sickness

a week or so back jose had been sick of the flu, and he was out an entire week.

there's been a bug going around these past few months, and i suppose it was just a matter of time before it had made a complete round of the office.

tangentially, yet somewhat related to the topic at hand, thursday was muntinlupa day; a declared non-working holiday. previously, there were rumblings afoot that the entire department (or a majority thereof) could take advantage of this holiday to take a four day break out of town to recharge batteries drained by the seemingly unending deadlines of the previous half-year before plunging onward to the next project on the horizon.

if there was a catch (and isn't there always?), it was that friday and the saturday half-day would be counted against leave credits available. there was an option, however, to save the leaves for a later date...

as it turned out, a previously mentioned galera trip fell through; and several decided to delay the leave-taking to that later date (to be determined, but tentatively weekend after first payday of march). being undecided at the eleventh hour, i went with going to work on friday after all.

not that there was much work to be accomplished, really. mostly surfing (with a little bit of system administration: where did all the space on the servers go?).

unaccountably sleepier than normal after lunch, i gave in to the drowsiness -- turned out to be a bad idea: i woke up from the nap feeling feverish; and going to makati after work was a real challenge to stay awake long enough to make it.

...so that's the connection: not taking the long weekend virtually results in maybe getting sick from the office bug...

saturday dawns with clogged nose and coughs. sneezes result in joint aches. uh-oh.

now, in times previous with incipient flu-like symptoms, i would just consume lots and lots of pinapple juice, and that would suffice to prevent a worsening of the situation. not this time, though. by the afternoon i was feeling pretty lousy. housemate obliged a request to visit the local mercury drug and came back with a couple of mats of nasal decongestant, a pain/fever reliever, and a bottle of vicks cough suppressant (which, for a cough medication, tastes rather good).

...so there we have it. almost really sick (hoping it doesn't take me out like my friend mentioned earlier), but with the means to hopefully nip this in the bud.