The green glow of the clock said 12:31. I remember speaking the words, out loud into the darkness that woke my wife’s slumber. “Oh my gosh, I feel terrible.” Perhaps a strange thing to say, but my surprise was genuine. My agony: Just beginning.

Illness is something I’m not terribly familiar with. This is a blessing. Sure, I have my share of uncomfortable moments which come from owning this bag of meat and flesh containing my consciousness. But in a general sense, health has been a more predominant state than any other. I’m reasonably sure my loved ones are as relieved about this as I, since I become childlike, whimering and useless when afflicted.

Sensations that rolled across my body were largely unannounced, particularly pronounced and plentiful. My eyes burned like tiny fires, my muscles and bones groaned and creaked in a civil war of agony. My mind throbbed and the flesh of my face alternated from blistering and dripping sweat to crackling into a taut and icy mask. And the coughing.

Nikki had a procedure scheduled for the day. A nerve-blocking series of injections designed to relieve some of her chronic back pain that put her out of work and onto temporary disability. I had arranged to have the day clear so I could drive her home afterward and take care of her through the day. Instead I sat in a miserable heap in the corner of the pre-op room, counting the number of times my skull expanded to twice its size in a steady rythym punctuated by the piercing beep of a heart monitor in the next stall. When Nik returned I indeed drove her home but there was no care to be given, except in reverse of the original plan as she felt okay soon after the procedure and I required attention.

A deep, rattling cough settled into my chest and threatened my sanity with its persistent wet rumbling, beckoned against my will again and again. So much for Friday.

Saturday came and went with a numbing sense of the unreality that accompanies an illness. Television gets watched without a clear sense of what you’re seeing. Are these characters really talking about things that humans concern themselves with or have they descended into some parallel dimension where simple phrases like, “I didn’t wash my hands” become hilarious, side-splitting punchlines to the mechanical humans programmed to laugh when a light comes on in our spacious downtown soundstage in front of a quasi-live studio audience. Zombies or automatons these creatures must be to find such raucous delight in the mundane and generally unamusing utterances of these overpaid puppets.

At least that’s the way it seems from the depths of a blanket now covered with clammy sweat and offering the only protection against the offending dust motes whose settling on the skin is like the drawing of a sharp blade against exposed bone. I clutched the blanket against me and examined the oddity that was appetite while sick. I ate two pieces of toast with butter and jam. It tasted like cardboard with a vaguely fruity aftertaste and would prove to be the only sustinence I would consume until Tuesday.

Sunday was supposed to be the tail end of the special torment I’d been going through. Whatever transgression would have surely been atoned for after two days of ill-timed agony. Surely.

Instead it appeared for all intents and purposes that things were getting worse instead. The fever was more pronounced, my attention span plummetted as my brain slowly cooked like a small roast in a pan, leaving me stupid with boredom and discomfort. My only hope was one last night of fitful sleep. At three in the morning I finally drifted off but the alarm sounded immediately informing me that six o’clock had arrived way ahead of schedule and it was time to face the first day on the job.

Ironing my pants was like watching a boxer in a late round whose body is operating completely on instinct, staggering toddler-like into the center of the ring again and again, arms flopping up into a quasi-defensive stance knowing only the conditioning and raw stubbornness in a distant, abstract way. There was no clear goal save the next immediate motion, the current action to be taken executed as a command from exhausted brain to tormented muscle without context or comprehension of the ultimate goal.

I sat on the edge of the bed and agonized in a new and exciting way, apart from the tiny microbes assaulting my cells—all of them and in unison—I now had to decide, quickly, if there was something one could express using only words to a new boss that would rationalize missing one’s very first day of work.

The initial phone call was uncomfortable, the sense that he was displeased was pronounced and his blurted comment that had something to do with making a poor first impression vocalized my worst case scenario for the entire situation. I retreated to bed, glum on top of disgustingly sick. Sleep was fitful and lacking true rest.

