What is sick?

In our house, probably the most dreaded phrase in the English language is "I am sick" closely followed by "I don't feel well". My husband is misophobic, which means he has an abnormal fear of germs. I cannot count the number of nights that I have gone off to work 'not feeling well' and he has been mad at me because he thinks 'I'm sick'.

To my mind, the only times that you are 'sick' enough to stay home from work are 1) You're throwing up 2) You have severe diarrhea and can't stay away from the bathroom for more than 10 minutes 3) You are coughing and sneezing non-stop or 4)You have an extremely high fever.

Last Saturday night I went off to work not feeling very well. Primarily I was very cold and just felt crummy. In fact, I crawled home Sunday morning, fell into bed, and slept for 10 hours. I continued to feel bad and cold for the next couple of days, sleeping fitfully off and on most of the days and nights, but nothing I could put my finger on, so I went off to work Tuesday night as usual. It was a bear of a night because two of our three lab aides weren't there and I worked for over 8 hours before I even got a break. So I came home feeling ultra-crummy.

Wednesday morning my husband got suspicious about my 'feeling cold' and insisted I take my temperature. Horrors - it was 99.8. A sure sign that I was at death's door. He said there was no way I could go to work that night, and I said it depended on my temperature when I got up. I said it would have to be over 100 before I would stay home.

I slept about 9 hours, and when I got up my temperature was exactly 100. A mammoth argument ensued that included me, my husband (Bill), our grandson (Tim) and the boarder (Bob), (whose wife was off to Mutual and he was bored and had wandered upstairs). Both Bill and Tim insisted I had to stay home, I insisted I had to go to work, and Bob (wisely) kept out of it, other than to suggest that we google 'fever' on the Internet and see what the official definiton is.

I retook my temperature about 45 minutes later and it was up to 100.5 and Bill put his foot down and declared I was NOT going to work. I finally gave in. I called work to find out that the two lab aides weren't going to be in AGAIN, so there would only be two of the five workers there. Wow - not a good scenario.

However, I slept another 9 hours last night (drifting in and out of semi-hallucinatory dreams), and this morning my temperature was up to 101.5. I might have to admit that I really am 'sick'. However, I will be taking my temperature again this afternoon to decide if I'm going to work tonight. I'm not throwing up, I don't have diarrhea, I'm not coughing or sneezing - so everything hinges on the fever.

I have a gut feeling that even if my temperature is totally normal this afternoon, Bill (and probably Tim) are going to put a lot of pressure on me to stay home and 'recuperate'. In Bill's mind this means watching movies with him! Anyway, I need to get into the kitchen and do dishes. When I'm sick Bill always tells me that they can wait until I feel better, but by then just looking at them makes me sick all over again!