The Guilt of Taking a Sickday

This past weekend Erik and I both came down with really fun sicknesses. I spent Sunday moving at a pretty slow pace with a combination of a fever, sore throat and body aches. I'd classify it as the flu but I've been told the flu just isn't going around yet in this area. About 8 hours after my initial symptoms started Erik started seeing the same ones happen to him so by Sunday night we were in bed by 8:30 with hopes that sleep would be the cure all.

Unfortunately for me it's currently day 6 of this sickness, this "flu" turned head cold, turned crazy cough turned back to head cold. It's OK to be jealous, I know I would be of this thing. While Erik initially had the same symptoms as me his "sickness" has diminished and apparently it is basically nonexistent at this point. OK, so maybe I'll admit that I'm actually really jealous of him right now.

All week I've come to work, even during Jury Duty (yeah I had that too this week) I came into work on my lunch break and have heard things like "thank goodness you are hear - I was worried you would be out sick!" Of course shortly after I'd hear that I'd be awarded with some crazy assignment they would want done with some unrealistic time table for a turn around. Maybe if I'd taken a sick day I currently wouldn't be sick. Food for thought I guess...but alas I'm still sick.

It's funny, even when I am sick I feel so much guilt if I take a sick day. My company gives us 10 sick days a year and I've used one thus far, but I can honestly tell you I've been sick way more than just once this year. I guess eventually I'm going to have to learn how to utilize a sick day without feeling guilty because why should I feel guilty if I really am sick? Partially I feel like I am going to miss out on something but what really am I going to miss out on? Yesterday I would have missed the distribution of our annual bonus checks, but without the check stub it still would have been deposited in my account and my boss could have just gave me his thank you for your hard work, this is a token of our appreciation speech for the next day anyways. Hopefully, sometime soon I'll start to feel alright about taking a sick day when I need it, there's no reason to feel guilty for taking care of yourself, work doesn't always need to come first.

I decided that Wednesday night would be my sick night, I'd stay on the couch with the exception of going to the door to hand out candy. I even turned down plans with a family friend after countless texts of all the reasons why I shouldn't (he really should be a post of it's own sometime soon). When I first started looking at apartments I was excited at the prospect at being able to hand out candy on Halloween because I'd always love going trick-or-treating as a kid. I share a front porch with my neighbor and the first group of kids walked right past my door so I kindly asked my neighbor to make sure she points them in my direction before the leave. By 7:15 I had run out of candy which was pretty impressive seeing as it was about 40 degrees and raining outside. The past years I've handed out candy at my parents and we would average about 20 kids so I bought a bag of 58 pieces of candy and had about 30 fruit snack packs that I usually bring in my lunch as backups. I fully expected to be eating leftover candy this week, and actually looked forward to it. I do however plan to raid my parents extra stash after out weekly dinner this evening.

By about 7:50 I was quite bored with my sick night and found myself on my bike trainer for a "easy ride" and rode through It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown while it played on TV because who can resist that show, especially when you only have about 7 watchable channels of TV anyways.

Tonight it's dinner with my parents and some much needed grocery shopping. My meals this week have been quite sad as I've emptied my fridge and cabinets. I was supposed to shop Monday night after Jury Duty but fear of the storm drove people to wipe out shelves at the local grocery stores (we only experienced rain and wind, definitely not the same that downstate experienced).

Lastly in the final century riding news update the weather forecast for Saturday shows a high of 42 degrees with a 30% chance of rain/snow. Obviously these are perfect riding conditions, right?