherwise know as the other students.

Eventually I found my seat and started typing.
Now you must know, when I type a paper - I am all SRS BSNS. You cannot stop me short of an earthquake or maybe a free PS3 (maybe, this needs to be tested out - offers?). I am like a Mr T of essays and I generally give people death glares if they interrupt me in the middle of typing about how the sudden paradigm shift from communalistic philosophy to individualistic philosophy has irrevocably altered gender status in society within the context of intra and extraneous social practices... and stuff...

So anyway, I was sick during this epic adventure of societal discussion. And, much to my desk mate's consternation, hallucinating. A bit.

Well, according to him, a lot.

I asked him, apparently (yeah right), about squirrels. And apparently, I started typing about something else halfway through a paragraph. Also, I apparently started making strange car noises, as if I was trying to cough but my concentration could not afford to break on account of my throat muscles spasming.

Either way, I was slowly beginning to slide down my seat as my entire body attempted to revert to the usual lie-and-curl-position, as it is prone to when I am extremely ill. It was like watching a very angry, rodent obsessed slug, leaving a slightly sweaty train of scarves and jacket behind.

I hadn't realised it, but I was still wearing my sleeping hat. But to my credit, I was wearing normal shoes.
Eventually the only thing you could see of me were my furiously typing fingers, a thick sweater and two red-rimmed baleful eyes glaring daggers at the squirrels that were pulling me under my desk to drag me off to Narnia.

I think at one point I eventually slumped over and probably yelled something quite heroic. I do not remember.

So, I'm not good with medicines. I don't mind them, I know they're necessary, I don't mind the taste, its just that when I'm sick, my throat and ears, oddly enough, go on strike.
Which leads me to flu medicines and how they are engineered to kill us.

Swallowing daily supplements is fine for me. Cod liver oil? sure - gross, but ok. Centrum? yeah , all good.
Flu medicine? NO. Body does not want.
Its like... its like having a baby through your throat. Only backwards. And while I don't really know what having a baby in general actually feels like, I can safely ascertain that swallowing my Dimetapp Liquid Flu capsules pretty much feels like that.
I mean, what went through the mind of the person designing those things? I imagine it went like this:
Some guy in a dreary medicine lab (C1) starts making the liquid capsules and his colleague (C2) comes along.
C1: I really hate making these boring capsules.
C2: Make them bigger then, big is cool nowadays, its like, extreme.
C1: People might choke on it dude.
C2: yeah, but at least they're bigger, its like, extreme.
C1: you're right, I'll make them bigger.
And so it went. Clearly - no one has complained about the extreme size of the capsules because C1 clearly kept his job and is still making extreme Dimetapp Liquid Flu Caps.
I mean - seriously look at the size of this shit!!

My fingers aren't tiny - these things are HUGE.

So anyway, having to drink two of these babies every four hours and subsequently birth them in reverse through my mouth (with my metaphorical water breaking in that, I pretty much gurgle and choke on my own dribble and half swallowed water) has not only let my throat extremely paranoid of anything bigger than a peanut, but I have also learnt how to become a not so becoming ornamental fountain. Sort of, if you want an ornamental fountain that makes strange cat noises and gushes acidy medicated, melted plastic water (oh and drool too).
Taking this medicine makes me want to stay sick and possibly die. Its that bad. Even Sad Keanu didn't want to make a choice:

And thus, Neo died of Pneumonia, thus never liberating us from the Matrix.

It's not all that bad. Being sick for me means a type of adventure. Albeit a scary one.
Sometimes, when, I am completely fevered and delirious and shaking like a wind-up marimba monkey under my blankie (yes, blankie, its a Strawberry Shortcake one, thankyouverymuch) I like to listen to music to cheer me up.
This is where things start to go terribly wrong.
Normally, I listen to oldies but goodies. I suppose I get nostalgic for the 80's when I am delirious or something.
Anyway, I always put that great energising zinger of a song: Maniac - by Michael Sembello from Flashdance.
You know that one, with the awesome dance move: running-on-the-spot-with-sexy-knees-awesome-dance-manoeuvre-like-that-sexy girl-in-the-video-for-Flashdance's-What-a-Feeling. Yeah, That one.

Anyway, it is a very energising song, it makes anyone want to dance, even shaking, leg warmered, blanket covered delirious people like me. Especially delirious, no pyjama bottoms (I don't know why), leg warmered, blanket covered people like me.

Eventually, you find me sliding around in my socks and leg warmers (with no pyjama bottoms) and a giant blanket wrapped around my head like a toga doing the awesome running on the spot move around the house. I am invincible in those moments, and it can go on till about three in the morning.

Sadly, this is not a very accurate picture. I do not have superman undies.

When these strange fits of locomotion do not overtake me however, I generally feel like the world is ending. it is usually true, because I am often on the kitchen floor choking on my own spit and half disintegrated Dimetapp Liquid Flu Capsules.

As such, when I am not choking, shaking, dancing, running on the spot, painting heroically towards the horizon, I am typing. And that is how this blog was made.

Oh - and crappy picture is copyright me! © Tara Naval