Later he returned the call and sounded like, having thought it over, he realized that introducing Typhoid Timmy into the workplace environment would be a poor idea, and obviously I realized the potential pitfalls of such an ill-timed request and wasn’t thrilled with it, either. His demeanor was much more sympathetic having eased off the unpleasant shock of the very early call. At this point he practically begged me not to come in until I felt better. His new understanding was a better dose of medicine than all the Ny- or DayQuils in the world.

I finally slept for a handful of hours and felt like I actually got rest.

My hopes for a mere one day of unplanned vacation diminished late on Monday evening as the fever returned, weaker this time, and I finally began to feel hungry, despite not actually having the energy to take any action that might rectify the situation. I drank more juice and water than I had over the weekend and Nikki, now coming down with her own version of the affliction, seemed to approve.

I felt I had no choice but to visit a doctor, since I was potentially compromising career opportunities with a sickness that had officially become the longest of my adult life the previous day. I arrived at the doctor’s office a few minutes late and settled into a chair with a thick book, ready to wait out the endless tedium of killing time while a doctor takes his or her time listening to pharmaceutical representatives pitch their latest hot-ticket item to be pushed prescribed.

It took less than three minutes for my name to be called. I initially assumed the call to be a cruel joke and did not respond. The attending nurse shot me an irritated glance and spoke my name again, louder this time. I sprang to action quickly and nearly passed out as a cone of blackness raced in from my peripheral vision. Lying down for four days straight does weird things to one’s circulation. I managed to stagger through the door, still skeptical but more focused on trying not to collapse in the doctor’s office which I was sure would lead to unnecessary measures like hospital stays.

The wait in the room with the paper-covered bed wasn’t terribly long either. I began to scan my surroundings for signs of reality television crews enaged in one of their “punkings” and found no evidence to suggest such a thing.

Eventually the doctor came in, listened intently to my chest with his stethoscope and finally declared me in need of chest X-rays. The process of getting pictures taken of my insides was only disconcerting in that anything which involves using clothing that is made from some type of metal and may or may not be capable of stopping high velocity projectiles such as bullets is, very generally speaking, not something I care to be involved in. The lead apron I was required to wear to “protect my future children” was not exactly driving a sense of calm relaxation into my mind.

But the results suggested only a case of bronchitis from infections which could be readily handled by a quick week’s regimen of antibiotics. The doctor suggested in what I can only fathom was supposed to be a warning tone that had I not come in earlier, the bronchitis would surely have led, eventually, to pneumonia. I’m unclear on exactly why the warning was necessary; my being there in fact did suggest that I had chosen to seek medical attention at the appropriate time. Maybe he wanted to let me know that the next time I get Experimental Alien Influenza, I should be sure to do the same thing.

Wednesday morning I finally felt at least reasonably normal. There is, of course, nothing normal about an alarm that rings at six o’clock in the morning, but in terms of general misery I was operating on the much improved scale of maybe five instead of 6,328 out of ten.

The drive took an hour. The actual distance can be covered in twenty-five minutes (or fifteen if you’re Nikki or HB… I drive slow) but during the commute hours much of the additional time is spent on an eight mile stretch of I-580 that cuts through Livermore. I’m not exactly clear why this particular segment of highway causes drivers such consternation; that is, I cannot pinpoint what their general needs are which require such drastic actions as coming to repeated full and complete stops. Sure there are a lot of people trying to traverse the same stretch of road, but usually after a certain exit (Airway Boulevard) things clear up enough to where people can adjust the gas-to-brake pedal ratio back to around 80:20. What happens at this magical on/off ramp?

I arrived at work and climbed up to the third floor, mind filled with not only the usual first-day jitters but also a deeper apprehension for the effect my ill-timed decommission would have on people’s perceptions, expectations and assumptions. Was this just an amusing anecdote to recall years later or a dire omen of how this new chapter would unfold? I coughed lightly into my palm, took a breath and decided to find out.